The Hindu Business Line : `Govt must take initiatives to promote use of blended fuel'

Long-term contracts for ethanol, a duty structure similar to that of oil, manufacturing of cars that can take in a mix of ethanol and petrol, are some of the initiatives that the Indian Government would have to take, especially when there is cause for concern about global warming.

Mr Vinod Khosla, venture capitalist and partner in Kleiner Perkins, said the Government should ensure that all the cars that are manufactured in India should be able to take a mix of ethanol and petrol in any proportion.

It may be noted that five per cent of ethanol blending in petrol would come in force from next month. He said that this would have to be put in place "as these cars which are being manufactured now would be on the roads for the next 15 years," while noting that this was in no means meant extra expenditure for the auto manufacturers.

He said that Brazil, which has spearheaded the usage of blended ethanol, has about 90 per cent of its automobiles run on the blended fuel.

Mr Khosla said just as long-term contracts are being entered into for crude oil, it was time to start entering into long-term contracts for ethanol.

This would ensure that there would be no total dependence on one particular fuel as different sources could be tapped into at any point of time. He said that just as the Government was promoting the cultivation of jatropha for biodiesel, it should do the same for sweet sorghum, one of the raw materials for ethanol. "The technology is not difficult to master and it would lead to cellulosic technology which would increase the yield at least by four to five times." This would be important as the fuel reserves are depleting day by day.

"It is my belief that ethanol can replace majority of petroleum use in the US over the next 25 years. Of course this would require some `outside the barrel' thinking in terms of technology, feedstock and policies. The US has shown the way where policy is concerned, technology and feedstock is more localised. Hence, each country would have to come up with its own paradigm for ethanol programme. Whilst Brazil, based on sugarcane and the US based on corn are good examples, the rest of the world has an equal chance to catch up. Sweden has chosen to completely eliminate its dependence on gasoline by 2020," he added.

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