Currently, blends up to E30 are more popular in Brazil, although reports suggest the country is looking to increase the cap.
Brazil is often cited as a successful example and inspiration for India’s ethanol-blended fuel program.
In August last year, Union Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said that Brazil had been using E27 – blending fuel with 27% ethanol – for years and had not reported problems with car engines due to it. Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari also called for increasing ethanol levels by pointing to Brazil, which introduced E100 long ago.
The issue was highlighted when India achieved its goal of blending 20% ethanol – E20 – almost five years ahead of the government’s original target of 2030. As of April 1 this year, E20 became the default gasoline grade at the pumps nationwide.
Read also: Industry experts defend E20 gasoline amid engine damage claims; Say fuel is safe for older vehicles: ‘Years of testing’
The product launch has also become the subject of backlash from consumers and politicians. Motorists told HT that the mileage of their cars has decreased and engine parts have started to wear out since the swap.
Karnataka Congress president BK Hariprasad and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal, separately, accused the Center of imposing an “experiment” on drivers who never asked for it.
Brazil is at the center of the government’s refutation of these allegations. So, what did the country really do?
Wars and the oil crisis
Brazil did not turn to ethanol when it originally did because it wanted a cleaner fuel. It turned to ethanol because the 1973 oil crisis, which broke out when Arab oil producers imposed an embargo on the United States and its allies during the Yom Kippur War, exposed the country’s dependence on imported crude oil.
Brazil, then and now the world’s largest sugarcane producer, already had the raw materials and much of the infrastructure. Sugarcane had been grown there since 1532, and the use of ethanol as fuel wasn’t new either. The country’s first ethanol plant opened in the state of Alagoas in 1927, and by 1929, about 500 cars in the northeast were already operating it, Portuguese newspaper Onde Vamos reported.
Read also: No evidence that E20 fuel harms vehicles: ARAI
A mandatory 5% blend was ordered in 1931, and that number temporarily rose to 50% as oil supplies were cut off during World War II, according to a Bloomberg report.
But the commitment to blending ethanol came in 1975, with the national alcohol program, called “Pro-Álcool,” launched when cheap sugar and idle distillation capacity became easier to sell.
By 1979, Brazil had put the Fiat 147 on the road – the world’s first mass-produced car designed to run entirely on pure ethanol. Within six years, nearly 75% of new cars sold can handle ethanol-blended fuel, according to Energy Tribune, an online energy newsletter covering oil and gas, electric, nuclear, renewable energy and energy policy.
AltEnergyMag said it was the decline in oil prices in the early 1990s that prompted Brazil’s return to gasoline, with the proportion of ethanol-powered cars falling to just 10% of new sales by 2003.
More than a decade later, Brazil introduced flex-fuel vehicles, which had engines designed to run on gasoline, pure ethanol, or some combination of the two. The switching can happen automatically depending on what is in the tank.
FFVs, introduced in 2003, account for more than 80% of new sales in Brazil, according to a statement from the center. A report cited by Science Direct said drivers are choosing between hydrous ethanol and lower blends based largely on relative prices.
Currently, blends up to E30 are more popular in Brazil, although reports suggest the country is looking to increase the cap.
What other countries do
The United States, the world’s largest ethanol producer with about half the global supply, has used E10 as its standard blend since 2007.
Federal air quality rules restrict sales of high-E15 ethanol during the summer months because higher temperatures increase evaporation, which contributes to smog, but governments often issue waivers to allow sales, Bloomberg reported. The United States also allows E15, adoption of which is slowly increasing.
Most of Europe sells E5 alongside E10 to accommodate older cars, and the UK, having switched its standard petrol to E10, keeps E5 available as a premium grade. Thailand has E10, E20 and E85. Paraguay charges E30. Japan has entered the E10 phase. Canada, Vietnam and Uruguay remain in E5.
Some countries have chosen to use other types of biofuels. Indonesia, the world’s largest palm oil producer, is looking to move to 50% biodiesel, although environmental and agricultural concerns remain. Malaysia also plans to double the proportion of its diesel blend extracted from palm to 20%.
In India, the government’s position
The Center emphasizes that the ethanol blending process in India is being implemented gradually, scientifically and using sufficient precedents, although it acknowledges the possibility of a slight decrease in the number of kilometers traveled by vehicles.
The government said in a statement on July 5 that this shift led to savings of more than $1.9 lakh crore of foreign exchange and 310 thousand metric tons of crude oil replaced since 2014-15, besides approx. $Rs 1.6 lakh crore of additional income to farmers.
Authorized service centers have not reported any significant increase in E20-related complaints, the Union government’s Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) said separately. Industry leaders have also come to the government’s defense.
But the Council for Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) warned that the government was pushing for ethanol-blended fuel and infrastructure even as increasing reliance on electric vehicles could leave this capacity underutilised. She also noted that flex-fuel vehicles provide lower mileage than those powered by gasoline, and that ethanol can have some corrosive effect on certain metals.
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