pee power

What a way to arrive

Propelled By P-Power


SOON , if you got to go, you can actually zoom! The mavens at Ohio University reportedly are on record that urine-powered cars, home appliances and personal electronic devices could all be available in a matter of months, with new technology now in the pipeline. The gameplan is to use nickel-based electrodes to make large amounts of cheap hydrogen when making water, which could be burned in specially designed fuel cells. But then, the idea of pee power is not particularly novel. Its really based on hydrogen , the most common element in the universe. However , its one that has hugely resisted efforts to produce, store and transport at a reasonable cost. Besides, keeping pure hydrogen gas tightly sealed calls for high pressure and low temperature. Now, theres talk of new nanomaterials which can absorb hydrogen, but the contraptions are yet to be produced on a commercial scale.
Purists would want to chemically bind hydrogen to an element like oxygen, to have water aqua pura. This way, it certainly makes it easier to store and transport the feedstock alright, but releasing the hydrogen when needed does require financially ruinous amounts of electricity. Hence the prime import of pee. For, by attaching hydrogen to another element, nitrogen readily present in uric acid the hydrogen can be stored sans artificial conditions, and then released very economically, using just a wee bit of power. Peeing can have other uses too, say in space. The new Water Recovery System aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour can apparently transform ordinary pee into water so pure that it is said to rival the cleanest on Earth. Nonetheless, the real potential for pee power would be closer home. People in the know say urine from just one cow would be enough to light up a dozen homes in our rural areas. Or, imagine being able to relieve, recharge ones batteries and be rearing to go. For the upwardly mobile, what a way to arrive!

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SOLAR PASSIVE ARCHITECTURE

PERFECTLY GREEN

The ideal green office doesnt exist but heres one we built using eco-friendly features, like double glazed glass, terrace gardens, skylights etc from six buildings dotted around the country

Shobha John | TNN


First , it was outsourcing . Now, it is greening . The world can look at Indias green fingers with renewed respect after US secretary of state Hillary Clinton recently called the ITC Green Centre in Gurgaon a monument to the future. Clinton's comments came just weeks after a survey of 100 Indian companies found a marked increase in green consciousness.
The survey, by Johnson Controls, a consultant in energy efficiency management, found that 72% of Indian firms were green compared to just 39% in the US. So just how green is the Indian office And what makes a building green Energy saving, water conservation and reusing waste, says Zeenat Niazi, habitat programme director at Delhi NGO, Development Alternatives (DA). That's the theory, anyway. What of practice

WHO SAVES ENERGY LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW

Real estate company K Raheja Corp has designed its buildings to allow sunlight in and keep the heat out. This includes using glass of high ultraviolet value and having ACs with chillers, leading to high output, which in turn lowers costs.
Raheja vice-president Shabbir Kanchwala says these measures have reduced our monthly energy bill by anything between 20 and 30%. Thats a huge saving for a company that has built 50 lakh square feet of malls, hotels and homes.
Raheja is not the only one. Other Indian companies are now increasingly using lowe (low emission) coating, double-glazed windows in their offices. These allow sunlight in, while keeping heat out and can reduce energy consumptions by 8-10 %, says Pradeep Kumar, senior fellow at the Delhi-based Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI).

WHO HAS A LOW WATER FOOTPRINT

Cadbury India has constructed a check dam (this dams up a small river/nallah during monsoons) in its Bangalore factory to store rain water. It has resulted in a 20% reduction in water consumption and even attracted migratory birds, says the companys associate VP, corporate affairs, Ransom D - Souza. Use of low-flow toilet fixtures, which consume less water while maintaining pressure , tap sensors that automatically turn themselves off and waterless urinals are measures being implemented in ITC-Welcomgroup Hotels, says Alwyn Noronha, executive VP, Projects, ITC Ltd.

WHO KNOWS HOW TO DISPOSE OFF WASTE

The Delhi secretariat has linked itself to a paper recycling plant. Making offices paper-free and using certain plants like Canna which take up nutrients from sewage, leaving the water clear, says Niazi, are further options. This is done in Pondicherry, she adds.

