What are flex-fuel vehicles? Can they cut our dependence on petrol?

At the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, India surprised many by announcing to cut the emissions and meet the net zero target by 2070. It puts the country in a tight spot as it will have to take several bold measures to meet the challenge. One of them would be to limit the use to petrol-guzzling vehicles and switch to another fuel which emits less carbon dioxide. Like several other countries, India too is planning to use the alternative fuel which is a mix of gasoline and ethanol or methanol 

The conventional internal combustion engine-based vehicles require fuel to operate, and the fundamentals remain the same for the flex-fuel engine-based vehicles too. However, instead of just petrol or diesel, the flex-fuel engine-based vehicles use a blend of the gasoline and ethanol. In a good flex-fuel vehicle, up to 83 per cent ethanol can be mixed with petrol, which is a global standard. Most of such vehicle components are the same as those found in a conventional gasoline-only car. However, some of the components, especially engine and fuel line, are tuned, tweaked and modified to work with blended fuel and not just petrol. Now let us understand what exactly ethanol is and how is it made  

Wonder what ethanol is. Well, it is a kind of alcohol with more than 99 percent purity. It is a by-product of sugarcane but can also be made from grains. In short, ethanol is a renewable fuel made from various plant materials collectively known as biomass. Given the size of the country’s sugarcane and grain production, India can meet most of its ethanol requirements indigenously. It will drastically cut the import bill, help boost the farming sector and generate lakhs of jobs. When compared to petrol, whose prices have been hovering above Rs 100 per litre for quite some time, ethanol is much cheaper. After a recent hike, ethanol produced from sugarcane juice is now Rs 63.45 litre. 

Union minister Nitin Gadkari has expressed his desire to drastically reduce the country’s dependence on petrol and diesel in his lifetime by switching to alternative fuel. Gadkari said that the government is planning to submit an affidavit in the Supreme Court to allow manufacturing of flex-fuel engines under the Euro IV emission norms.

In India, the blending percentage of ethanol with petrol has gone up from 1.53 per cent in 2013-14 to 8.5 per cent in 2020-21. The country has set a target of 20 per cent ethanol-blending with petrol by 2023-24. And the ultimate goal is to have 100 percent ethanol-run vehicles.