Dr Amrit Goswamee
(Retired Chief Scientist-CSIR-NEIST, Jorhat)
The West Asia conflict has been creating a serious crisis in the energy sector across the globe. India is the third largest energy consumer. India imports 50% of its crude oil, 60% of LPG and 50% of PNG from the Gulf region that transits through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical energy corridor facing stringent restrictions due to America-Israel’s joint operational war with Iran since 28 February, 2026. As far as LPG is concerned, although the government of India is assuring the availability of stock for more than two and a half months, people are in a baffled state to feel under the weather, having observed the measures adopted by the government, such as raising the prices of both commercial by Rs 196 and domestic cylinders by Rs 60, reducing the weight of the cylinders to 10 kg, booking period restrictions, etc. There are 332 million LPG connections in India, and the total import bill to meet this requirement reached $26.8 billion in the financial bill 2024-25 – a 50% jump in the last six years. India is trying to diversify LPG sources, securing supplies from the US, Norway, Russia, Canada and also from Argentina, and state-run companies IOCL, BPCL and HPCL have signed a deal to import 2.2 million tonnes of LPG in 2026, and some supplies have already arrived. But the economics of transportation is a major factor. Generally it takes 5-7 days for a vessel to reach India from West Asia, around 40-42 days from the US, Canada and Argentina and about 35 days from Russia and Norway. Consequently, the freight charges for non-Gulf LPG will be higher by as much as 40% compared to LPG that comes via Hormuz, resulting in costing an arm and a leg in cylinder price. At such a critical juncture, the country needs cheap but sustainable and viable alternatives. There are, of course, few options to meet this crisis, such as the use of biogas from organic waste generated through a fermentation process using methanogenic bacteria or opting for electric mode using an induction cooker affixed with a technically advanced smart thermostat called Open Automated Demand Response, or OpenADR, that can adjust their consumption automatically. However, there are certain bottlenecks in both the options, such as non-availability of centralised and integrated production of biogas due to segregation issues of organic wastes from other wastes; uncertainty in the supply chain; purification of methane gas from other associated gases, such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen sulphide, etc., formed along with it; incompatibility of LPG cooking wares in induction cookers; non-availability of multiple-burner induction stoves in the market; electrical load in the grid; uncertainty in uninterrupted power supply, etc.
It may be noted in this context that former Director General of CSIR, the late Dr Hussain Zaheer, during his tenure as Director of CSIR-IICT, Hyderabad, in the late fifties, submitted a proposal to the then Prime Minister of India, the late Jawaharlal Nehru, for a cross-country national gas grid to supply high calorific value pipe gas called at that time ‘town gas’ for domestic as well as industrial use, generating it by gasifying indigenously available non-caking bituminous, lignite or shale coal under high pressure and using oxygen to maintain a high thermal efficiency. Initially Dr Zaheer’s proposal did not get approval. After he became DG, CSIR, he submitted the proposal in a modified way, and Nehru agreed upon it. Accordingly, he arranged equipment for the process, importing from Germany for pilot demonstration at CSIR-IICT, the then RRLH. However, after his retirement in 1966 for various reasons, pressure from different departments, the coal council and even within CSIR, the proposal was left out in the cold. Although after several reviews and controversies the coal gasification project at RRLH received the go-ahead in 1972 and the project also received an unexpected boost, such as meeting the oil shock in October 1973, by that time the technology had moved to the next level, and no R&D improvement could be done due to lack of proper budgetary support. But every cloud has a silver lining. A team of scientists of CSIR-NCL, Pune, under the leadership of Dr Thirumalaiswamy Raja, through their relentless R&D effort for the last twenty years, have transformed the old coal gasification concept to a splendiferous technology, bringing it to a new height. The product dimethyl ether (DME), which was formed from gasification of coal under pressure, can also be prepared from biomass (organic wastes and agricultural wastes) as well and can be used as an alternative to LPG, saving a sizable amount of the import bill and helping to make Atmanirbhar Bharat. Gasification of coal or biomass is done at around 800°C under thermochemical conditions in a controlled oxygen-starved environment to produce syngas (a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide in almost a 6:1 ratio), and then the syngas thus formed is transformed first into methanol, and then finally methanol is dehydrated to dimethyl ether (DME) in the presence of a mixed metal catalyst consisting of copper and zinc oxide supported on alumina. The patented technology is known to operate efficiently at relatively low pressures of 10 bar, enabling cost-effective production, and has been tested for high selectivity (>98%). The process has been made a pilot demonstration for 250 kg per day with plans to scale up to 250 tonnes. The produced DME can be successfully used 100% as cooking gas with a specially designed burner or by blending 20% or more with LPG. Dimethyl ether (DME), of course, has a lower calorific value of approximately 28.8 MJ/kg, while LPG has a higher calorific value of around 46–50 MJ/kg. While DME has roughly 60% of the energy density by weight compared to LPG, it burns more efficiently and produces no soot. It may be noted that burning 1 kg DME releases 1.9-2 kg carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, whereas burning 1 kg LPG emits 2.9-3 kg carbon dioxide. Further, carbon dioxide released from the burning of bio-based DME is considered carbon neutral, whereas carbon dioxide released from the burning of fossil-based LPG brings impact in climate change. Dimethyl Ether (DME) cylinders are intended to be a cost-effective, cleaner alternative to LPG, potentially priced lower due to domestic production, although they contain about 30% less energy per kilogram. While 14.2 kg LPG cylinders cost approximately Rs 850-Rs 960 in India as of early 2026, a 20% DME-LPG blend aims to reduce costs by roughly Rs 200 per cylinder. The Government of India should strongly focus on replacing LPG with DME as the future cooking gas for the country, considering the need to reduce the high import bill and the points mentioned above.