Indian Railways to set up four biodiesel plants
06 February 2011
PTI. State-owned Indian Railways will set up four biodiesel plants at a cost of about Rs 120 crore (US$26.3 million).
Two plants will be commissioned at Raipur and Chennai during the next two years, and the other two units will be set up subsequently. Each plant, estimated to cost around Rs 30 crore (US$6.6 million), will produce 30 tons of biodiesel per day, or more than 9,000 tons a year (more than about 10.2 million liters per year, or about 2.7 million gallons US per year), the official said.
The biodiesel will be blended with petroleum diesel for running locomotives. Indian Railways currently uses about 2.2 billion liters (581 million gallons US) of diesel per year.
WOW. This will account for 0.46% of the locomotives consumption. Production will have to be further increased by 22000 times to satisfy one single demand.
Posted by: HarveyD | 06 February 2011 at 10:00 AM
" Each plant, estimated to cost around Rs 30 crore (US$6.6 million)..or about 2.7 million gallons US per year), the official said.[@$3.5/gal=$9.45M]=>9 month payback(18 month with bio-mass/expense?)
So, what are they/we waiting for?
Posted by: kelly | 06 February 2011 at 10:08 AM
Q&D: 4 plants x 2.7M gal. each = 10.8M divide into 581M gal. yearly use = 1.89% (~55 times the 4 plants = 220 plants for all diesel locomotive annual demand.)
Posted by: kelly | 06 February 2011 at 10:24 AM
For all the naysayers...if there is a major interruption in world oil supply, the value of these biofuel gallons will increase significantly.
No, you're not going to replace fossil oil with biofuel. But anything that reduces fossil oil is a good thing.
Posted by: danm | 06 February 2011 at 01:32 PM
Electrifying railroads will replace more petroleum faster than biodiesel can.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 06 February 2011 at 06:33 PM
These are pilot plants. a full size plant would produce around 10-100 million gallons a year.
Posted by: wintermane2000 | 06 February 2011 at 08:49 PM
wintermane2000, biomass transport costs may force the plants to stay small and more dispersed/local?
Still, such a short payback period seems worth follow through.
Posted by: kelly | 07 February 2011 at 05:59 AM
Biomass is better used to feed the cattle or modified to feed the people. Both cattle and pet food was once and still can be made from natural gas or gasified coal. If there is an electrical grid anywhere close to the biomass, it is far more efficient to make electricity from the gasified biomass and feed it into the grid for use by electric locomotives. ..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | 07 February 2011 at 07:35 AM
Well said E-P. EU, Japan, China and a few other countries are doing it, but not us.
Posted by: HarveyD | 07 February 2011 at 01:00 PM
Yes and no. Catenary costs and maintenance are HUGE. France can handle it, India?? And weather, probably not in India, can be a problem. Better to be able to refuel wherever with as much locally grown bioD as possible. There are crop rotation and transportation concerns as well.
Posted by: fred | 07 February 2011 at 05:37 PM
If Russia can handle it for the length of the trans-Siberian, it makes sense for any line with the traffic.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 08 February 2011 at 03:47 AM