Wednesday, Jun 09, 2004
Wednesday, Jun 09, 2004 |
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Chennai
By N. Ravi Kumar
CHENNAI, JUNE 8. From trial runs to fuelling daily-use vehicles, bio-diesel, the environment friendly automobile fuel derived from vegetable oil, is poised to touch new milestones. Taking it in that direction are initiatives of Southern Railway's Loco Works. Impressed with the performance of bio-diesel manufactured at the facility in Perambur on four motor vehicles, it proposes to use the fossil fuel alternative to run two locomotives. "We are in the process of setting up a bigger equipment (plant) to draw and produce bio-diesel from Jatropha and Pungam plants. It will help us produce enough to run two locomotives on bio-diesel either by this month or mid-July," according to M. Jayasingh, chief workshop manager of Perambur Loco Works. It has been around three months now since the Southern Railway entity started running four vehicles on the eco-friendly fuel, whose tail-pipe emissions are relatively less. Four experiments are in progress, he says, pointing out that the vehicles have been segregated into two groups. One of the vehicles in the first group is run solely on bio-diesel while another uses 80 per cent conventional diesel and 20 per cent bio-fuel. In the second group, one of the vehicles is fuelled exclusively by vegetable oil put through the degumming process, while another uses 20 per cent bio-diesel with the rest being fossil fuel. Barring some initial irritants in the form of filter clogging, the vehicles are running smoothly. Each of the vehicles has done at least 1,000 km on the eco-friendly fuel produced from renewable sources. Apparently, Rudolf Diesel, the inventor of diesel engines, who used peanut oil to fuel them in 1895, predicted: "The use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today. But such oils may become in course of time as important as petroleum and the coal tar products of the present time." According to Mr. Jayasingh, the growing need for using fossil fuel alternatives could translate into employment opportunities, reduce the country's dependence on imports to meet its energy needs and keep the environment clean. "If one family is employed in cultivation of jatropha on every 5 hectare of wasteland, it will lead to creation of two million new jobs in rural areas. More jobs will be added by the extraction units with the possibility of generating biogas and production of technical grade glycerol as a by-product." Bio-diesel, however, is a late entrant in the country as in the U.S. 1,500 locos are running on bio diesel and tests have been carried out with 4000 HP (2984 KW) gas turbine powered passenger locomotives. On its part, Southern Railway planted thousands of Karanjia (Pungam) trees a few years ago mainly to provide shade. They are spread over the station platforms, building compounds and vacant land.
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