India’s Renewable Energy Potential Remains Untapped

India’s Renewable Energy Potential Remains Untapped

Darshan Goswami, Contributor
July 23, 2013

India has tremendous energy needs and an increasing difficulty in meeting those needs through traditional means of power generation. On July 30th and 31st, 2012 the world's largest blackout, The Great Indian Outage, stretching from New Delhi to Kolkata occurred. This blackout, due to failure of the northern power grid, caused nearly 700 million people — twice the population of the United States — to be without electricity.

A grid failure of such magnitude has thrown light onto India's massive demand for electricity, together with its struggle to generate as much power as it needs. India is aiming to expand its power-generation capacity by 44 percent over the next five years but recent problems indicate the scale of the challenge. Even before the blackout, in June of 2012, the country's power generation fell short by 5.8 percent when confronted with a peak-hour demand of 128 GW, according to Government data.

Electricity consumption in India has been increasing at one of the fastest rates in the world due to population growth and economic development. India’s economy faces increasing challenges because energy supply is struggling to keep pace with demand, and there are energy shortages (as much as 15 percent daily) almost everywhere in the country. Such chronic lack of energy and unreliable supplies threaten India’s economic growth.

So, what can India do to meet the future energy demands and help eliminate wide-ranging power outages in the future? The Government needs to make an assessment of how best to address the power needs to meet the future growth and prevent such massive power failures. India’s power blackout is an opportunity for developing sustainable energy solutions.

For economic as well as environmental reasons India needs to shift to non-polluting renewable sources of energy to meet future demand for electricity. Renewable energy is the most attractive investment because it will provide long-term economic growth for India. A favorable renewable energy policy could create millions of new jobs and an economic stimulus of at least US$1 trillion, and perhaps much more if all indirect economic (ripple) effects are included. "India is the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy sources and if properly utilized, India can realize its place in the world as a great power," Rifkin says.

Himalayas: the agenda for development and environment

Himalayas: the agenda for development and environment

Author(s): Sunita Narain @sunitanar
Date:Jun 28, 2013

The recent events in Uttarakhand have shown, more than ever, that we need a development strategy for the Himalayas that takes into account the vulnerability of the region and the need for environment protection. There is no doubt that the region needs economic growth. But this development cannot come at the cost of the environment. It will only make the already risk-prone and ecologically fragile region more vulnerable and development more “deadly”. We also know that climate change will exacerbate the vulnerability of this already fragile ecosystem 

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The question is what should be the development strategy for this region? Most importantly, we need to think about a pan-Himalayan strategy so that states can evolve common policies and not follow the race to the bottom. 

More Uttarakhand disasters in the offing

More Uttarakhand disasters in the offing
Author(s): Indrajit Bose @boseindrajit

Date:Jun 28, 2013
The cloudburst-induced flood in Uttarakhand was a disaster waiting to happen. The state’s draft action plan on climate change is full of such warnings. A prudent document, it captures vulnerability assessments on Uttarakhand, people’s perceptions of climate change and how they are getting affected by the change. The document is also a comment on the development model in the state and raises several points about how development should not be done in an ecologically fragile region. The draft plan also gives a long list of activities that the state has planned or is planning to make its people more resilient, but it is a case of too little, too late as far as the current floods are concerned.

Vulnerable state

Uttarakhand has been a story of droughts, landslides and floods. In 2008 and 2009, the state experienced severe drought conditions. In 2010, people had to grapple with floods, flash floods, landslides and cloud bursts. Little wonder that the draft plan says “Uttarakhand is most vulnerable to climate-mediated risks”. 

Banbasa dam caused flood in Nepal, Uttar Pradesh

Banbasa dam caused flood in Nepal, Uttar Pradesh

Author(s): Soma Basu @sbasu_in
Date:Jun 28, 2013

Sluice gates were opened on June 22 following unprecedented water build up

Government officials claim that dams contained floods in many areas in Uttarkhand during the recent cloudburst and extreme rain events, and that the devastation would have been much more severe if it were not for these structures. But this was hardly true in the case of Banbasa barrage in Champawat district, bordering Nepal. The sluice gates of the barrage were opened after water upstream of it swelled to unprecedented levels. The flooding caused by sudden release of such large quantity of water submerged villages in Nepal and in Lakhimpur Kheri district in Uttar Pradesh where 41 people reportedly died.

