It is finally here – the Ethanol revolution is finally at our doorstep. Or should I say, at the doorstep of our cars and other vehicles. What had remained a E20 i.e. 20% Ethanol and 80% petroleum mixture in our fuel, is now all set to increase to E22, E27, E30, and eventually even up to E80 or E100. This Ethanol revolution has been a long time coming in India. Its roots began sprouting in the early 2000s, but it remained inactive for nearly two decades.
Now its 2026, and as the Ethanol push is taking action in its literal sense, let’s have a detailed look at the hidden cost of this Ethanol revolution, that is soon going to engulf all our vehicles and how it will impact lives in other areas.
Since 2025, E20 fuel has become the default fuel at almost all petrol stations in India. It remained so for more than a year now. On 5th June, 2026, our Petroleum minister Hardeep Singh Puri had inaugurated the E85 fuel at an Indian Oil petrol pump in New Delhi. This is just the beginning of what is about to unfold in this country.
From June till now, around 48 outlets across the nation are serving the E85 petrol to us. This is also a staggering rise from just one Indian Oil pump in New Delhi on June 5. The plan is to reach 5000 outlets by 2027.
What Were the Alternatives Available?
Before we jumpt to the true cost of using ethanol fuel, let’s have a quick look at what are the alternatives. One of the biggest push in vehicle infrastructure that has been happening globally is ‘Electric Vehicle’ or EV. India is not far behind in the race there. So, Electric Vehicles could’ve and should’ve been the answer there. It costs around INR 1-1.5 per km to travel in a EV.
In comparison, it costs more than INR 6 per km for a petrol car. Therefore, EVs should’ve been the answer. But then what happened?
Well, the answer lies in time and infrastructure. It takes a very long time to convert all of India’s vehicles, which includes roughly 270 million two-wheelers, into EV. It won’t happen overnight. In fact, it might take decades before it is completing.
But then, India needs to stop its reliance on crude oil import from the Gulf nations such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and UAE. To stop this reliance and become a self-sustaining economy, i.e., “Aatmanirbhar,” we came up this Ethanol approach. But little did common Indians know about its hidden disadvantages and cost.
What is the True Cost of Using Ethanol in Our Fuel?
To discuss and determine the true cost of using Ethanol in our fuel, we have to distribute it into three sections:
1. Ethanol is Hygroscopic
Ethanol is Hygroscopic. It means that it pulls moisture in the air. So, over time, the moisture corrodes the metal fuel lines and eats away the rubber and plastic parts of our Engine. We are seeing countless cases, that are being shared on social media, of common people with their vehicles sharing how their vehicles have been affected in different ways due to the Ethanol.
Some share corroded engine parts, some are sharing the metal in the lid of their petrol chamber is destroyed, and some show engines with ants and bees swarming around it. The latter is due to the use of sugarcane juice to make this Ethanol. None of this are a suitable scenario for a vehicle owner in India.
2. Ethanol Requires a Voracious Amount of Water
Ethanol essentially comes from three different crops. They are Maize, Sugarcane, and Rice or Paddy fields. For the E20 ethanol that is being used, 70% of that ethanol comes from grain products, i.e. Rice and Maize. The remaining 30% of ethanol comes from sugarcane. Now, here’s the catch – All of these crops are highly water guzzling crops.
To fetch 1 liter of Ethanol from Maize, we would need 4500 liters of water, 3500 liters of water from sugarcane, and at the peak position is rice that consumes more than 10,000 liters of water. All of these water usage is putting a strain on our already water scarce economy.
It is mainly affecting the states of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, the two Indian states with most drought-prone regions, and with the most production of the aforementioned crops.
3. Ethanol Should Cost Less Money, But it Didn’t
In one of Nitin Gadkari’s, our Road and Transport Minister, older speech, he is speaking about how the usage of ethanol will drop the prices of petrol to a mouthwatering amount of only INR 15 per liter. It hasn’t happened so. As a matter of fact, it has further gone up to INR 111 per liter.
But the promise of costing less was true. Ethanol is supposed to cost much less than crude oil, whose import bill for India was estimated to be somewhere around$137 billion. But that benefit of less cost isn’t shared with the Indian public.
Therefore, Ethanol might be good on paper, and to some, it may even be the future of India. But there is a hefty fine we are paying for it ans we don’t even realize it. As for a June 2026 report, Ethanol blending saved over INR 1.84 lakh crore in foreign exchange.
It also avoided 909 lakh metric tonnes reduction in CO2 emissions. And as a result, a well over INR 1.58 lakh crores were put into the hands of farmers. While this was a rare good and successful result of using ethanol, the adverse impacts here were too low to even notice. But when we shift to E85 or even E100, that’s when we are bound to feel the true strain on our society.
