From Liquid To Vapour: NITI’s Push To Use Methanol As Cooking, Commercial Fuel 

The NITI aayog has prepared a plan to adopt Methanol as the preferred cooking and commercial fuel with the aim to reduce the import bill by $100 billion, Economic Times has reported. Methanol is considered to be a clean fuel. Therefore it will aid in combating pollution as well. It is estimated that methanol fuel will be able to reduce pollution by 40 per cent.

Manufacturing plants to produce methanol fuel based stoves will be setup in Bengaluru and Assam. Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra have been identified as future methanol stove manufacturing locations. The technology for this stove has been obtained from Sweden. Larger stoves for commercial use will be imported.

Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizers & Chemicals, Rashtriya Chemicals & Fertilizers and Assam Petrochemicals are the companies involved in methanol production. Unlike LPG which is available in the liquefied form, methanol fuel will be available in vapour form.

Methanol cooking fuel will be available for consumers in canisters of 1.2 kg for a cost of Rs 32. A conventional LPG cylinder is equivalent to 18 canisters of 1.2 kg methanol fuel. Methanol fuel can be manufactured industrially from coal oil or biomass. It is cheaper to produce compared to other fuels. A wide variety of feedstock can be used to manufacture methanol. It is also a safe fuel due to its low flammability.