Residents of Banwasa say the river Sarda or Kali and Mahakali, as it is known in Uttarakhand and Nepal, started swelling from June 19. Water behind the dam increased to 544,000 cusecs on June 20, which was more than the previous high of 522,000 cusecs in 1934, said Devendra Singh assistant engineer with National Hydroelectrioc Power Corporation (NHPC). The sluice gates were opened because there was a lot of debris which would have damaged the dam. Singh informed that a column of the dam in Bhujela village on no man's land on the border had collapsed in the floods.

For More: http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/banbasa-dam-caused-flood-nepal-uttar-pradesh

Comment by Anumakonda Jagadeesh

Yet another calamity.

This science buff wants to solve energy crisis

This science buff wants to solve energy crisis
June 29, 2013
For over a year, this 14-year-old has been obsessed with one quest: producing ethanol from rain tree fruits.

Inspired by one of his mentors who works in the field of alternative energy, he wanted to find a brand new method to produce ethanol so it could be mixed with conventional fuels and used in automobiles, says Aman Malali, a Class 10 student at the Kendriya Vidyalaya, Yeshwantpur.



He believes that his research can lead to alternatives or solutions to the fuel crisis. His project was among the top 90 shortlisted for the Google Science Fair 2013 from across the globe.

Meet the one city in America where cars have been banned since 1898

Meet the one city in America where cars have been banned since 1898
Stephen Messenger / Living / Culture / June 28, 2013

When early automobiles first arrived on the scene in the late 19th century, few people could have imagined that they would one day take over the world. In fact, some towns found the noise and exhaust from these novelty 'horseless carriages' so off-putting that early cars were actually outlawed in some places.

In time, of course, restrictions were lifted and the car soon became ubiquitous across the country -- but there is still one place in the United States that has yet to change its mind. Meet Mackinac Island, where cars have been banned since 1898.

Located just offshore of mainland Michagan, in Lake Huron, Mackinac Islandand its namesake city have long been a favorite spot for a relaxing getaway. So, when automobiles first began to arrive, loudly sputtering along the island's once-quiet roadways, startling horses and spitting out smoke, it quickly became apparent to locals that this new invention was not for them.

One resident at the time was quoted as calling cars "mechanical monsters" -- clearly not a glowing review.

Waste heat from computers will cool other computers

Waste heat from computers will cool other computers

By Janet Fang | June 27, 2013, 1:33 PM PDT

Say you can’t move your entire data center to the edge of the Arctic Circle, where it’s constantly frigid and the electricity is cheap. How do you cool the furnace-like heat that big data-storage spaces generate?

Use hot water from computers to drive the refrigeration of others. IEEE Spectrum reports.

“The electrical energy that goes into the computer is converted into heat, essentially, and if you could reuse that heat somehow, then you recover a large part of the energy and the cost that you put into this,” says Tilo Wettig at the University of Regensburg in Germany.

Transition failure

Transition failure
Author(s): Jitendra @jitendrachoube1 , Aparna Pallavi @AparnaPallavi1 , Akshay Deshmane @DeshmaneAkshay , Alok Gupta @alok227 , M Suchitra | Jun 30, 2013 | From the print edition

With an eye on the 2014 general election, the UPA government is expanding its ambitious Direct Benefit Transfer programme that promises welfare as cash in bank accounts. But without any groundwork it is only creating more trouble for beneficiaries.

Come July 1, the UPA government will roll out the second phase of its ambitious programme, Direct Benefit Transfer or DBT. The programme aims to transfer welfare benefits, such as scholarship, pension and subsidies, directly to the bank accounts of the beneficiaries. When the government kicked off the first phase in 43 districts in January this year, it hyped DBT as a “game changer” in the way it provides benefits to the people.

