India
Biodiesel is now being produced locally in India for use in stationary engines and large or slow engines like those in trains, trucks and tractors. Efforts are also on to use ethanol as a substitute for petrol. Biodiesel is rapidly replacing both kerosene (which was used illegally and inefficiently) and diesel as a more efficient, cheap, and clean alternative for large engines. Today plans are being chalked out to cultivate non-edible seed oil trees such as Pongamia on barren land to use their oil for biodiesel production. The Southern Railways have been very supportive of the program and various state governments recommend planting these plants in unused areas through aid from the government sectors. Biodiesel-blends are being used to run state transport corporation buses in Karnataka. The University of Agriculture Sciences at Bangalore has identified many elite lines of Jatropha curcas and Millettia pinnata (Pongamia tree). Castor is already a well established crop in India with several very high yielding varieties in the market. Large-scale activities have been initiated quite recently. For example, the government of Karnataka has distributed several million saplings of Pongamia to farmers for planting along borders of farmland and in waste lands. Large-scale plantations have been initiated in North-East India and Jharkhand by D1 Williamson Magor Bio Fuel Limited, a joint venture between D1 Oils of U.K. and Williamson Magor of India. The hilly areas of the North-East are ideal for growing hardy, low-maintenance plants.
IndianOil Corporation has tied up with Indian Railways to introduce biodiesel crops over 1 million square kilometers. Also, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh have tied up with IndianOil to cultivate large tracts of land with jatropha, the former crop of choice for Indian biodiesel plans. Jatropha is now being replaced by Pongamia and Castor due to its very (comparative) high cost of cultivation. In order to organize the industry, the BioDiesel Society of India has been formed to encourage energy plantations for increasing feedstock supplies.
Read more about this topic: Biodiesel By Region
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