India is home to a billion people, about a sixth of the world's population. The demand for mobility and automobiles in India has also been growing along with the economic progress. Passenger vehicle sales in India crossed the million mark last year and this has been spread over different classes of vehicles.

The country faces problems in regard to the fuel requirement for increased transportation demand and now imports about 70 per cent of its petroleum requirement. Widely fluctuating world prices of oil have long been a destabilizing element for the country's balance of payments. The petroleum import bill is now about $13 billion forming about 30 per cent of the national import bill and is expected to reach $15.7 billion by 2006-07. The current yearly consumption of diesel is about 40 million tonnes forming 40 per cent of the total petroleum product consumption. This is expected to reach 52.32 million tonnes by 2006-07 growing at about 5.6 per cent annually.
 

In view of the impending crisis, GROWDIESEL Consortium, a decentralized partnership consisting of a coalition of farmers, scientists, entrepreneurs and corporate who are partners in a value chain is striving hard to manufacture & consume GROWDIESEL - a sustainable alternative to fossil fuel. GROWDIESEL is a domestically produced, renewable, biodegradable and nontoxic replacement to fossil diesel.
 

Researchers, Scientists, entrepreneurs and industry delegates from across the globe attended a well-organised Algae Biofuel Workshop 2010 recently in New Delhi. The workshop was supported by the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy and other global organizations.
 

Industry experts from home and abroad, technologists, biofuel companies, scientists, investors, oil companies, policy-makers concluded that algae can be the best source of biofuels on the planet that we know till date. Algae' farming for oil is the next biggest opportunity for the Biofuel industry.

Algae, like corn, soybeans, sugar cane, Jatropha, and other plants, use photosynthesis to convert solar energy into chemical energy. They store this energy in the form of oils, carbohydrates, and proteins. The plant oil can be converted to biodiesel; hence biodiesel is a form of solar energy. The more efficient a particular plant is at converting that solar energy into chemical energy, the better it is from a biodiesel perspective, and algae are among the most photosynthetically efficient plants on earth.

One hectare algae farm on wasteland can produce over 10 to 100 times of oil as compared to any other known source of oil-crops. While a crop cycle may take from three months to three years for production, algae can start producing oil within 3-5 days & thereafter oil can be harvested on daily basis (just like milk). Algae can be grown using sea water & non-potable water on wastelands where nothing else grows. It is firmly reinforced that algae' farming for biofuels is expected to provide a conclusive solution to food vs. fuel debate.