The controversy-hit UPA sees the programme as its trump card for the 2014 general election. It plans to expand DBT to 78 districts, covering almost a fifth of the country.

Amaranth offers Mexicans promising corn alternative

Amaranth offers Mexicans promising corn alternative

Margaret Badore / Science / Sustainable Agriculture / June 26, 2013

Corn is a dietary staple in much of the world that's threatened by climate change. This problem is particularly acute in Mexico, where corn tortillas and tamales are an important part of food culture. A different traditional grain could offer a solution to the difficulties of growing corn in an unstable climate.

Sam Eaton explores the agricultural and nutritional benefits of amaranth, as part of The World's "What's for Lunch" series on food and climate.

How to Grow All Your Food on a Tenth of an Acre

How to Grow All Your Food on a Tenth of an Acre

Sami Grover /Science / Sustainable Agriculture / November 14, 2012

As a committed lazivore, I've always loved the idea of no dig gardening. It requires minimal labor. It allows natural systems to do the work for you. And it avoids many of the evils of industrialized food production—most notably soil compaction and the exposure of soil organisms to the elements.

Other hardcore sustainable gardeners take a different approach however. Most notably, the biointensive method of gardening recommends double digging garden beds to break up both top soil and subsoil, and then working in large amounts of organic matter. It's a technique that, proponents claim, can result in huge amounts of food being grown on relatively tiny plots. In fact, says Robin Mankey of the Grow Biointensive demonstration garden in Palo Alto, it is possible to grow most of your diet on about one tenth of an acre of land. 

Possible And Profitable Action On Climate Change: Danish Minister Praises Obama’s New Plan

Possible And Profitable Action On Climate Change: Danish Minister Praises Obama’s New Plan

By Martin Lidegaard, Guest Blogger on Jun 26, 2013 at 4:13 pm

President Obama’s Climate Action Plan is promising. Curbing global warming will demand serious action from all of us. Needless to say, US leadership makes a great difference. Denmark is a mouse compared to the US elephant, but our experience proves that the President’s Plan is indeed possible and can be profitable. Over the past 30 years, the Danish economy has grown steadily, while energy efficiency has kept our energy consumption at the same level in absolute terms.

Lower Greenhouse Gases In The Coal Sector

The US will impose regulations for new and existing coal-fired power plants. That is good news and absolutely critical if the world is to stay below a 2 degree Celsius rise in global temperature, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). IEA proposes limitations on inefficient coal-fired power plants. In Denmark we will phase out coal completely and move towards a fossil-free power and heating system by 2035. This means that no new coal plants will be built and existing capacity is being retrofitted to biomass and other sources.

More Renewable Energy In The Mix

The US will use federal lands for renewable energy aiming for an additional 10,000 MW by 2020. That is good news as well. Denmark has long had wind as a major part of the power mix and with the recent national Energy Agreement half of our electricity consumption will be supplied by wind in 2020 while we still have electricity prices – excl. VAT and energy tax but incl. Public Service Obligations (PSO) for supporting renewables – below the European average. Wind power is a good long term investment because the marginal price pr kWh is next to nothing once the turbines are up and the blades are spinning. With a free power market wind is actually driving down power prices. And renewable energy delivers local jobs and economic growth.

The cost of development in Himalaya

The cost of development in Himalaya

Author(s): Sunita Narain
Date:Jun 23, 2013

There is a link between the disaster and the manner in which development has been carried out in this ecologically fragile region

(Courtesy Indian Army)

The extent of the Himalayan tsunami is still unfolding as I write. It is clear that we do not know how many people are still trapped under rubble; cut off by landslides and desperate for food and water. The human cost of this calamity will be horrendous, it is feared.

But even as governments and the army work on rescue and relief work, we must ask the question if this is only a natural disaster or has human action and inaction exacerbated the scale and magnitude of the tragedy?

Himalaya are the world’s youngest mountain range; they are prone to erosion, landslides and seismic activity and brutal rainstorms lash the region. Therefore, this region is vulnerable and fragile. But two human-induced factors make it even more risk-prone today.

