‘Fear-mongering claims’: Govt trashes social media claims on harmful effects of E20 petrol
New Delhi, July 3 (IANS) The Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas on Thursday dismissed as false and misleading information being spread on social media platforms that ethanol blended petrol (E20) is harmful for vehicles, causes higher pollution, and leads to water wastage in the production of crops for ethanol.
The Ministry said that it “categorically assures all vehicle owners that these fear-mongering claims are false, baseless, scientifically unfounded and inconsistent with extensive technical studies conducted by leading automotive research institutions”.
As far as pollution is concerned, ethanol-blended petrol causes significantly reduced carbon tail-pipe emissions from vehicles, it said. Also, emissions owing to carbon molecules in ethanol are biogenic, i.e do not cause any net increment in carbon emissions in the environment at the vehicle’s tail-pipe level.
It said that claims of ants or bees getting attracted towards the fuel tanks of the vehicles because of E20 fuel circulating on social media have been examined by BPCL, noting that fuel-grade ethanol used for petrol blending is produced through fermentation and distillation processes that eliminate residual sugars from the final product. Further, fuel ethanol contains denaturants, which are repellent to insects.
The factsheet also rejects as false claims such as a drastic drop in mileage of the vehicles because of the use of E20 fuel, engine parts getting damaged or corroded due to the use of E20 fuel, insurance companies or car manufacturers denying insurance or warranty claims if E20 fuel is used.
It points out that a study undertaken by Indian Oil, ARAI, IIP-Dehradun and SIAM shows that the carbon monoxide emission decreased by about 50 per cent in two-wheelers and 30 per cent in four-wheelers. Unburnt hydrocarbon emissions reduced by about 20 per cent with E20 as compared to normal gasoline in both two-wheelers and passenger cars. No issues were reported in most parameters, including drivability, startability, metal compatibility, and plastic compatibility.
The factsheet states that scientific evidence shows that the use of E-20 fuel gives better acceleration, better ride quality and lowered carbon emissions by approximately 30 per cent as compared to E10 fuel. RON 95 with blending of Ethanol 20 results in better anti-knocking properties and performance. Vehicles tuned for E20 fuel deliver better acceleration, which is a very important factor in city driving conditions. Additionally, ethanol’s higher heat of vaporisation reduces intake manifold temperatures, increasing air-fuel mixture density and boosting volumetric efficiency, and claims that E20 causes a “drastic” reduction in fuel efficiency are misplaced.
It highlights that, speaking on behalf of the Indian automobile industry, SIAM has also categorically stated that the applicable warranty coverage for gasoline vehicles, as per warranty terms & conditions specified by the respective vehicle manufacturer (OEMs), will continue to be honoured for vehicles operating with E20 fuel meeting the required specifications.
On the claim of excessive water consumption for ethanol production (10,000 litres of water for 1 litre of ethanol), the Government said it is pertinent to note that paddy and wheat cultivation in India is primarily driven by the MSP mechanism coupled with assured procurement by the FCI. Farmers cultivate these crops because of assured procurement for food security purposes and not because of ethanol demand, as it clarified that only surplus or broken rice not fit for human consumption is diverted for the production of ethanol.
Similarly, in the case of sugarcane, the main production of the crop is for sugar that is sold to consumers, and only the surplus amount is diverted for ethanol production.
Further, maize is less water-intensive than paddy, requiring only partial irrigation on roughly 29 per cent of its acreage. It serves as a more climate-resilient alternative in semi-arid zones. Government has also consciously promoted maize as a preferred ethanol feedstock because of its substantially lower water requirement compared to paddy.
Therefore, the Ethanol Blended Petrol Programme has emerged as a transformative intervention for Indian agriculture by ensuring timely payments to sugarcane farmers, improving farm incomes, creating an assured market for surplus agricultural produce in the form of ethanol, encouraging paddy crop shifting to maize, reducing financial stress in the sugar sector and contributing significantly towards reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, the factsheet states.
It is further clarified that any future enhancement in the base ethanol blending level beyond E20 will be undertaken only after detailed testing and validation of higher ethanol blends by ARAI across different categories of vehicles, in consultation with automobile manufacturers and other stakeholders. The Government is experimenting with 20 per cent ethanol blending at present and will assess its impact next year, the statement added.
–IANS
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