WHO BUILDS WITH RECYCLED MATERIAL

DAs headquarters in Delhi. The office was built with compressed earth blocks that used mud salvaged from the NGO's old office. It has used industrial waste, such as fly ash, for the outer walls and ferro-cement channels with stone slabs instead of concrete blocks. These are extremely low energy materials . This reduced the cost of materials by almost 40%, says DAs Niazi.

WHO ELSE IS THINKING ABOUT GREEN PROCESSES

Cement company ACC has disposed of waste (plastics, sewage, etc) and biomass in cement kilns to reduce CO2 emissions , introduced high efficiency burners and seals, used wind energy for cement manufacturing and solar energy for water heating. In 2008, it processed about 12,900 tonnes of industrial waste and 12,750 tonnes of biomass.We are also exploring if energy can be generated through waste heat from the kiln circuit, says K N Rao, head of the company's environment and energy conservation cell.
Kumar says green offices can save companies as much as 60% over time and halve water-use . He says Indian companies started thinking green four years ago when a draft Energy Conservation Building Code was published, specifying energy norms for commercial buildings. Today, a green building can be certified either by the globally recognised LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environment Design) or GRIHA (Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment ), a voluntary rating appropriate for Indian conditions . India currently has 34 LEED-rated buildings and 26 awaiting a GRIHA rating.

A BLUEPRINT FOR OFFICES



A green office saves energy, re-uses water, disposes of waste and uses debris effectively



EXTERIORS

Use double glazed windows, which can reduce energy consumptions by 8-10 % Insulate roofs paint them white, make terrace gardens, use thermal barriers Benefits of retrofitting accrue in 6-10 years

LIGHTING

Replace T12 fluorescent lights with energy-efficient T5 ones Automate lighting controls, use occupancy sensors

FURNITURE

Have low partitions More open spaces Have skylights

OFFICE EQUIPMENT

Use computers with LCD monitors or laptops, which consume five times less electricity than desktop PCs

THERMAL COMFORT

Have a centralized AC system, automatically set to 26 degrees Clean AC condenser coils, which reduces energy bill by 20%

PLANK OF EXCELLENCE

Pradeep Sachdeva, a green architect who built ecofriendly buildings such as Dilli Haat cites Gandhi Ashram in Wardha as an example of a perfect building. Like the father of the nation, this building is minimalist and as natural as it can get, be it sunlight, ventilation or materials (bamboo, mud plaster, timber, mud floors), all of which have been procured from nearby places. Other buildings which he says deserve mention include ITCs Green Centre and the soon to be opened Royal Gardenia, Bengaluru

Ureka! Now, dial pee for power

Ureka! Now, dial pee for power

Ruhi Bhasin | TNN

New Delhi: Heres one way in which you can contribute to the city by not peeing in the open. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is planning to convert urine collected in its public urinals into power. The civic agency has roped in engineers from a USbased company to study the feasibility of producing power from urine released from its waterless urinals, which are ceramic bowls containing negligible water and bio-degradable chemicals in a cartridge (see graphic).
Having already set up two waterless urinals at Town Hall and ISBT, MCD wants to develop 1,000 such kiosks, each comprising four urinals, in the city before Commonwealth Games 2010. According to estimates made by Karan Aneja and Siddhartha Saha, who are engineering graduates from University of California, Berkeley, over 20,000 KW power can be generated from these 1,000 kiosks from 20,000 litres of urine.
Aneja, who is a bio-engineer , claims that they have already generated electricity from urine and their company , SIDKAR, has set up a plant at Okhla as a pilot project. Said Aneja: From one litre of urine, we will be able to produce 1 KW of power. Using a bacterial process in a power plant, urine is converted into hydrogen gas and water. While water is cleaned by reverse osmosis and can be used for industrial purpose, hydrogen is used to produce electricity.
Though this is the first time something like this is being attempted in India, MCDs dismal track record in implementing such innovative projects raises many questions about the viability of the plan. Experts say that the projection of 1 KW of power from one litre of urine is way too extreme. Moreover, the process of breaking down the waste is very time-consuming , they contend. However , Aneja said it takes only 19 seconds. While such projects will indeed raise doubts, there have been attempts round the world to breake urine into hydrogen for producing energy (see graphic).
The civic body has been working on this project for the past nine months. Said Saha, who is a chemical engineer: We started work on this concept two years ago. Billboards installed around these toilets will be lit up from the power produced through this process. The cost of setting up the power plant is Rs 1.5 lakh. They hope to start the project by August-end . At present, safety issues are being looked into as a combustible gas is produced at the end of the process.
Saha said they are not looking at profits. MCD is not investing anything in the project except for providing the land. Once the project takes off, we would like to extend it to other parts of the country too. We wanted to start from Delhi as the city was already working on waterless toilets. Moreover , it is also the venue of Commonwealth Games 2010.
Confirming that the project is on track, an MCD official said that this would ensure well-maintained urinals in the city. He said: The waterless toilets help save water besides taking care of the problem of foul smell. The area around it will also be wellmaintained after the power plants come up.
ruhi.bhasin2@timesgroup .com

