India’s zero-emission, eco-friendly energy strategies have a long way to go, despite impressive progress
The recent report released by OPEC’s World Oil Outlook 2025 has predicted that by the year 2050, crude oil would replace coal as India’s key energy source. Clearly, OPEC expects that India’s dependence on fossil fuels for energy will continue to remain high in one form or another.
The Government of India has set an ambitious Viksit Bharat target for the year 2047 to make India a developed nation. This initiative calls for rapid and comprehensive development across multiple sectors, which would inevitably increase the demand for energy and fuel. It is a good target as far as it goes. The pace of progress achieved so far to reach this target is certainly impressive. There is today worldwide recognition that India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.
During the global climate conference, India’s Prime Minister assured that India would achieve a zero-emission target by the year 2070. Obviously, to achieve such a dream-like target, India must begin curtailing the use of fossil fuels and completely eliminate them by 2070.
In spite of the Government of India’s efforts to boost the production of non-fossil fuel energy sources such as solar and wind power, the steady increase in fossil fuel consumption—coal, crude oil, and natural gas—continues for power generation, transport fuel, and other uses. In 2024, India's coal production saw a significant increase, reaching around 1047 million tonnes compared to around 997 million tonnes in the previous year, marking a 4.99% growth. Further, in the fiscal year 2024-25, India's coal import was around 243.62 million tonnes. In 2024, India's crude oil import increased by 4.2% to 242.4 million tonnes. As India’s crude oil production has remained virtually stagnant over the years, import dependency rose from 88.6% in March 2024 to 89.1% in March 2025. In 2024, India's LNG import increased to a record 27 million tonnes, a 20% year-on-year rise, as domestic natural gas production also remained stagnant.
The use of coal and petroleum fuels as energy sources results in the emission of noxious gases such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and carbon dioxide. During storage and transportation of natural gas, methane leaks occur, and methane poses a serious emission challenge. The increasing use of such fossil fuels for power generation and transportation, which cause huge emissions, is completely at odds with the target of reducing emissions to zero by 2070.
India is focusing on renewable energy generation and battery storage, green hydrogen, and the promotion of electric vehicles to cut emissions and reduce import dependence on crude oil and natural gas. India’s total installed power capacity reached 476 GW as of June 2025, with a significant shift towards non-fossil fuel sources. India has achieved a major and impressive milestone—reaching 50 percent of its installed electricity capacity from non-fossil fuel sources such as solar, wind, nuclear, and hydro power. Renewable power generation capacity will continue to grow, with India expected to add 32 GW of renewable power this year.
While India’s renewable power capacity is increasing, the country’s electricity generation remains carbon-intensive (713 grams CO₂ per kWh) compared to the global average (480 gCO₂/kWh), with coal accounting for around 70 percent of power generation. While capacity for non-fossil fuel energy sources such as solar and wind power is increasing, the capacity utilisation of solar and wind power is only around 20 percent due to various limitations. In such a scenario, the actual production of renewable power meets less than 30% of India’s total power needs. The rest is met by fossil fuels. It appears that this situation will continue, particularly given India’s energy demand is increasing at 7% per annum.
The consumption of petrol for automobiles in India is steadily increasing at around 6.4% year-on-year, while diesel use has been rising at around 2%. In the transport sector, the Government of India is betting big on electric vehicles. Electric vehicles presently constitute less than 8% of all vehicles running in India. Further, there have been reports about the lack of viability of electric trucks due to high initial costs and difficulties with charging. CNG trucks are currently more preferred than electric trucks. Moreover, the power required for charging electric vehicle batteries—expected to reduce emissions and fossil fuel dependence—mostly comes from fossil-fuel-generated electricity. This is similar to the act of cutting off the nose to spite the face.
