Biogas and India's Energy Security Architecture

Question (10 marks, ~150 words):

India's energy security is hostage to a few maritime chokepoints. Examine the potential of compressed biogas (CBG) to reduce this vulnerability, and the constraints that hold it back.

Introduction:

• With about 90% of LPG imports transiting the Strait of Hormuz and imports meeting roughly 85% of crude demand, India's energy security is structurally exposed to maritime chokepoints. Compressed biogas (CBG) offers a domestically sourced hedge.

Potential:

• Import substitution: CBG is chemically equivalent to CNG and can displace transport fuel and LPG with feedstock no blockade can reach.
• Grid integration: purified biomethane blends into piped natural gas for clean cooking; Rs 994 crore is earmarked for pipeline connectivity.
• Rural economy: GOBARdhan grants of up to Rs 50 lakh per district turn crop residue and dung into income, while digestate returns as bio-fertiliser — a circular-economy gain that also curbs stubble burning.

Constraints:

• Food-versus-fuel: administered maize prices rising at about 11.7% CAGR (FY22–FY25) pull acreage from pulses and oilseeds, worsening edible-oil import dependence.
• Logistics: seasonal, fragmented feedstock and scarce balers raise collection costs; most plants sit far from gas trunklines, forcing truck haulage.
• Capital intensity of corrosion-resistant purification deters small developers; SATAT completion has lagged.

Way forward:

• Adopt the Danish manure-based feedstock model; replicate the ethanol playbook (assured offtake, monitored targets, tax incentives) that delivered 20% blending by late 2025; grant accelerated depreciation and fast-track the Rs 1,558 crore infrastructure outlay.

Conclusion:

• CBG cannot replace crude, but it can shrink India's most vulnerable import margin — if treated as an industrial programme, not a sanitation scheme.