India’s accelerated ethanol blending programme has been framed as a strategy for energy security and decarbonisation. Acceleration is as much political as technical, reshaping supply chains, territorial control and state-market relations. As ethanol production is agroecologically embedded, rapid expansion reconfigures land and water regimes, reproducing patterns of enclosure, adverse incorporation, and uneven development. Further, the promise of second-generation and advanced biofuels operates as a legitimating horizon that authorises rapid first-generation expansion.