Farmers in India are being encouraged to sell their crop waste rather than burn it to help accelerate progress on curbing fires that spread a deadly, choking smog across key cities.
Smoke from the burning of crop stubble lingers over most of north India for weeks during the cold months of November and December, with air quality deteriorating to hazardous levels in several areas, including the capital, New Delhi.
BiofuelCircle, a start-up based in the western Indian city of Pune, is attempting to connect farmers with companies that can turn the waste into briquettes to be burned in power stations, or ethanol for blending with liquid fuels.
Photo: Reuters
“The environmental issues due to crop residue burning are mainly because of the inefficiency of the supply chain,” BiofuelCircle founder Suhas Baxi said. “The business case for building a stable and reliable supply chain is very solid.”
India wants to convert its 209 million tonnes of annual farm waste and massive piles of kitchen refuse into energy to help reduce fuel imports and improve air quality. If there was sufficient demand and infrastructure, using the country’s entire supply of crop waste for bio-energy could generate as much as IS$50 billion in annual revenue, Baxi said in an interview.
However, progress has been slow. The lack of a reliable supply chain — from timely procurement, to storage, processing plants and finally a market for the products — has meant that farmers continue to burn most of their crop residue.
Barely 20 to 30 percent of farm waste is harnessed, mostly for lower-value products such as briquettes for blending with coal for use in industrial boilers, Baxi said.
“We don’t have the ability to absorb what the farmer is able to give,” he said. “There’s need for mechanization, there’s need for huge storage capacities. There’s investment required in supply chain and that investment will not only solve the problems at hand, but create a bigger opportunity.”
A market for more products including biodiesel, sustainable aviation fuel and compressed biogas is still in its infancy, although there has been some progress. The ethanol percentage of retail gasoline has increased to about 10 percent from just 1.4 percent in 2014, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi started his first term in office.
Modi’s government has also been supportive of tackling stubble burning, offering subsidies to buy machinery to gather crop residue and setting mandates for coal plants to use at least 5 percent biomass.
The domestic unit of the Chinese-owned, Dutch-headquartered chipmaker Nexperia BV will soon be able to produce semiconductors locally within China, according to two company sources. Nexperia is at the center of a global tug-of-war over critical semiconductor technology, with a Dutch court in February ordering a probe into alleged mismanagement at the company. The geopolitical tussle has disrupted supply chains, with some carmakers reportedly forced to cut production due to chip shortages. Local production would allow Nexperia’s domestic arm, Nexperia Semiconductors (China) Ltd (安世半導體中國), to bypass restrictions in place since October on the supply of silicon wafers — etched with tiny components to
Taiwan is open to joining a global liquefied natural gas (LNG) program if one is created, but on the condition that countries provide delivery even in a scenario where there is a conflict with China, an energy department official said yesterday. While Taiwan’s priority is to have enough LNG at home, the nation is open to exploring potential strategic reserves in other countries such as Japan or South Korea, Energy Administration Deputy Director-General Chen Chung-hsien (陳崇憲) said. While the LNG market does not have a global reserve for emergencies like that of oil, the concept has been raised a few times —
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday received government approval to deploy its advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process at its second fab currently under construction in Japan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a news release. The ministry green-lit the plan for the facility in Kumamoto, which is scheduled to start installing equipment and come online in 2028 with a monthly production capacity of 15,000 12-inch wafers, the ministry said. The Department of Investment Review in June 2024 authorized a US$5.26 billion investment for the facility, slated to manufacture 6- to 12nm chips, significantly less advanced than 3nm process. At a meeting with
Standard Chartered Taiwan on March 26 announced that it has partnered with international fintech firm FinIQ to build an “Automated Structured Products Pricing Platform.” The bank is also introducing products from global issuers including Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Barclays PLC and BNP Paribas SA. The new platform enables an end-to-end process whereby it finds the most competitive pricing across multiple issuers in a matter of minutes, followed by automated documentation and transaction execution, which significantly shortens time-to-market and delivers a superior wealth management experience. Standard Chartered Bank Taiwan CEO Anthony Yu (游天立) said: “Standard Chartered is increasingly leveraging its wealth management
RSS