Page 6 - demo

Being third largest energy consumer in the world, India’s current demand
for domestic fuels is significantly outpacing domestic production thereby
spending valuable foreign capital for procuring additional energy resources.
There is an urgent need to look for alternative energy resources. Methanol
and di-methyl ether (DME), could be the alternate sources of stored energy.

Methanol, with a high octane rating, is already being used as a fuel in an
internal combustion engine. It has half volumetric energy content of
gasoline, but it is more efficient and burns cleaner.

Methanol though is not a good substitute for diesel fuel, however, it can be
converted to DME making it suitable for diesel engines with higher cetane
number 55-60 compared to regular diesel fuel. DME is also a good substitute
for LNG & LPG. It can be produced from various feedstock like syngas (from
coal or natural gas), direct methane conversion, biomass gasification and
carbon dioxide reduction.
I congratulate TIFAC in bringing the roadmap on Production/Utilization
at an appropriate time. The recommendations by Experts Group and a
comprehensive roadmap suggested will be useful to government, R&D
institutes, academia, policy makers, and industries for setting up the
requisite technology trajectory. This will also facilitate demonstration,
validation and commercialization of appropriate technologies towards
establishing an alternate source of environment friendly energy.

(Ashutosh Sharma)

Technology Bhavan, New Mehrauli Road, New Delhi - 110016
Tel: 00 91 11 26511439 / 26510068 • Fax: 00 91 11 26863847 • E-mail: dstsec@nic.in • website: www.dst.gov.in