India's Ethanol Push for Environment Fuels Water Crisis

India is heavily promoting the blending of ethanol into gasoline as a clean energy initiative to reduce air pollution. However, this effort is inadvertently intensifying water scarcity, as producing one liter of ethanol requires approximately 10,000 liters of water. A significant portion of India's total ethanol production, around 18.22 billion liters, comes from water-scarce regions like Delhi and Maharashtra. Producing 1 liter of ethanol requires about 2.5 to 3 kilograms of rice, and growing 1 kilogram of rice needs 3,000 to 5,000 liters of water. India aims to increase the amount of rice used for ethanol production from 5.2 million tons in FY2024-25 to 9 million tons in FY2025-26, partly to reduce reliance on imported crude oil. The National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog) has warned that by 2030, groundwater levels in 21 major Indian cities, including Delhi and Bengaluru, could drop to zero. Ethanol production is concentrated in already water-stressed areas like Vidarbha and Marathwada, where farmers struggle for drinking water. Ethanol factories in Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka are also drawing from groundwater classified as "severely depleted." While sugarcane is also used for ethanol, producing 1 liter requires about 3,636 liters of water, and sugarcane cultivation has already lowered groundwater levels in some areas. The expansion of energy crop cultivation, including rice and sugarcane for ethanol, is leading to severe water shortages and impacting millions of lives across India.