Mr.Deepak Gupta, Secretary MNRE, Government of India, Dr. Jenifer, Dr.

James
Rekoske, Mr. Arora, Distinguished Delegates, Friends, Ladies & Gentlemen, Good
Morning

We are happy to partner with UOP and Petrofed for organizing this Conference on
Bio-Energy Solutions.

Energy for a growing economy like India is required to continue to fuel the
growth. We are currently dependent mostly on fossil fuels. But the question is
how sustainable are such energy resources? Indian coal has high ash, Oil has
limited resources, Gas - though some finds, but has large dependence on imports,
Nuclear may need relook with respect to safety after Japanese earthquake /
Tsunami, Wind / Solar need to be economically viable.

Current energy supplies in the world are also unsustainable from environmental,
economic, and societal standpoints. All over the world, governments have
initiated the use of alternative sources of energy for ensuring energy security,
generating employment, and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Biofuels have
emerged as an ideal choice to meet these requirements. Worldwide interest and
activity in biofuels has grown dramatically in the last few years. Governments,
private investors, environmentalists are among those who have begun to push for
stronger support for biofuels as a way to meet a range of economic, social and
environmental goals.

The initial biofuel program of India is primarily based on bio-ethanol derived

from sugarcane molasses and biodiesel derived from non-edible oil seeds, e.g.
Jatropha and Pongamia. This type of biofuel comes in first generation biofuel
categories. The experience of the first generation biofuel in India has not
been very pleasant. The availability of feedstock remains the major constraint
whether it is sugar / molasses based ethanol or vegetable oil for biodiesel.
Further food versus fuel debate has slowed down interest in such fuels. We now
therefore need to look for second-generation bio-fuels derived from sources
that do not compete with food supplies like lignocellulosic biomass, microalgal
feedstock etc. However, the question is when would they be techno-economically
viable?

The European Union has a target of going from 2% to 10% of bio-fuels by 2020.
40% of such bio-fuels to be used in 2020 must come from non-food sources and
must lead to atleast 45% lower carbon emissions vis--vis fossil fuels. India
also has similar ambitious target for switching over to bio-fuels. Though, the
second generation bio-fuels have distinct advantages related to lower green
house gas emissions, lower land requirement and better fuel quality vis--vis
first generation bio-fuels, there are several challenges related to cost of the
fuel produced, technology to be employed and the infrastructure for harvesting,
transporting, storing and refining etc which need to be addressed.

The feedstock we talk for 2nd generation fuels like biomass and algae etc. can
be transformed to various energy molecules by themochemical and biochemical
conversion routes. Biochemical conversion routes rely on biocatalysts, such as
enzymes and microbial cells , which are the major cost elements. The biomass-to-
ethanol conversion process involves pretreatment of biomass, hydrolyzing the
pre-treated biomass to fermentable sugars to produce ethanol. The natural
structure of biomass is resistant to its easy separation into the primary
streams viz. cellulose, hemi-cellulose and lignin. While it is relatively easy
to convert cellulose to ethanol, challenge is for cellulose and lignin
conversion. Even for cellulose, efficiency of conversion needs improvement.
Hence, there is need of a cost effective eco-friendly treatment methodology to
make the biomass amenable for hydrolysis. There exists a strong need for
developing cheaper & more effective enzymes for sugar hydrolysis. The genetic
engineering, metabolic genering and system biology can play a major role in this
direction. Beside that there is need for a engineered organism for co-
fermentation of C5 - C6 sugars to ethanol. These are current limitations for
commercialization of biomass to ethanol.

It is also important to note that , the lignocellulosic bioethanol includes

various technological process steps; hence a single lab cannot alone do all
steps. It strongly calls for collaboration among various players. We have
recently collaborated with NREL, USA and we are going to establish a
lignocellulosic ethanol pilot plant of 5kg/h capacity at our R&D centre.

Thermochemical conversion technologies rely on heat and/or physical catalysts to

convert biomass to an intermediate gas or liquid, followed by a conversion step
to convert that intermediate to a biofuel. Thermochemical conversion
technologies can be grouped in two distinct categories for fuel production:
gasification and pyrolysis. Gasification is a complete conversion of biomass a
gaseous intermediate (syngas), which can be useful for production of chemical
and energy molecules. Pyrolysis on the other hand, is the milder conversion of
biomass producing pyrolysis oil or biooil. The bio-oil can further be
transformed to biofuel by various process. These conversion approaches have
particular advantages as these can be used in lower scales and are therefore
being considered as ideal for distributed energy models. However there is a need
to enhance conversion efficiencies and to develop robust technology which can
accept a wide range of feedstocks which could be coal or even petcoke which can
also be used as co-feed with biomass for gasification. The final selection of
conversion route will obviously depend upon type of biofuel to be produced and
feedstock available.

Beside lignocellulosic biomass derived biofuel, algae biofuel technologies hold

the promise to enable production of biofuel while offsetting carbon emissions.
Algal lipids can be extracted from algal cells and converted to biofuels such as
biodiesel, aviation fuel or renewable diesel. But the technology is still under
development stage. Most of the work is either in laboratory scale or pilot scale.
Lot of technological challenges like development of robust strains, cost
effective cultivation and harvesting methodology are yet to be addressed.

Hydro-cracking of vegetable derived oils from seeds or co-processing

such oil with hydro-processing streams in refineries could also be an option.

For the success of any biofuel program, there is a need for proper resource
assessment for availability of feedstock and technology. The technological
development should be continued to meet the need of market. New methodologies in
biology- thoroughly integrated with modern process chemistry and engineering
approaches- need to be applied to the production of a variety of chemicals and
fuels from renewable resources. These integrated approaches will have a dramatic
impact on the production of renewable chemicals and materials, improving
production yields of biomass and the processes for converting biomass to new
fuels and chemicals which may depend on final product mix to make the whole
scheme economically viable also. Finally, I must say that new technology for
conversion of waste streams / gases to ethanol or other fuels also hold greatest
promise.
As society turns to renewable production of fuels and chemicals, there will be
an increasing demand for even greater efficiencies from the integration of
biological, chemical, and engineering principles. This will require purposeful
collaborations between academic and industrial communities to advance and
integrate multiple scientific and engineering disciplines to serve the
marketplace.

With this background, I believe the current workshop organized by PETROFED is a

step in right direction. I am sure that during the day there will be intense
discussions about the latest developments in technologies. This will be also a
good platform to discuss recent achievements and particularly green fuels based
on UOP technology and waste stream to ethanol based on technology from Lanzatech
etc.

Let me re-affirm that IOC has vision to be the Energy of India. We have
strong commitment to renewable energy and sustainable development progress.
Bio-fuels (2nd generation) is an important part of our R&D focus. I can assure
that IOC shall support all joint efforts to develop sustainable and economic
models for large scale commercialization of bio-fuels.

Thank you