Cleaning Up Diesel Trucks and Cooking Stoves Could Reduce Climate Change

Cleaning Up Diesel Trucks and Cooking Stoves Could Reduce Climate Change

By Kevin Bullis on June 18, 2013

Cutting our overall use of fossil fuels has proved a daunting challenge, but it might be possible to get some relief from the effects of climate change by selectively reducing the particulate pollution we produce. Recent research suggests that if we can clean up diesel engines and primitive cookstoves in India and China, for example, that could delay the effects of greenhouse-gas buildup even if pollution from coal-fired power plants persists. 

A study released last week concludes that if every country were to do what California has done in the last couple of decades to clean up diesel emissions, it would slow down global warming by 15 percent. Reducing similar pollution from sources such as ships and cookstoves—which weren’t included in the study—could help even more.

The study comes as governments in India and China are deciding how to address their increasing pollution, which can contribute to fatal human health problems. Over the weekend, state-controlled media in China announced new pollution rules targeting both power plants and emissions from cars and trucks.

Aerosol pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, soot, and ozone are all bad for human health, but they have different effects on the climate. “Some of the aerosols are warming the planet, and some are cooling the planet,” says Phil Rasch, a fellow at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington. For example, sulfates that form from coal-plant exhaust reflect sunlight back into space, acting to shade the planet and cool it off. Black-carbon particles from diesel exhaust, on the other hand, absorb sunlight and heat up, warming the atmosphere.

“When you add them together, we think that on balance they’re cooling the planet,” Rasch says. That is, they mask some of the temperature increase that would have occurred as a result of carbon dioxide emissions, the main human contribution to global warming. But this effect would be more significant if the particulates that help heat up the atmosphere were removed. “If we could get rid of the ones that are warming the planet,” he says, “then that would buy us some more time.”

Flash floods are man-made

Flash floods are man-made
Author(s): Anupam Chakravartty
Sep 30, 2012 | From the print edition

Environmental geologist K S Valdiya lives in Uttarakhand and keeps a tab on the changing geological processes in the Himalayan region. He was recently conferred with the G M Modi Award for Innovative Science and Technology for his contribution in the fields of Himalayan geology and neotectonics. Formerly a member of the prime minister’s science advisory council, Valdiya tells Anupam Chakravartty what triggered the recent landslide in Uttarkashi

K S Valdiya

Flash floods are becoming recurrent in the Himalaya as well as in other parts of India. What are the geological processes that could trigger them?

Flash floods have little to do with geology. They are related to the rainfall pattern that has changed considerably over the years due to warming up of the atmosphere. There has been evidence that with increasing atmospheric temperature, precipitation during the rainy season is no longer uniform. In summers there is prolonged drought followed by short spells of heavy rainfall. So quick and vast is the rate of precipitation that there is not enough time for water to percolate down the soil. To worsen the situation, there is hardly any tree cover; soil is compacted to the extent that it becomes impermeable. This results in increased river discharge and flash floods.

Gururaj Deshpande: Fuelling a passion for innovation

Gururaj Deshpande: Fuelling a passion for innovation
GORDON PITTS | The Globe and Mail

Published Sunday, Nov. 04 2012, 7:00 PM EST

Gururaj (Desh) Deshpande is the one who got away – the young engineer who left Canada, launched a batch of U.S. start-ups, built an influential foundation, and has served as an adviser to President Barack Obama. Now, at 61, he is putting money and ideas into the Pond-Deshpande Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at University of New Brunswick – where he had arrived as an Indian graduate student in the early 1970s. Teaming up with local tech investor Gerry Pond, Mr. Deshpande seeks innovation that meets both commercial and social needs. 

And he knows the ups and downs of innovation. His high-tech winner of more than a decade ago, Sycamore Networks, recently announced it will be liquidated and will sell its technology. “Sycamore is a public company and we have to do what is in the best interest of the shareholders,” Mr. Deshpande, still chairman, said in an e-mail.

Pesticides Spark Broad Biodiversity Loss

Pesticides Spark Broad Biodiversity Loss

By Sharon Oosthoek and Nature magazine

Agricultural pesticides have been linked to widespread invertebrate biodiversity loss in two new research papers.

