New Delhi: Eminent scientist and Padma Vibhushan awardee Dr Raghunath Anant Mashelkar has backed India’s E20 ethanol-blended petrol programme, saying greater use of ethanol and other domestically produced fuels will help strengthen the country’s energy security and reduce its dependence on imported crude oil.
Speaking to IANS, the former Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) said Brazil’s long experience with ethanol-powered vehicles demonstrates that the fuel is a practical and commercially viable transport fuel.
“Brazil has been running vehicles on ethanol for 30-40 years. That experience tells us that ethanol is a viable fuel,” said Dr Mashelkar, a chemical engineer and Fellow of the Royal Society.
He said the recent geopolitical tensions in West Asia have reinforced the need for India to accelerate the adoption of indigenous alternative fuels to safeguard the country’s energy security.
“We need self-reliance. We should produce our own fuels,” he said, adding that dependence on imported energy makes countries vulnerable to global conflicts and supply disruptions.
While strongly supporting ethanol, Dr Mashelkar said India’s clean energy transition should also include other alternative fuels such as methanol, dimethyl ether, compressed biogas (CBG) and biomass-based green hydrogen.
“I am not just talking about ethanol. We have to look at all these alternative fuels,” he said.
He stressed that biomass should play a central role in India’s future fuel mix, describing it as an abundant renewable resource that can be converted into clean fuels.
“The sun is shining, and biomass is produced from solar energy. Biomass should be our main feedstock from which we can produce fuels,” he said.
Dr Mashelkar also said degraded and semi-degraded land could be used to cultivate energy crops such as Napier grass for producing compressed biogas and green hydrogen without affecting land used for food production.
He said expanding the use of ethanol, biomass and other clean fuels would help India improve energy self-reliance while supporting the country’s transition to a cleaner and more sustainable energy system.
