India will soon be zero petroleum import country: Nitin Gadkari

[[Bregs]]

very big mouth statement as usual, even country like brazil whih started mixing ethanol in petrol are not import free of petroleum products

 

[VivasvatManu]

The last time US tried to boost the production of ethanol it created a Global food crisis.

Prices rose by more than 20% and more than 40% of its harvest was diverted for Ethanol production.

If that happens in India we are looking at out of control inflation and turning India into a major importer of food. Its idiotic to substitute import of Oil with Import of food.

Gadkari should know that in India straw is used as Live stock fodder. So it would also mean a dip in Milk production.

Gadkari should stick to building Roads.

 

[kmc_chacko]

Gadkari should stick to building Roads.

Good & Quality Highways not just Roads

 

[VivasvatManu]

Good & Quality Highways not just Roads

I was being flippant in that last part. Any job worth doing, is worth doing well.

 

[livingdead]

he used the word 'soon' very loosely...

 

[kmc_chacko]

I was being flippant in that last part. Any job worth doing, is worth doing well.

we have roads but not wide enough and congested to cruise at good speed. It take 5 hrs+ to cover distance of 276 kms from Shivamogga to Bangalore.

Road quality and constructions are moving at snail pace e.g. Tumkur to Honnavara via Shivamogga NH-206 distance of 363kms widening was sanctioned in 2006 and expected to complete in 2018 but I have not found satisfactory construction works in entire distance, even though widening was sanctioned a decade above.

 

[kadamba-warrior]

Meh, we need something like algae to offset or make an impact on crude oil imports.Reliance is already experimenting with algae based bio fuel, they are converting algae biomass and using hydro thermal liquefaction for converting it into Bio-crude which is similar to fossilized crude extracted from ground.
Basically the principal is the same, the process that took millions of years to make organic matter into crude or natural gas can now be done in 1 hour with heat and pressure in a HTL (hydro thermal liquifier).
.Henry ford tried to offset crude oil with peanut oil do back in 1900's but was silenced by standard oil which had significant control on US govt, all this is possible but will take significant amount of time and effort from govt.
Jatropha is something govt is concentrating more on as it is a oil seed plant and you can extract the oil from it which can be used as bio-diesel.It doesn't need fertile land or doesn't consume water that much.

Algae-extract based fuel is not a new thing and has been in works for decades now with Israel and other western countries. So far, none of them have been able to up the production to industrial scales yet. So I have my doubts on the viability of the technology itself.

The last time US tried to boost the production of ethanol it created a Global food crisis.

Prices rose by more than 20% and more than 40% of its harvest was diverted for Ethanol production.

If that happens in India we are looking at out of control inflation and turning India into a major importer of food. Its idiotic to substitute import of Oil with Import of food.

Gadkari should know that in India straw is used as Live stock fodder. So it would also mean a dip in Milk production.

Gadkari should stick to building Roads.

Exactly! It would be disastrous for India to divert anymore cultivable land for growing ethanol-based crops. Given our massive appetite for petroleum (both at present and more so in future), it will not only play havoc with our food production, but lead to large scale destruction of farm-land and forest-lands. Examples from Indonesia/Malaysia (for Palm oil) and Brazil (for Soyabean) abound!

Gadkari has been fiddling around with this idea for quite a while and somebody should knock some sense into his head before his half-a*s solution harms our food production and causes far greater problems.

I think the only long term alternative to Petroleum would be to gradually move towards electric/Hydrogen-based vehicles while setting up massive Solar/Nuclear Power infrastructure to meet the demand. Even then, there will still be some dependency on Petroleum which should be manageable.

 

[Viny]

Someone please put some grey matter inside that gadakari ..
India is already lacking food supplies and on top of that he wants to turn the agrarian work force to produce industrial product instead of human foods, we have limited land, rising population and with demands for more food items.
Already prices of essential food products soring all time high and this guy wants to cut down crude imports by bio-disel, ethanol etc.

Support R&D in hybrids, allow both national and international players to put money and develop hybrids for india, we have ample availability of electric power, just make use of that to curb pollution as well import bills.

 

[SmilingBuddha]

Algae-extract based fuel is not a new thing and has been in works for decades now with Israel and other western countries. So far, none of them have been able to up the production to industrial scales yet. So I have my doubts on the viability of the technology itself.



Exactly! It would be disastrous for India to divert anymore cultivable land for growing ethanol-based crops. Given our massive appetite for petroleum (both at present and more so in future), it will not only play havoc with our food production, but lead to large scale destruction of farm-land and forest-lands. Examples from Indonesia/Malaysia (for Palm oil) and Brazil (for Soyabean) abound!

Gadkari has been fiddling around with this idea for quite a while and somebody should knock some sense into his head before his half-a*s solution harms our food production and causes far greater problems.

I think the only long term alternative to Petroleum would be to gradually move towards electric/Hydrogen-based vehicles while setting up massive Solar/Nuclear Power infrastructure to meet the demand. Even then, there will still be some dependency on Petroleum which should be manageable.

I don't disagree with you on the research part but still this is the most promising source of bio fuel if we want to end our dependence of foreign crude oil.Algae was discouraged due to abundance of cheap crude oil back then, but the scenario is different now.

US navy has started using it in there so called green fleet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Fleet

http://www.algaebiodieselinfo.com/us-navy-tests-algae-biofuel-in-riverine-command-boat.html

Some airlines are testing algae derived jet fuel
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-airbus-germany-biofuels-idUSKCN0Z117F

Sapphire energy commercial scale facility up and running from 2012 , they are using HTL for making bio-crude oil.
http://www.sapphireenergy.com/locations/green-crude-farm.html

these are a few examples in India too,

Algenols plant in Reliance Jamnagar refinery, it uses carbon dioxide from there PP to grow algae.A sort of test plant also using HTL to get crude oil.
http://biomassmagazine.com/articles...es-algae-fuels-demonstration-project-in-india

India is a ideal place for Algae based fuel with 300 days of sunlight and a lot of non-arable land.Just saying , this has a better chance commercially than other biofuel sources.[/QUOTE]

 

[kadamba-warrior]

I don't disagree with you on the research part but still this is the most promising source of bio fuel if we want to end our dependence of foreign crude oil.Algae was discouraged due to abundance of cheap crude oil back then, but the scenario is different now.

US navy has started using it in there so called green fleet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Fleet

http://www.algaebiodieselinfo.com/us-navy-tests-algae-biofuel-in-riverine-command-boat.html

Some airlines are testing algae derived jet fuel
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-airbus-germany-biofuels-idUSKCN0Z117F

Sapphire energy commercial scale facility up and running from 2012 , they are using HTL for making bio-crude oil.
http://www.sapphireenergy.com/locations/green-crude-farm.html

these are a few examples in India too,

Algenols plant in Reliance Jamnagar refinery, it uses carbon dioxide from there PP to grow algae.A sort of test plant also using HTL to get crude oil.
http://biomassmagazine.com/articles...es-algae-fuels-demonstration-project-in-india

India is a ideal place for Algae based fuel with 300 days of sunlight and a lot of non-arable land.Just saying , this has a better chance commercially than other biofuel sources.

Actually, I like the direct conversion of carbon dioxide to fuel -- assisted by Solar power, than taking an indirect & messier route of algae-to-fuel.

http://phys.org/news/2016-07-breakthrough-solar-cell-captures-carbon.html

This technology is for sure at nascent stage but I think it offers a lot cleaner and easier-to-scale-up process than Algae although I think we need to check out all kinds of technologies. I have a hunch that it wastes less water too.