Hydrogen from urine to fuel cars

Pee power: Hydrogen from urine to fuel cars


Scientists have combined refuelling your car and relieving yourself by creating a new catalyst that can extract hydrogen from urine.
The catalyst could not only fuel the hydrogen-powered cars of the future, but could also help clean up municipal wastewater, physorg.com reported on Monday. Gerardine Botte of Ohio University uses an electrolytic approach to produce hydrogen from urine the most abundant waste on earth at a fraction of the cost of producing hydrogen from water.
Urines major constituent is urea, which incorporates four hydrogen atoms per molecule importantly, less tightly bonded than the hydrogen atoms in water molecules. Botte uses electrolysis to break the molecule apart, developing an inexpensive nickel-based electrode to efficiently oxidise the urea.
To break the molecule down, a voltage of 0.37V needs to be applied across the cell, which is much less than the 1.23V needed to split water.
During the electrochemical process the urea gets adsorbed on to the nickel electrode surface, which passes the electrons needed to break up the molecule, Botte told Chemistry World journal. AGENCIES

SOLAR POWER PLANT FROM THERMAL POWER PLANT

Sunrise at vacant Bengal power plant 

Shunned By Pvt Firms, Abandoned Station To Generate 3M Units/Yr Solar Electricity

Subhro Niyogi | TNN 

Jamuria (Raniganj): In perhaps the first significant climate responsive project in South Asia, an abandoned thermal power plant has been converted into a mega solar power generating station. Its quite likely the worlds only high carbon power unit being replaced by a zero-carbon one. 
The two-mw project, the first in solar sphere to cross the megawatt threshold, is poised to give a huge fillip to Indias renewable energy ambitions and marks the culmination of solar man S P Gon Chaudhuris dream. Six years ago, the diminutive man won the Ashden award, popularly known as the Green Oscar. 
This is Indias empowerment in green energy and demonstrates the countrys intent and ability to be climate responsive in the energy sector. It has already catalysed commercial interest in solar power that has been shunned by private companies due to high capital investment and longer break-even period, said Gon Chaudhuri, who is also the managing director of West Bengal Green Energy Development Corporation (WBGEDC). 
At present, capital investment in a solar plant is Rs 15-18 crore per mega watt four times that of thermal at Rs 4-5 crore/mw. The cost is expected to reduce by half and efficiency double when nano technology is integrated in solar cells in about five years. 
The project, located in Jamuria , 20 km from Asansol and 210 km from Kolkata, is in the heart of Indias coal belt. A six mw coal-based thermal power plant of Dishergarh Power Supply Co (DPSC) once stood on the eight acre plot that is now the site of the solar project comprising 9,000 crystalline type solar modules of 230 watt each. The plant will generate three million units of electricity a year, enough to light 2,000 rural or 500 urban households. 
The facility will save seven lakh tonnes of carbon dioxide emission a day. Thats as much CO2 as two mw thermal projects emit daily. The power that the solar plant will generate will be fed into DPSCs grid for distribution to customers in the Asansol-Raniganj belt. 
The unique project could help Bengal reclaim its pioneer status in the power sector after nearly a century. Way back in 1897, the countrys first hydel project of 600 kw was set up at Sidrapong in Darjeeling. 
At present, half the project has been completed with the 4,500 solar modules generating 1.25-mw electricity . WBGEDC is vetting proposals from several private firms who have shown interest in setting up the other half of the project. 
DPSC will purchase power at Rs 5 per unit and the ministry of new and renewable energy resources (MNRER) will pay Rs 10 per unit as generation incentive . WBGEDC can earn a further 97 paise per unit through sale of carbon credit that the project will accrue . Annual revenue is pegged at Rs 4.8 crore. 
The project is expected to play a crucial role in achieving the solar mission of 15,000 mw under the Prime Minister Climate Action Plan. That is imperative with the Planning Commission projecting a capacity addition of 6.5 lakh mw from thermal, nuclear, hydel and gas by 2030, leaving a deficit of 1.5 lakh mw that only solar energy can meet. 
Using todays technology , solar energy can generate eight lakh mw by utilizing wastelands across the country. This technology demonstration should give companies the confidence to invest in solar power. We are keen to bridge the daytime deficit through solar and replace diesel wherever possible, said MNRER director B Bhargava.

