Brazil opens the door to ethanol technology for BRICS partner India

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – India’s monsoon-dependent rains will be critical to the country’s ability to meet its E20 target of blending 20% ethanol in gasoline by 2025, say representatives of India’s sugar-energy sector.

On the other hand, the partnership with its BRICS partner Brazil raises hopes that the target will be met before the deadline, assured the president of the Indian Sugar Mills Association (Isma), Aditya Jhunjhunwala, and the managing director of the Indian Automobile Manufacturers Association (Siam), Prashnat Kumar Banerjee.

They were in Brazil last week with a delegation invited by União da Indústria de Cana-de-Açúcar (Unica) to learn about ethanol plant operations and factories assembling technology for hybrid flex vehicles.

PARTNERSHIP

Despite being the world’s second-largest sugar producer, the Asian country is still in the early stages of ethanol production and is unable to convert a significant portion of its sugar cane into biofuel due to technological delays. Since 2019, the partnership with Unica has aimed to promote the use of biofuel and reduce carbon emissions in the atmosphere.

“In India, it doesn’t rain as much as in Brazil, so we rely on the monsoon. We hope to have many years of good monsoons to enable the supply of ethanol. This is a big problem,” Banerjee said.

Aditya Jhunjhunwala believes that cooperation with Brazil is rather helpful in this process. “The Brazilians have been very transparent in the discussion, telling us what problems they have and what we should do in such a situation. In this way, we can think in advance about solutions to achieve the E20,” the Isma president stressed.

TARGET

In the current season, India produced about 40 million tons of cane sugar and supplied 22.5 million tons to the domestic market. Earlier this month, the country met its E10 target, which called for 10% ethanol in gasoline, five months ahead of schedule.

As a result, 3.4 million tons of the sweeteners were transferred to biofuel production. With the E20 target, Isma estimates that at least 4.5 million tons of sugar will go into ethanol production in the current 2022/23 season.

While India has a target to double the share of ethanol in gasoline within three years, Brazil’s mandated share has been 27% since 2015.

CONTEXT

“In this context, we decided to visit Brazil. The country has been doing this for a long time, and we need to understand what could be the best model for India,” said Aditya Jhunjhunwala.

“Indians have fallen in love with Brazilian soccer and now it is time to make a new friendship with ethanol,” Banerjee added.

Over the past three years, Brazil has strengthened this partnership with the Indians, highlighting the environmental and socioeconomic benefits of ethanol production and use as a renewable energy source.

PRIVATE SECTOR

Earlier this year, then-Minister of Mines and Energy Bento Albuquerque visited India and met with the country’s Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Hardeep Puri. At the time, the two pledged to deepen cooperation between the private sugar and energy sectors and the automotive sector of the two countries.

“Many of the Brazilian automakers like Toyota, Volkswagen, General Motors (Chevrolet), Hyundai, they all have operations in India. So the technology is there, and now it’s just a matter of achieving the goals in a synergistic way,” the Siam director said.

Concrete impacts of Brazil-India collaboration are already being seen in the automotive sector. In the second half of 2022, India will start producing cars with flex-fuel engines, a Brazilian technology that allows the use of 100% ethanol or a mixture of biofuel and its fossil equivalent.

The Asian country is the world’s third-largest carbon dioxide emitter and is heavily dependent on oil imports to fuel its transportation sector. Flex-fuel technology was introduced in Brazil in 2003.