Time to Focus on Biomass

The Ujjwala programme has been taking cooking gas cylinders and stoves to rural households and all of them are expected to be covered in the next 2 to 3 years. Those who can afford it are using only gas for cooking. The poor do have the problem of not being able to afford gas cylinders. There is, therefore, a strong case for subsidising supply to them to improve the quality of life and health of women. Democratic forces may well make this happen, sooner than later. As the use of biomass for cooking declines, there emerges the potential of using it in modern ways as a source of renewable energy. Biomass accounted for about 12% of total energy consumption in India in 2019.

Converting biomass into commercial energy with modern technology should, therefore, become the focus of public policy. The goal should be to get usable commercial energy from the bio-waste generated in the country, including the rice crop stubble burnt in the fields in North India after harvesting. This would need analysis of the different categories of bio-waste and new pragmatic policy interventions need to be designed to suit ground realities.
 

India has the largest cattle population in the world and cow dung can be converted into gas, which can be used for cooking, transport as well as to generate electricity. Organic manure would be a marketable by-product. In the late ‘80s a large gobar gas programme was run to provide piped gas in the villages for cooking. It failed. The gas pressure was not good enough for cooking. A viable business model for collecting cow dung and running the plant was not designed and tested before launching the programme for large-scale deployment. Trained staff and the supply chain of spares for reliable maintenance and repairs were not created. As with so many government programmes, the rapid achievement of target numbers and expenditure became the sole goal. The key lesson from this failure is the necessity of first trying out pilot projects to develop and fine-tune a sustainable model before scaling it up. The price at which cattle owners would provide cow dung in a village and the margin at which a local operator would find it worthwhile to run the plant have to be determined and tested. With these minimum costs, village-level plants for producing gas as well as electricity need to be installed and run to discover actual costs of supply. For electricity, a large programme without any subsidy is conceivable. A feed-in tariff can be determined and the local Distribution Company can be mandated to buy this as a separate category as a part of their Renewable Purchase Obligation. For gas, the issue of aggregation and reliable supply to the consumer at a price that is the same as his existing options would be the key to scalability. Such a programme would generate additional income and employment in all villages.

A similar approach would be needed for all the other agricultural waste. For different categories of waste, the most economical options would vary. Ethanol is already well established as an attractive by-product of the sugar industry. For other categories, methyl alcohol may turn out to be technologically easier and cheaper. If so, then downstream viable uses would need to be developed. Transport may offer an attractive option. These are complex issues and would need to be addressed. The priority should naturally be the rice crop stubble that is being burnt every year in North India. The immediate solution would lie in buying the crop waste at a remunerative price, getting it converted into briquettes/pellets for burning in coal-fired thermal plants as a partial substitute for coal. This has been successfully tried out on a limited scale. For the long term, other feasible uses may be explored.

Mini sewage treatment plants can generate gas and electricity as can be done from animal waste. They may be the preferable solution for villages, small towns, and urban extensions in existing cities where sewage treatment facilities must be provided. This would make a significant contribution to the daunting task of cleaning our rivers and water bodies.

Bio-waste has been relatively neglected. It is high time it received focus through a new dedicated Mission. The Mission would naturally need good leadership with continuity, a mandate which provides adequate space for trials and failures, and to work in partnerships with state governments, village panchayats, NGOs, and private firms. It would be affordable if well designed. The benefits would range from greater, and ultimately, full utilisation of a major renewable energy source, to generating incomes and jobs across all our villages, and eliminating a major source of air pollution in North India.

- Ajay Shankar, Distinguished Fellow, TERI, and Former Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Government of India