Nitin Gadkari meets Brazil's energy minister, seeks cooperation on ethanol usage

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari met Bento Albuquerque, Energy Minister of Brazil, to emphasise on greater cooperation on the usage of ethanol and reducing carbon emissions. Gadkari, who is the Minister for Road Transport and Highways, has been a strong advocate of using ethanol as fuel to run vehicles in order to reduce costly oil imports and reduce carbon emission in India. The Minister said that the economics of ethanol is superior to that of vehicles run by diesel or petrol.

"Ethanol is a green and clean fuel; we are producing 465 crore litres of ethanol at present. However, when the E-20 programme gets completed, our requirement will become around 1,500 crore litres. Moreover, in the coming five years, when flex engines get ready, ethanol requirement will become 4,000 crore litres," said Gadkari.

He urged manufacturing factories to open fuel pumps to help scooters, auto-rickshaws and cars that can run fully on ethanol. He said this will help increase ethanol consumption, reduce pollution, bring down costly oil imports and also provide jobs to people. He also said that the Centre has decided to open biofuel outlets to fill ethanol and that cars, scooters, motorcycles and rickshaws can be available on flex engines.

Earlier, Gadkari had said that all vehicles in India will soon be able to run on ethanol. He had highlighted that the need for flex-fuel engines in vehicles is primarily based on the fact that the country spends around ₹8 lakh crore each year on importing fuel, a figure that can come down if flex fuels are used rampantly.

Gadkari has already issued an advisory to carmakers to introduce flexible-fuel engines in vehicles soon. He had said that the central government is working to encourage the use of green and alternative fuels. Auto companies such as TVS Motors and Bajaj Auto have already started manufacturing flex-fuel engines for their two-wheelers and three-wheelers.

Flex-fuel or flexible fuel is an alternative fuel made combining petrol with methanol or ethanol. The flex-fuel is claimed as less pollutant compared to petrol because of its biofuel nature. The flex-fuel engines can run on both petrol and on biofuel as well.