India Could Become a Major Biofuel Supplier, Says Study.

Next generation bioethanol, produced with waste from India’s massive agricultural industry could be a major earner for the country in the future. Potentially, this could result in the creation of over a million jobs and displacement of 59% of gasoline used in the country with ethanol by 2020. In 2020, India’s 125 million tonnes of agricultural waste could be converted to  34bn liters of ethanol a year, according to a study by Bloomberg News Energy Finance. The study is titled Next-Generation Ethanol: What’s in it for India?, and was commissioned by Novozymes A/S.

Novozymes Executive Vice President, Thomas Nagy:

"By converting agricultural residues into fuel ethanol, India has the potential to reduce its dependence on imported petroleum. What’s more interesting is that this can be achieved without changing today’s agricultural land-use patterns or cultivating new energy crops. In addition, we already have the technology ready for deployment."

The study also found that a clear government mandate for next-gen ethanol use (rather than ethanol derived from food crops) as well as incentives for farmers to collect agricultural waste to be used as biofuel feedstock (rather than being left in fields or burned) would be necessary for this to be achieved, however.