Here comes the sun

Here comes the sun

K.R. Balasubramanyam

April 16, 2009

When West Bengal Green Energy Development Corporation commissions its 2 MW photovoltaic (PV) solar power plant at Jamuria near Asansol in April-May, it will leave an indelible mark on India’s renewable energy sector for more than one reason. One: it is going to be the country’s largest solar plant. Two: its scale equals the combined capacity of solar plants India took decades to create. West Bengal is blazing the trail for the rest of India to catch up. By the end of this year, Astonfield Solar is set to commission two plants of 1.5 MW each in West Bengal and Rajasthan. Moser Baer’s 5 MW project in Rajasthan will go on stream early next year. Solar power plants have suddenly graduated into the “big” league— megawatt size, albeit single digits. And the flurry of activity is warming the engines of an otherwise dormant economy. What, in fact, electrified the sector was Bengal’s policy announcement in January 2008, followed by one from the Government of India the same month. West Bengal, which has already allotted projects worth 40 MW for commissioning before March 31, 2012, gives promoters a feed-in tariff of Rs 11 per unit for 20 years. The Union government’s Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE), which aims to add 50 MW during the same period, offers a generationbased incentive at or below Rs 12 a unit. A developer opting for the MNRE scheme gets Rs 15 per unit in the form of tariff plus incentive. Following these announcements, an estimated 2000 MW worth of investment proposals have reached the ministry, even though not all may be serious developers. As if this was not enough, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi announced that his government is determined to add 500 MW by March 31, 2014, and will pay the developer Rs 13 per unit for the first 12 years and at Rs 3 for 13 years after that. The developers have lapped up the scheme by promising projects adding up to a capacity of 3,275 MW. Gujarat’s attraction: tariff support for 25 years, against the MNRE’s 10 years. Gujarat’s policy prompted fellow BJP-ruled state Karnataka to plan a similar scheme. “We are also working on a policy that fits our state best. We are looking at a target and tariffs similar to that of Gujarat,” says K. Jairaj, Principal Secretary, Energy Department, Karnataka. Dr Bharat Bhargav, Director (Solar PV), MNRE, sums up the opportunity size: “If someone invests in setting up a solar plant, he will not regret it. There is 5,000 trillion kilo Watt hour (kWh) of solar radiation incidence over the land area of India. That is the size of opportunity available to investors.” And S.P. Gon Chaudhuri, Managing Director of WB Green Energy Corporation, who has championed solar and other renewable energy forms since his days as a bureaucrat, concurs: “We will have 17 MW of more solar capacity by the end of 2010, and all 40 MW during the 11th Plan period.’’ India’s leading maker of PV cells, Tata BP Solar, is equally upbeat about the opportunities. Its CEO, K. Subramanya, welcomes the MNRE policy but questions the limit of 50 MW. The current incentive is not adequate “since the cost of generation is higher than that (Rs 15/unit), given the high cost of finance as well as high cost of raw materials (silicon wafers)...The incentives should be extended for 20-25 years. The timeline for commissioning of generation plants should be extended beyond Dec 31, 2009, by one year,” Subramanya insists. But if tariffs are not exciting enough, why are investors rushing with proposals? Anil Patni, DGM, Tata BP Solar, explains: “The sudden explosion of interest could be in anticipation of the government raising both the ceiling and tariffs.’’ As Sourabh Sen, Co-chairman of Astonfield Renewable Resources, says: “Ten per cent of grid consumption should come from clean and green power as India is the sunniest nation.” Sen, whose company is developing projects of about 280 MW, however, cites one dampener: PV panels are 35 per cent cheaper in global markets than in India. Rajiv Arya, CEO of Moser Baer Photovoltaic, says he would not mind a comprehensive policy based on a single window for clearances and approvals. “The Government should design more policies that allows 1,000 MW and above with a sound framework of subsidies at every level,” says Arya. “The current policy has laborious system of checks that slows down the other processes.” Promoters cite another factor behind India’s slow progress compared with leaders like Spain or Germany: high capital costs. “Costs will come down as technology improves and the market expands. But remember, the cost of conventional electricity will keep shooting up, while that of non-conventional power will keep coming down,’’ says Patni of Tata BP. Logical: fossil fuels won’t last for ever. And India’s days in the sun have come.

