Cement, Energy and Environment

Biofue/ BIOOIESEL • BOOM FOR RURAL AREAS Economic development in rural areas of the country, especially the tribal zones, can be augmented by developing sustainable energy sources. For instance, waste land utilization with the plantation of Jatropha generates employment along with the production of non-edible oil seeds, oil and biodiesel. Preeti Kaur, Principal of Scientific officer, Chhattisgarh Bio-Fuel Development Authority A large part of India's population, mostly in rural areas are still deprived of energy services. Lack of access to affordable energy services among the rural population seriously affects their chances of benefiting from economic development and improved living standards. In India around 95,000 villages are not connected to the power grid. Out of these 18,000 villages are unlikely to ever have access to the national grid due to their remote location. For these communities, renewable energy technologies are viable as they provide sustainable energy services. In the long– term, these eco-friendly and sustainable energy sources will help meet the energy requirements of the large rural population of India (www.undp.org, 2009). Energy demand is directly linked to improvement of social well being. Greater and easy access to energy services can reduce the time spent by women and children on basic survival activities like gathering firewood, fetching water, cooking etc. Reduction in indoor pollution caused by firewood use, together with a reduction in deforestation is the added benefit of renewable energy usage. Moreover it is closely linked to poverty reductions of rural population. Biofuel programme that develops energy from raw material grown in rural areas will go a long way in providing energy security to the rural people. Among renewable energy sources biofuel has a big share in rural areas. Biofuels are defined as fuels derived from biomass (i.e. , matter of biological origin). Biofuels can be further sub– divided by type into solid, liquid or gas. Biodiesel is liquid biofuel, which consist of long-chain alkyl (methyl or ethyl) esters. Biodiesel is normally made by chemically reacting lipids (e.g, vegetable oil , animal fat -tallow) with an alcohol. The main commodity sources of biodiesel in India are non– edible oils obtained from plant species such as Jatropha curcas, pongamia pinnata, etc. Biodeisel can be used in standard diesel engines as such Fig 1. Jatropha seeds, Chhattlsgarh and is thus distinct from the vegetable and waste oils used to fuel converted diesel engines. Biodiesel can be used alone, or as blended biodiesel , which is gaining importance due to its economic and environmental viability. It is free from air pollutants such as particulates, carbon monoxides, hydrocarbons and toxic lead. Using biodiesel is one of the options for mitigating climate change problems. Therefore developed and developing countries are promoting biodiesel, which can serve as an alternative to petro-diesel: it can thus be well utilized as transport fuel and in other application sectors where petro-diesel has the lion's share. It can be used in generators for power generation or used for running the irrigation pumps. In remote rural areas where there is no petro-diesel outlets people can make their own diesel with little effort. Biofuels crops are typically grown on wastelands. Employment Opportunity Cultivation of Jatropha crop in waste and marginal land of one hectare generates around 300 man days employment opportunity. Jatropha initially needs to be pruned often to establish higher yields and harvested manually (Fig. 4). It also requires pesticide application and weeding at regular intervals and the labour requirement during its establishment is high. This labour requ irement may contribute greatly to rural employment. The processing of the non-edible oilseeds is done in simple oil mills, oil expellers and solvent extractors, which are well established in villages. By increasing the production of non-edible biodiesel oilseeds (Fig. 2) rural employment will also be increased as these small scale, highly decentralized production facilities will align together giving rise to an industry. Increase in Rural Income In order to increase the production of Jatropha, the Government of India has started 34 '