World's first bamboo-based ethanol plant set up in Assam
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Digital Desk, New Delhi. The world's first bamboo-based bio-ethanol plant – Assam Bio Ethanol Private Limited (ABEPL) established at Numaligarh in Golaghat district of Assam has laid the foundation of a new revolution in the agro-economy of North-East India.
The company has set a target of adding more than 30 thousand farmers within the next three years. This initiative has been launched with the aim of ensuring uninterrupted supply of raw material (bamboo) to the plant. The cost of this plant, which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September last year, is Rs 4,930 crore.
World's first bamboo-based ethanol plant set up in Assam
The plant is currently in its stabilization phase and is ready to start production at full capacity in the next few weeks.
Technical Specifications and Production Capacity The plant is the world's first commercial second generation bio-ethanol factory that uses bamboo as raw material instead of food crops like sugarcane or maize. The installed production capacity of the plant is 49 thousand metric tons per year.
"During the trial run, we have produced fuel-grade ethanol of 99.7 percent purity, which is better than the normal standard of 99.5 percent," ABEPL Chief Executive Officer Rupjyoti Hazarika said.
Apart from ethanol, the plant will also produce these products annually
11,000 tons of acetic acid
32,000 tons of liquid carbon dioxide
25 MW Green Power
Farmers' income and carbon neutral target
To run the plant at full capacity, five lakh metric tonnes of green bamboo will be required annually. For this, there is a plan to plant 60 lakh saplings on 12,500 hectares of land in the next three years.
The company has so far registered more than 4,200 farmers and transferred Rs 2.4 crore directly into their accounts by eliminating middlemen.
Hazarika clarified, 'We are not encouraging farmers to change agricultural land, but identifying barren and unused land.'
When the company starts sourcing bamboo from 12,500 hectares of land, it will become a completely 'carbon neutral' entity. A 300 km radius of the plant has been targeted for regional expansion and supply of 'zero-waste' model bamboo.
Tea garden owners also came forward for bamboo cultivation
This includes 16 districts of Assam, four of Arunachal Pradesh, five of Nagaland and one district of Meghalaya. After government permission to use five percent of tea garden land for non-tea purposes, many tea garden owners have also come forward to cultivate bamboo.
The plant is a 'zero-waste' facility, where every part of the bamboo will be used. This model is expected to give an annual boost of approximately Rs 200 crore to the rural economy of the state.
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