alternative energy : CAVEAT EMPTY

Oil: Caveat empty
By Alfred J. CavalloMay/June 2005 pp. 16-18 (vol. 61, no. 03) © 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

• Without any press conferences, grand announcements, or hyperbolic advertising campaigns, the Exxon Mobil Corporation, one of the world's largest publicly owned petroleum companies, has quietly joined the ranks of those who are predicting an impending plateau in non-OPEC oil production. Their report, The Outlook for Energy: A 2030 View, forecasts a peak in just five years.
  
• In the past, many who expressed such concerns were dismissed as eager catastrophists, peddling the latest Malthusian prophecy of the impending collapse of fossil-fueled civilization. Their reliance on private oil-reserve data that is unverifiable by other analysts, and their use of models that ignore political and economic factors, have led to frequent erroneous pronouncements. They were countered by the extreme optimists, who believed that we would never need to think about such problems and that the markets would take care of everything. Up to now, those who worried about limited petroleum supplies have been at best ignored, and at worst openly ridiculed.
  
• Meanwhile, average consumers have taken their cue from the market, where rising prices have always been followed by falling prices, leading to the assumption that this pattern will continue forever. In truth, the market price of crude oil is completely decoupled from and independent of production costs, which average about $6 per barrel for non-OPEC producers and $1.50 per barrel for OPEC producers. This situation has nothing to do with a free market, and everything to do with what OPEC believes will be accepted or tolerated by the United States. The completely affordable market price--what consumers pay at the gasoline pump--provides magisterial profits to the owners of the resource and gives no warning of impending shortages.
  
• All the more reason that the public should heed the silent alarm sounded by the ExxonMobil report, which is more credible than other predictions for several reasons. First and foremost is that the source is ExxonMobil. No oil company, much less one with so much managerial, scientific, and engineering talent, has ever discussed peak oil production before. Given the profound implications of this forecast, it must have been published only after a thorough review.
  
• Second, the majority of non-OPEC producers such as the United States, Britain, Norway, and Mexico, who satisfy 60 percent of world oil demand, are already in a production plateau or decline. (All of ExxonMobil's crude oil production comes from non-OPEC fields.) Third, the production peak cited by the report is quite close at hand. If it were twenty-five years instead of five years in the future, one might be more skeptical, since new technologies or new discoveries could change the outlook during that longer period. But five years is too short a time frame for any new developments to have an impact on this result.
  