The Government of India has been taking steps to increase biofuel production, including ethanol and biodiesel for automobiles. Significant initiatives have been taken, particularly in producing ethanol-based fuels and using them in vehicles. India’s biofuel production rose by 27% year-on-year. While the shift towards ethanol blending is gaining momentum, there are challenges related to ensuring adequate ethanol supply and managing potential impacts on other sectors. The government has even gone to the extent of using food grains such as rice and other staples as feedstock for ethanol production. However, considering the steady increase in vehicle numbers and fuel demand, any rise in biofuel production can, at best, meet only the incremental annual demand, not the total demand. In other words, the use of petroleum fuels for automobiles is likely to continue and even increase.
India's green hydrogen industry is gaining significant attention, driven by the National Green Hydrogen Mission, which aims to achieve a 5 million tonne per annum production capacity by 2030. This mission has a financial outlay of ₹19,744 crore, focusing on creating an enabling ecosystem for production, demand creation, and infrastructure development. While green hydrogen holds significant promise for decarbonization, it faces uncertain prospects due to high production costs and challenges in scaling up production and infrastructure. These factors have resulted in a wide gap between announced proposals and actual implementation. Regarding the green hydrogen project, one has to keep fingers crossed, as the future of the hydrogen economy remains unpredictable.
One of the obvious solutions is to implement projects for generating algae biofuel. Algae crops contain about 20 to 25% oil and grow quickly, needing only sunlight, carbon dioxide, and minor nutrients. Tropical conditions in India are ideal for algae cultivation, and even wastewater is adequate. Algae can be grown on wasteland—plentiful in India—and do not conflict with food crops in terms of land or freshwater use. Biofuel produced from algae can be blended with diesel. Algae biofuel presents a win-win situation for India’s energy sector. Unfortunately, the Government of India has not paid due attention to this opportunity.
A few years ago, jatropha was considered a promising option for biofuel production, and there was considerable enthusiasm about its potential to reduce crude oil import dependence. Jatropha trees have a lifespan of around 40 years and can start producing seeds within three years of planting. The seeds contain up to 40% oil and can be successfully grown in tropical conditions. Earlier, the Government of India promoted jatropha cultivation under various initiatives. The National Biofuel Policy, launched in 2008, included jatropha as a key feedstock. Unfortunately, the idea was not pursued seriously and ended as a half-hearted strategy.
Sugar beet is extensively cultivated in Europe, Russia, and other regions. Compared to sugarcane, sugar beet requires only half the cultivation time and half the water. The molasses yield from sugar beet is nearly equal to that of sugarcane. While the Government of India is using food grains like rice for ethanol production, it is surprising that it has not promoted sugar beet cultivation in a big way, despite its potential to produce both sugar and ethanol.
India imports more than 3 million tonnes per annum of methanol, which is produced from natural gas. Due to insufficient domestic availability of natural gas, India spends a large amount of foreign exchange on methanol imports. A few places abroad, including a Canadian company named Enerkem, are known to produce methanol from municipal solid waste. Research indicates the potential for decentralized methanol production from municipal waste in India. Unfortunately, this project has also not been pursued. India generates a huge quantity of municipal solid waste, posing a disposal problem. Producing methanol from this waste would support the Clean India campaign and help reduce fossil fuel imports.
All said and done, the government’s current plans to promote eco-friendly renewable energy, green hydrogen, electric vehicles, and other alternatives are unlikely to be adequate to curb India’s increasing fossil fuel consumption and import dependence, or the associated emissions. The steps initiated by the Government of India seem only marginally effective in slowing the rise of emissions and import reliance. The ground reality is that, despite these efforts, emissions and import dependence will continue to increase in the absence of a bold examination of appropriate and alternative options.
There is a pressing need for out-of-the-box thinking. The suggestions made in this article to reduce emissions and fossil fuel import dependence deserve immediate attention and action from the Government of India. These suggestions are not new; experts have proposed them repeatedly over the past decade.
The real challenge lies in drawing good suggestions from well-meaning experts to the attention of top bureaucrats and ministers, many of whom may not have domain expertise in technical fields.
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*Trustee, Nandini Voice For The Deprived, Chennai
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