Union Minister of State (Independent Representative) for Science and Technology; Minister of State (Independent Representative) for Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh today launched India’s first truly indigenous hydrogen fuel cell developed by KPIT-CSIR in Pune.
Dr Jitendra Singh told the gathering that Prime Minister Modi’s hydrogen vision is important for India to ensure Atma Nirbhar means affordable and accessible clean energy, meet climate change goals and create new entrepreneurs and jobs. He said green hydrogen is an excellent clean energy vector that enables deep decarbonization of difficult-to-reduce emissions from the refining industry, fertilizer industry, steel industry, cement industry, as well as the heavy commercial transport sector.
Dr Jitendra Singh said the high efficiency of fuel cell vehicles and the high energy density of hydrogen ensures that the operating cost in rupees per kilometer of fuel cell trucks and buses is lower than that of diesel vehicles, which can revolutionize the freight transport. In addition, fuel cell vehicles produce zero greenhouse gas emissions. Appreciating the joint development efforts of KPIT and CSIR-NCL, the minister pointed out that the technological prowess of Indian scientists and engineers is no less than the best in the world and that too at a much lower cost.
Dr. Jitendra Singh pointed out that about 12-14% of CO2 and PM emissions come from dieselpowered heavy commercial vehicles and are decentralized emissions and therefore difficult to capture. The minister said that hydrogen-powered vehicles are an excellent means of eliminating road emissions from the sector. He said India is also seeking to increase inland waterways for cargo and passenger transport.
Dr Jitendra Singh concluded that by achieving these goals, India can leapfrog from being a net importer of fossil energy to a net exporter of clean hydrogen energy, thereby securing India’s global leadership in the hydrogen space by becoming a major producer and supplier of green hydrogen. green hydrogen facility.Later, Dr Jitendra Singh inaugurated the Bisphenol-A pilot plant at CSIR-NCL and said that these pilot plants have successfully demonstrated the new process technologies developed by NCL under CSIR’s Covid-19 Mission Program and Bulk Chemicals Mission Programme.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that Bisphenol-A (BPA) is an important raw material for the production of epoxy resins, polycarbonate and other engineering plastics. He said that the global bisphenol-A market is expected to reach 7.1 million tons by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 2% during the analysis period 2020-2027. India’s entire estimated annual demand of 1,35,000 tonnes is imported today. The minister hoped that the CSIR-NCL technology would enable import substitution of this important raw material and help India’s Atmanirbhar initiative. The uniqueness of the process developed by CSIR-NCL is the new downstream process technology that makes this indigenous technology competitive with global benchmarks. The process is ready for technology transfer and further joint development to commercial scale.
