India Glycols has moved the Ministry of Environment and Forests for environmental clearance for installation of a pilot plant at Kashipur in Uttarakhand?s U S Nagar district to produce ethanol.

In its presentation to the Ministry for environmental clearance, the company proposed to set up a 10 MTPD lignocellulosic biomass pilot plant to produce about 3000 litres of ethanol daily by implementing the technology developed at DBT-ICT Centre for Energy Biosciences, Mumbai.

The total cost of the project is Rs 10 crore.

The company said there will be no major impact on the environment and the plant will be installed within its existing complex.

It said that cellulosic ethanol will be produced from bagasse, raw straw, wheat straw or grasses and other non-edible parts of plants. The production of ethanol from lignocellulose has the advantage of abundant and diverse raw material compared to other sources like grain and cane sugar.

The total land area is 721312 sq m of which the proposed constriction area is 772 sq m.

The company said that following objectives will be achieved from the proposed project:

1. It will test the novel features of the DBT-ICT technology at reasonable scale for further commercial scale up.
2. It will provide opportunity to fine tune the process parameters of the technology that has so far been tested at 1 kg scale.
3. It will integrate the several continuously operating process components at a realistic scale and provide a more reliable overall mass and energy balance.

India Glycols said there will not be any major potential for negative impact on the environment due to the proposed project and that all environmental infrastructures are available in the region.

In order to mitigate the air pollutants and to attenuate the noise generated by the plant and also improving the ecology and aesthetics of the area, the unit will develop the green belt, the company said.

The company it will adopt all safety and hazard identification measures besides a strong disaster management policy.