Anything Under The Sun

The state-run buses in Karnataka take one step further in reducing vehicle emissions and reducing running costs. And how do they plan to do this? Simple.. For about 3 years now, they've been experimenting with alternative fuels.. And it looks like finally their experiments will be put into full-fledged action from the end of January 2006.

 

Here's the secret... The authorities have been testing a mixture of diesel and edible/non-edible oils for their buses. They mixed diesel with sunflower oil, groundnut oil and honge oil. Now the results show that honge oil is the best among the three. Honge oil costs Rs.28 per liter while diesel costs about Rs.35. The mixture uses 90% diesel and 10% honge oil.

 

Honge oil is obtained from the honge seeds of the honge tree. It is a wild tree seen commonly in Karnataka and the authorities see no problem getting their required quota every month. This tree grows with minimum water and doesnt need a lot of tending to. So we can expect more honge trees being planted in the future. This will also add to aforestation.

 

The state run buses in Karnataka consume about 12 crore liters of diesel annually. Using honge oil will reduce about 1.2 crore liters per year. At the current price different of Rs.7, this will mark savings of Rs 8.4 crores annually for the Govt.

 

Not only will this turn out to be economically feasible, it will also reduce emission levels by about 20%.

Just like buses in Gujarat are experimenting with CNG, buses in Karnataka are using bio-diesel.

It seems like the bio-fuels are beginning to make in-roads into the energy sector. Lets hope we see a day soon where we stop being completely dependent on petrol and diesel.

 

Saving the ecology is an act of greatness. And if you can save some money in the process, its even greater. A penny saved is a penny earned.

 

Kowshik