| | JANUARY 20228WAYS TO ACCELERATE CLEAN ENERGY GROWTH IN INDIAInputs by Ashvin Patil, Director, Biofuels JunctionL et us first agree that clean energy reforms are inevitable worldwide, and India is very much a part of this drive. Fossil fuels such as crude oil and coal are the most widely used energy sources and are not only polluting but are responsible for greenhouse gases, which have proven to result into climate change and health hazards. These side effects were not taken seriously till the global researchers warned that if this is not curtailed then the world may face severe repercussions. This consensus was formalised after the famous Paris accord which was signed by 196 countries in 2015. Most participants pledged to reduce or eliminate the greenhouse gas generation with a definitive timeline. US President Joe Biden re-entered the US in the Paris accord effective February 19, 2021. Emerging economies such as India and Africa have greater pressure to limit greenhouse gas emission. India has been a strong crusader of the clean environment drive and has launched National Clean Air Programme in 2019, a time-bound national level strategy to tackle increasing air pollution. Historically in India, power and transportation has been the largest environment polluting segment followed by Industrials and agriculture. Coal and Crude oil derivatives have been the fuel of choice and their emission norms were well accepted rather overlooked. It would be interesting to discuss these user segments to understand the limitations and achievements to contribute to clean energy.Transportation: A big relief came to Metro city life when India enacted a mandatory switch for mass transit system to use CNG (Compressed Natural Gas). We can call it a major success when we look back and imagine how these cities would be in absence of CNG. This has percolated to many tier-II cities too, but lack of gas transport infra-structure and injection system alteration has restricted its adoption. While gas became fuel of choice for Public trans-port, Government has also been pushing for liquid biofuels to be used along with Petrol and Diesel. With Brazil doing it successfully, India too has achieved upto 10 percent mixing and expected to do more. Ethanol success can be attribut-ed to large sugar manufacturing industry which has prof-itably adapted to ethanol production as a bi-product. The emergence of Electric Mobility is a possible game changer with every automaker planning for it (Read JLR to become 100 percent electric by 2025). All these alternates have greatly contributed to lower pollution from transportation over the past few decades and are expected to reduce it fur-ther. The next promising area is Bio CNG, i.e producing gas from biomass using 2G technology. This is successful on a small scale, but its viability is not yet tested commercially.Power: India has always been a power deficit coun-try and hence capacity addition was an ongoing activity. Thermal energy, mainly using coal was preferred for its economic viability and availability. Although power gen-eration has seen a strong growth under NTPC and many private players, the pollution levels have worsened. This rising emission can be curtailed by co-firing with biofuels. This is an ongoing project by NTPC and has been followed by a few private players for their captive power plants. The most talked about sources of renewable and clean energy and rightly so are hydro, wind and solar. Despite the Gov-ernment support and initiatives Hydro and Wind have lim-itations to growth and viability due to capex, geographical restrictions and are thus plateaued in capacity addition. Solar has seen an unprecedented growth at multiple lev-VIVID OUTLOOK
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