Energy from rice residue (Biofuel/biogas/bioethanol)
Rice straw being a
ligno-cellulosic material considered as a potential source of renewable energy.
It can be used for the synthesis of bio-ethanol. This bio-ethanol can be blended
with the petroleum fuels in different proportion. The government of India has targeted
10% blending of bio-ethanol with petrol by 2022 and 20% by 2030. The
Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) has established a plant at Bargarh
in Odisha for conversion of paddy straw to bio-ethanol. There is a tremendous
potential to offset use of fossil fuel with efficient commercial technologies
by producing ethanol from bulk crop residues (CRs) in general and rice straw in
particular.
From each metric ton of
dry CRs about 250-350 litres ethanol could be produced. Considering only 20% of
the world’s rice residue for this purpose, annually 40 billion litres of
ethanol can be produced, which is capable of replacing about 25 billion litres
of fossil fuel-based gasoline (Jeffery et al., 2011). As a result, about 70 mt
of CO 2 equivalent GHGs emission could be reduced per year.