“That’s still a long time away, but we’ve got some extremely promising strains,” said Mala Rao, an NCL scientist who is working on the programme. Ravi Gupta, a member of the Australian Wheat Board and an expert on sugarcane-ethanol issues, said: “The world over cellulosic ethanol is a promising field of research and if India is close to developing technologies around it, it could be immensely beneficial.”
India’s ministry of new and renewable energy, the nodal ministry that looks into alternative energy sources, too, is looking at developing bio-refineries. “We’ve asked IIT Bombay to prepare a feasibility report on bio-refineries,” said an official, who didn’t want to be identified.
“The fund for research and development in renewables is Rs600 crore, but bio-refineries are an extremely new idea and lots of factors, such as financial viability, crop prices, must come together before these can be scaled up,” this official said.
Countries such as Brazil and the US have successfully tapped commercial grade ethanol from sugar cane juice and maize, respectively. But they involve utilizing the starchy, or food component of these crops, to extract ethanol.
The private sector in the country, too, is eyeing opportunities in bio-refineries and cellulosic ethanol (ethanol from agricultural waste) market. Srinivas Kilambi, director at Reliance Industries Ltd, had in a 2006 presentation at a renewable energy conference, outlined plans for a corn-based biorefinery, (modelled on the US approach for using maize waste). He didn’t respond to an emailed questionnaire.
Utpal Bhaskar contributed to this story.