Natural Diesel Alternatives are Beginning to Deliver

Tribal energy
It is instructive to learn how these nether layers function. Let us follow this story: Joint Forest Management [JFM] had been in trial mode since 1994 in Andhra Pradesh [AP]. Its novelty was to co-opt forests' natural people -- the tribals -- as guards rather than treat them as intruders. If they were allowed to sustainably forage the forests for their livelihood, they might be persuaded to zealously guard it. They and not the forest officers would then manage the forests. The World Bank was funding JFM and the programme in AP was headed by Mr. S D Mukherjee, who had pioneered the idea in Bengal. GoodNewsIndia had featured this experiment in April,2002.

An Indian officer in the World Bank, Dr Emmanuel D'Silva heard of Professor Shrinivasa's work. He arrived in Bangalore rather excitedly. Soon a small team left for the forests in Adilabad, AP, on the border with Maharashtra. The Professor and his lieutenant Mr. A R Nayeem from SuTRA and Dr D'Silva from the Bank were joined by Mr Mukherjee and Mr Navin Mittal of the Integrated Tribal Development Agency [ITDA] in Utnoor. [ Mittal deserves to be especially noted. He had graduated from the IIT with a Gold Medal but then did an unusual thing: instead of flying out to the USA for a charmed life, he chose the IAS as the more meaningful option in life.]

Bettering the lives of the tribals was Mittal's mandate. Soon it became clear to the team what a hard one that is. Listen to Nayeem: "Till Utnoor it was familiar India. But the last 30 km to Chalbardi --a Ghond tribal hamlet of 21 homes-- was another India. Our Jeep crawled over a rock strewn alignment called a road. We walked a part of the way. It is an experience never to be forgotten as the sole reality for many Indians." At Chalbardi they found a tribe of Indian citizens who were grim faced about electricity. They had known it only on their occasional travels out of the woods and had given up hopes of it ever arriving in their village. When the Professor talked of bringing it to their homes in six months, they wearily looked away. When he said that they could pay for it with the abundant Pongamia [Karanji in Hindi, Pongam in Tamil and Honge in Kannada. It is a.k.a Indian Beech] seeds strewn on the forest floor they gazed at him incredulous. He then did the wise thing: he invited them to Kaggenahalli in Kunigal Taluk, Karnataka to see the SuTRA demonstration project. Govinda Rao of Chalbardi, soon led a small curious band.

The Professor marvels: "They made their visit in April, 2001. And they caught the bug. When we went back to Chalbardi two months later, a nursery of 20,000 Pongamia saplings greeted us. Govinda Rao was hustling us: "We can give you the seeds for ever-- when is electricity coming?" "

Lab to land
If the SuTRA demo in Karnataka was the laboratory that proved the idea, Chalbardi will earn its place as the village that took the idea to an India out there. Two off-the-shelf gensets of 7.5 kva each were installed in a hut. The hamlet was wired. Karanji oil engines powered a decorticator and an oil mill. And in June, 2001, right in the middle of a forest, with no pylons, no pollution, no down-time and no bills to pay, darkness made way to light. People whooped in joy. Children raced round and round. And were delightedly, sternly told that it was time for them to sit down and spend some time learning. This self sustaining miracle cost just Rs.500,000 [$10,000].

This is India at its best. Take a pause and review the story so far. We see no struggle, no acrimony, no blaming. The state cannot wire electricity to India's inaccessible terrains. [Most countries in the world don't, either.] So a problem remains unsolved. Then an academic brings his knowledge to bear on it. Dedicated bureaucrats seek him out. At least in AP and quite a few other states politicians back the civil servants. State's funds are made available. People are shown how they can do it themselves. India's hardy folk take it from there. And soon as they get a break, they urge their children to learning. From where then, comes the urge to portray this social system as venal and moribund? Unless of course, it is from the compulsions of a commerce to fill newsprint and airtime.

Within days of Chalbardi being electrified, villages within miles were --in a manner speaking-- electrified too: they wanted their own power plants. In the months since mid- 2001, 10 forest villages in Adilabad have followed the Chalbardi model. The SuTRA team is deeply involved in disseminating the idea of SVO as fuel alternatives. It is working with people and learning from them. It has near enough perfected a standard format. Here is the pattern, give or take a few details. The gensets are uniformly 7.5 kva of Kirloskar make with an eye on standardisation. Power is supplied for three hours after dusk. Each household pays Rs.5 per month [--that is about $ 0.10 !] plus, 300 kg per year of shelled Pongamia seeds. These seeds they gather from the forest floor, bring home, shell and deliver, the while committed to the sustainability of their forest world. The power plant is run profitably with the sale of excess oil and all of the oil cake. Mr N. Sridhar IAS, the current ITDA project officer in Utnoor is a great enthusiast for the idea taking it further down the road.

New leaders, technicians and jobs have sprung up. In the village of Powerguda the formidable Ms. Subhadra Bai leads a women's self help group [SHG] that runs a no-nonsense oil mill business. Gatherers are paid Rs.5/ kg of shelled seeds. The SHG mills and markets 3000 litres per month at Rs.20 per litre. There is a huge waiting list and people come from far. Five more expellers have come up. Govinda Rao is a wandering minstrel spreading word of the SVO miracle. Young lads have become adept at repairing and maintaining all equipment. Children are going up the learning curve. The Ghonds have begun to look at their ancient habitat with renewed love.

