Biofuels advocates turn up the heat as India goes to the polls: a Biofuels Digest special report

By Biofuels Digest special correspondent Joelle Brink

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President Barack Obama emerged fast friends at the end of a generally fractious G20 meeting in London this past week. There was much that they agreed on, including economic policy and the need to fast-forward alternative energy in response to global climate change.

Dr Singh, an Oxford educated economist and former director of the International Monetary Fund, was largely responsible for pushing through the new Indian biofuels mandates of B20 and E20 by 2017. He is committed to cellulosic ethanol and non-food biodiesel crops like Karanj, jatropha and waste grease. In the run-up to the World Economic Forum, Dr Singh also pressed industry leaders to embrace new technologies like wind and solar along with energy conservation measures to reduce India’s carbon footprint.

A new industrial consensus

Already a new consensus is emerging among some of the top Indian industrial companies, such as Tata Motors and biofuels specialist Praj Industries, both located in the hill city of Pune west of Mumbai. Tata showed a full size ’09 plug-in electric car for Europe at this year’s Geneva Motor Show. In addition to the Nano Europa, which may be offered as a flex-fuel vehicle, Tata Motors also makes the B20 compatible Indica TDI turbodiesel, and has a peppy turbodiesel Nano in the pipeline.

A new secular party emerges to fight the April-May general election

When India goes to the polls on April 16 much of this progress may be on the line. The Hindu extremist BJP party has spent heavily to attack the Manmohan Singh government as “soft on terrorism” and has promised a perk of religious tours—for Hindus only. Local and regional parties may also draw votes away from a coalition that is large enough to govern.

However a new factor entered the picture when Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, the rock star of Indian politics, announced the formation of “The Secular Party” an alliance of North Indian progressive parties in India’s two largest states. Political pundits expect the Secular Party to unite with the Congress Party’s ruling National Democratic Alliance to form the next government. However this outcome is by no means certain.

Lalu, who is almost synonymous with biodiesel, currently oversees the nation’s largest biodiesel customer, Indian Railways. In addition to biodiesel, he has championed sugarcane-to-ethanol and farm biogas production.

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