Indian Railways to push for biodiesel adoption

Indian Railways has decided to promote use of alternative fuels such as biodiesel in a big way for powering its vast fleet of over 4000 diesel locomotives in its endeavour to adopt green technologies. Indian Railways is the single largest bulk consumer of diesel in the country and as mentioned in Railway Budget 2014-15, Indian Railways will start using biodiesel up to 5% of the total fuel consumption in diesel locomotives, stated Sadananda Gowda, Minister of Railways, during the inauguration of Bio-Fuels 2014 conference in New Delhi.
 
Diesel locomotives cater to a large segment of rail traffic in the country, hauling both passenger and freight trains. Indian Railways consume over two billion litres of diesel every year, for which it has to foot a bill of over Rs 15000 crore annually. Therefore, even a small reduction in fuel consumption through blending with biodiesel will result in a substantial savings in the fuel bill. In addition, the attendant benefits of a cleaner environment would also accrue on account of lower carbon emission, without requiring any change in the locomotive design. Extensive trials have already been conducted by RDSO using biodiesel in different proportions on railway locomotives and results have been found very encouraging, Gowda informed.
 
Railway Minister said that Indian Railways initially attempted blending of high speed diesel (HSD) with biodiesel extracted from the Jatropha plant. Jatropha oil, which had been used in India as biodiesel in remote rural and forest communities, can be used directly after extraction, ie without refining in diesel generators and engines.
 
Gowda said that Indian Railways will consider exploring possibilities of planting Jatropha plants along the railway tracks. However, these forays by Indian Railways met with limited success. Indian Railways have also set up an Indian Railways Organisation for Alternate Fuels (IROAF) to promote biodiesels and other environmentally benign alternate fuels. They have also been given the mandate to facilitate setting up of trans-etherification facilities for converting plant residues into biodiesels. These facilities could be set up in the country on the PPP mode.
 
Gowda added, “Biofuels also have a role to play in our efforts to address environmental concerns, particularly where we cannot otherwise easily decarbonise, like in the transport sector. However, it is crucial that the biofuels used must be genuinely sustainable and cost effective. Unless these two imperatives are met, we would not be able to proliferate biodiesels in the manner we intend to.”