IEI, U.P.State Centre

Two-day All India Seminar on Bio-Energy-2013

(July 13-14, 2013)

The Uttar Pradesh State Centre of the Institution organized a two-day All India Seminar on Bio-energy-2013 under the aegis of Electrical Engg. Division during July 13-14, 2013 at Lucknow. The Chief Guest Mr G. B. Patnaik, IAS (Retd.), Former Principal Secretary to the Governor of UP and also former Vice-Chancellor of Lucknow University while inaugurating the Seminar said “Clean Energy is not a slogan but a necessity”. He further emphasized the need of Bio-energy as the conventional energy has become costly and also the coal and oil reserves are depleting. The State and Central Governments are willing to spend money on these but there is lack of proper coordination with entrepreneurs. He urged to bring policy, entrepreneurs and govt. together.

Dr Harsharan Das, IAS, Principal Secretary, Science & Technology, UP Govt. said that the Bio-energy is eco-friendly and helps the society with reference to environment and expenses. We must ensure that our villages too are self sufficient and reliant in regard to the power requirement and it is possible only by adopting bio-energy. He said that we should not compare our country with any under developed or developing country. Instead we should compare ourself with USA. Our engineers are doing wonderful job in USA. Why they can’t develop our country. Need is to develop conducive working atmosphere for them.

Keynote speaker, Dr P. K. Seth, Chief Executive Officer, Biotech Park, Uttar Pradesh expressed need to rethink management of bio-energy. Bio-Energy–besides producing energy–is environment friendly and has job creation potential. Why bio-energy is not being generated and utilized? Answering this question he said there are difficulties to access the quality feed stock- i.e. needed plants are not available in large scale. There is a competition for field –food v/s fuel. This problem can be handled by using marginal and uncultivable land. He emphasized on large scale cultivation of plants like Jatropha and Pongamia. Another pertinent challenging issue is enhancing energy technology absorption capability. For making villages self – reliable in the present condition – bio-energy is the only answer. By 2050 bio-energy may satisfy 1/3 of the world’s future need. It represent a market of 1 to 3 trillion U.S. dollar market value. Best technology application can help in improving the plant varieties. Bio-fuel policy envisages 20% blending of petrol/diesel with bio-diesel by 2017. Dr Seth cautioned to achieve the enough feed stock and cost effective technologies. If the cost of bio-diesel increases then value of mixing will be lost. He said govt. has launched the programme. Besides the use of oil from plants, efforts are being made for 2nd and 3rd generation fuels like bio-hydrogen, bio-butanol. It is projected by the World Energy Report that 10-13% of total transport fuel will be met from bio-fuels by 2030 and 26% by 2050. About 90% of bio-fuel will be from 2nd / 3rd generation bio-fuel. India and China will produce 20% of global bio-fuel production. The need is for continued R & D and translating it for application.

Er. V B Singh, Chairman of The Institution of Engineers welcomed the guests and advocated for non-conventional energy like hydro, solar and wind energy which is the need of the hour and has become the necessity. Er J S Mishra, Hony. Secretary move the vote of thanks. Er. Arun Kumar, Convener gave an overview of seminar.

Following experts presented their technical papers which were deliberated upon:-

1 Dr Tilak Thakur, Professor, Punjab Engg. College, Chandigarh

2 Dr B H Shrikanth, Chief Technical Consultant, Pune

3 Dr D P Mishra, IIT, Kanpur

4 Dr D Swain, Professor, National Sugar Institute Kanpur

5 Mr Sanjay Verma, Project Officer, NEDA, UP Govt., Lucknow

6 Mr S R Agarwal, Kashipur (Uttrakhand)

7 Mr S B Gupta, Jhansi

8 Dr H M Behal, Sr. Scientist, Bio-techPark, Lucknow

Following recommendations emerged out of the two day Seminar – There is intense need of R & D and India needs to establish timely lead, Partnered Centres & Public Private Partnership (PPP) be encouraged to meet the challenges, Time bound & coordinated efforts are required to exploit the potential optimally.