Other streams
Southern and coastal AP have swung into action. Chittoor, Vijayanagaram, Vishakapatnam, Prakasam Srikakulam are all names that are lighting up on the SVO map. Members of the VELUGU self-help scheme have coined a slogan : "mana noone, mana vidyut" [My seeds, my electricity]. Under the Karnataka Watershed Development Agency [KAWAD] 10 oil mills run by women SHG have come up. They are in Bijapur, Bellary and Chitradurga districts of Karnataka. They cost Rs.350,000 each and generate revenue of Rs.600 to Rs.800 a day, out of which the SHG pay back the loans. Dr Vidya Swamy at SuTRA, Bangalore is systematically developing best nursery parctices and trying out ways to train grafted trees into short bushes. She also reaches out to women SHGs and explains profitable rural technologies so that with SVO at the centre, an integrated plan can develop.

In under five years of Prof Shrinivasa demonstrating the concept, the idea has begun to deliver results and make hard economic sense. It has probably had the fastest run from lab to land for any idea in India. Indian Railways is moving ahead to use SVO as a blend with diesel. It is India's largest consumer of diesel; so it makes sense for them to look at SVO. The Government has woken up to the potential and there is talk that the Prime Minister is also smitten by it. Prof. Shrinivasa is the convener of the committee set up to draft a National Biodiesel Policy. The venerable BBC came calling recently to record this emerging success story.

In what may turn out to be a turning point for the SVO movement, a World War 2 vintage jeep in the Adilabad forest area is about to be modified to run on Karanji oil. With start-stop vehicle engines, it is better to have two tanks with a switch: diesel to start on, SVO to run on and diesel again before stopping. The jeep as a 4 wheel drive is the work-horse of the Indian countryside. They are sturdy and cheap to buy, but diesel costs are a killer. If SVO make a difference here, the impact on rural transportation, load carrying and job generation will be immense.

The Professor's vision is broad: "There is room for everyone in this new economy. Small groups running nurseries, forest folk gathering seeds, small land holders planting for SVO, big corporations farming hundreds of acres, the state developing wastelands, organic farmers using the oil cake as manure, national security strategists factoring SVO in, activists into greening of India and watchdogs battling pollution. All these can come in and find win-win solutions. The market is virtually infinite. After all our oil import bill is $ 6 billion a year-- and growing."

Indians everywhere are beginning to get hooked by the idea. It's an emerging drama you want to be a part of. It urges you to find a role for yourself. For example, the alumni of the IIT-Madras batch of 1969 have decided to gift an oil milling plant to a women's SHG in Thally in Tamil Nadu. It was their way to pay back. The plant costs Rs.350,000. The 180 alumnus have chipped in. That Prof. Shrinivasa is an IIT-69 alumnus is a matter of small detail.
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SuTRA [Sustainable Transformation of Rural Areas]
Dept. of Mech. Engg.
Indian Institute of Science,
Bangalore 560 012, India
Prof. Udipi Shrinivasa, Chief Programme Officer [ udipi@mecheng.iisc.ernet.in ]
Mr A R Nayeem, Manager [ nayeem@mecheng.iisc.ernet.in ]
Phones:(+91) (80) 360 2435/ 360 0080 / 360 2993 / 360 8635; Mobile: 98457 29295
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SVO, biodiesels, biofuels etc

The Ghond tribe we met in the main story are using straight vegetable oil or SVO. This is oil milled, nominally filtered and used straight in an engine. A purist would be offended by the use of the term 'biodiesel' for this. But it is early days yet in India and 'biodiesel' is a rather evocative name that catches attention. But let us get some facts laid out.

In a warm country like India, use of SVO in applications like gensets will cause no harm. In critical applications like running jeeps, tractors etc however it may be wise to use a two tank system, as briefly described in the article.

In the West, the scene is quite different. The weather is often cold, cooking oil is thrown away after one use and vehicles are over-powered. Biodiesels address all the three situations. Making biodiesel is no rocket science. Many make them at home and the process -- called 'transesterification' -- removes many components from the SVO and renders them a "methyl ester". For those with more interest in the arcana of biodiesel chemistry, the two good pages to visit are at veggievan.org and journeytoforever.org.

Remember however that both SVO and biodiesels are pure renewable fuels. A day may come in India too -- when the SVO idea has caught on -- when small rural businesses will come up offering technically true 'biodiesels' for say, high way trucks.

Returning now to SVO, there are about 20 species of trees whose seeds will yield acceptable SVO. Of these, Pongamia has many advantages and these are described in GoodNewsIndia's earlier story on the same subject. Neem oil too will do well as an SVO but it is more valuable as a pesticde and sells for about Rs.50 a litre. Mahua is good as well but it is cooking grade and in India that is priority use. Jatropha [-- or Ratanjyot in Hindi] is emerging as a popular SVO now. It is a shrub that begins to yield in 6 months though its life is only 15 years. But Jatropha oil is lighter than Pongamia oil and in Erode, Tamil Nadu one gentleman at least rides his diesel Bullet motorcycle fed entirely on Jatropha oil.