Indian government won’t require further environmental permissions when switching to heavy-b molasses for ethanol

In India, the Hindu newspaper reports that the government announced distilleries producing ethanol from b-heavy molasses won’t need to seek additional environmental permissions in order to expand capacity. The environment minister said the reason was because changing feedstocks to b-heavy molasses from the traditional c-heavy molasses won’t increase the pollution produced and therefore doesn’t need additional review. The country has been trying to encourage sugar mills to boost ethanol production in an effort to reduce the sugar glut the domestic and global markets are currently suffering from.