Pesticide use has sharply reduced the regional biodiversity of stream invertebrates, such as mayflies and dragonflies, in Europe and Australia, finds astudy published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Previous research has shown similar decreases in individual streams, but the study by Mikhail Beketov, an aquatic ecologist at the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research in Leipzig, Germany, and his colleagues analyzed the effects of pesticides over broad regions.

The team examined 23 streams in the central plains of Germany, 16 in the western plains of France and 24 in southern Victoria, Australia. They classified streams according to three different levels of pesticide contamination: uncontaminated, slightly contaminated and highly contaminated.

The researchers found that there were up to 42% fewer species in highly contaminated than in uncontaminated streams in Europe. Highly contaminated streams in Australia showed a decrease in the number of invertebrate families by up to 27% when contrasted with uncontaminated streams.

Delhi witnesses record June flood

Delhi witnesses record June flood
Author(s): Bharat Lal Seth

In the past few days several thousands were evacuated from low lying areas in the national capital after the water level of the river Yamuna touched 207.32 metre, just centimetres short of the maximum level during the infamous 1978 floods in Delhi. The level was well above the danger mark of 204.83 metre. While one child died, carried away by the strong current at Wazirabad in north-east Delhi, many others had to be evacuated from low-lying areas. The Yamuna spilled over its banks as unprecedented rainfall and the consequent discharge from the upper reaches inundated the Ring Road.

“Periodical floods of varying magnitudes are natural phenomena. The very concepts of 25-year flood, 50-year flood and 100-year flood show that this will happen from time to time; only we can't say when,” says Ramaswamy Iyer, former secretary of the ministry of water resources. Others have alluded to the odd timing of the rainfall and flood event given that this rise in water levels in mid June is unprecedented. “Similar rise is plausible, welcome and accepted in July and August,” says Manoj Misra, convenor of Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan, a campaign front in Delhi against the encroachment of rivers' floodplains. In fact, most of the high flood levels have historically been attained in the month of September (see graph).

Coal Pollution and the Fight For Environmental Justice

Coal Pollution and the Fight For Environmental Justice by Diane Toomey

When the NAACP recently released a report on the disproportionate effects of coal-fired plants on minorities, Jacqueline Patterson led the efforts to spread its message that these facilities were “killing low-income communities and communities of color.”

Patterson is the Environmental and Climate Justice Director for the venerable civil rights organization — a job whose purpose is sometimes questioned by the NAACP’s own constituents. As Patterson puts it, “Some of the communities I work in were like, ‘Well, we’re dealing with double digit unemployment and people dying of AIDS, people being racially profiled, high murder rates. How is melting ice caps and polar bear extinction going to become a priority for us?’”

In an interview with Yale Environment 360 contributor Diane Toomey, Patterson discusses how she answers that thorny question and outlines the reasons behind the NAACP’s campaign to shut down coal-fired plants. She also talks about the often-difficult relationship between environmental justice organizations and major U.S. green groups. “We need to have tough conversations around organizational culture,” she says. “And we need more joint strategizing on how we can collaborate more effectively.”

Yale Environment 360: A few months ago, the NAACP released a report entitled “Coal Blooded: Putting Profits Before People.” It examined the effects of coal-fired plants on minority communities in the U.S. Paint a picture of who is most likely to live near these power plants.

Innovative People's Technologies by Anumakonda Jagadeesh

Rs 5,000 cr innovation fund to be launched soon: Pitroda

Rs 5,000 cr innovation fund to be launched soon: Pitroda
STAFF WRITER 22:29 HRS IST

National Innovation Council Chairman Sam Pitroda today said a Rs 5,000 crore fund to support innovations would be launched soon.

"We have an innovation fund that we are launching... a Rs 5,000 crore innovations fund with focus on affordability, scalability and sustainability," Pitroda said on the sidelines of an event here.

"The real innovation has to come from the bottom of the pyramid," he added.

For More: http://www.ptinews.com/news/3724474_Rs-5-000-cr-innovation-fund-to-be-launched-soon--Pitroda