NITI Ayog will soon make a detailed presentation before the UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath for enhancing the use of methanol – a new sources of energy. The NITI Ayog on Wednesday made a presentation `Methanol economy-opportunities and options for energy security’’, before the chief minister. Following the presentation chief minister asked the NITI Ayog to prepare detailed project report.
Making the presentation NITI Ayog member Dr VK Saraswat said at the global level methanol and its derivative di methyl ether (DME) is used as fuel in automobiles and other sectors of the economy consuming energy. He said the use of methanol and its derivatives is growing at a fast pace as its not only cost effective it’s also eco friendly.
He said the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set the target of reducing the import of crude oil by 10 percent by 2022. He said for achieving this objective methanol can be used as an alternate transport fuel. He said methanol and DME can also be used by mixing it with the liquefied petroleum gas (lPG) thereby reducing the import of the cooking gas. He said due to the low cost of the methanol, its use with lPG will also be very cost effective.
UP being the largest sugar producing state also tops in the production of the molasses and ethanol which is used for blending with the petrol. During the current cane season 2017-18 UP will supply maximum 55 crore liters of ethanol to the oil marketing companies within the state as well as the neighboring States of Haryana, Punjab, Delhi, West Bengal. During the last season UP supplied 41 crore liters of ethanol to oil marketing companies.
The NDA government on November 8 had hiked the rate of ethanol by five percent for the procurement season 2017-18 for the oil marketing companies. The government’s decision implies that the Oil marketing companies will be able to procure ethanol at the price of Rs 40.85 per liter in 2017-18 against Rs 38.97 per liter in 2016-17 for blending with petrol. This move will immensely benefit the sugar mills of UP. With ethanol contributing nearly 10-15 per cent of the turnover for integrated sugar mills, the upward revision is expected to enable the sugar industry to enhance the supply of ethanol for blending, thereby augmenting their revenue and improving their ability to pay sugarcane farmers.