• Also noteworthy is the manner in which the Outlook addresses so-called frontier resources, such as extra-heavy oil, "oil sands," and "oil shale." The report cites the existence of more than 4 trillion barrels of extra heavy oil and "oil sands"--producing potentially 800 billion barrels of oil, assuming a 20-25 percent extraction efficiency. The Outlook also cites an estimate of 3 trillion barrels of "oil shale." These numbers have figured prominently in advertisements that ExxonMobil and other petroleum companies have placed in newspapers and magazines, clearly in an attempt to reassure consumers (and perhaps stockholders) that there is no need to worry about resource constraints for many decades.
  
• However, as with all advertisements, it's best to read the fine print. ExxonMobil's world oil production forecast shows no contribution from "oil shale" even by 2030. Only about 4 million barrels of oil per day from Canadian "oil sands" are projected by 2030, accounting for a mere 3.3 percent of the predicted total world demand of 120 million barrels per day. What explains this striking disconnection between the magnitude of the frontier resources and the minimal amount of projected oil production from them? Canadian "oil sands" are actually deposits of bitumen (tar), which are the result of conventional oil degradation by water and air. Tar sands are of a completely different character than conventional oil deposits; making tar sands usable is a capital-intensive venture that requires special procedures such as heating to separate the tar from the sand, mixing the tar with a diluting agent for pipeline transport, and constructing specially equipped refineries for processing.
  The most serious constraint, though, is natural gas supplies. Production of oil from tar sands requires between 400 and 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas per barrel of oil produced, depending on the extraction method used. Natural gas production, despite a near doubling of drilling activity, is flat or decreasing both in Canada and in the United States--which has prompted prices to triple over the past few years. Given these high gas prices, it almost makes more sense just to sell the natural gas directly rather than use it to produce oil from tar sands.
  
• Extracting oil from the 3 trillion barrels of oil shale cited in the Outlook presents its own challenges. The term "oil shale" is also quite misleading, since there is no oil in this mineral, but rather an organic material called kerogen, which is a precursor of petroleum. To extract oil, the shale (typically between 5 and 25 percent kerogen) must first be mined, then transported to a plant where it is crushed, then heated to 500 degrees Celsius, which pyrolyzes, or decomposes, the kerogen to form oil. After processing, most of the shale remains on the surface in the form of coarse sand, so large-scale mining operations will produce immense amounts of waste material. An estimated 1-4 barrels of water are required for each barrel of oil produced, both for cooling the products and stabilizing the sand waste. To satisfy these water requirements, petroleum companies once contemplated diverting the Columbia River--a feat that can be excluded today on political and environmental grounds.
  
• With non-OPEC oil production reaching a plateau and frontier resources not viable, ExxonMobil proposes that increased demand be met in two ways. The first is greater fuel efficiency. (That alone should convey the seriousness of this report: When have you ever heard a petroleum company make a plea for vehicles that use less gas?) New cars in the United States are expected to go 38 miles on a gallon of gas in 2030, instead of the current value of 21 miles per gallon. This goal is actually quite modest, as new cars sold in Europe since 2003 already achieve 35 miles per gallon.
  
• The other way ExxonMobil believes demand will be satisfied is from vastly and rapidly increased OPEC production: "After 2010, the call on OPEC increases quickly, requiring OPEC to add more than 1 MBD [million barrels per day] of capacity every year," notes the Outlook. "OPEC's resources are large enough to achieve this rate of expansion, and we expect that investments will be made in a timely manner."
  
• This assessment is somewhat ominous. OPEC has not expanded production capacity much at all recently. Moreover, such production increases are only possible from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. For these countries, and indeed for most OPEC members, petroleum and petroleum products are their only significant export. As such, they have a vested interest in obtaining the best possible price for their non-renewable resources. OPEC nations would be quite unlikely to increase production as rapidly as needed unless compelled to do so. To put this shortfall in perspective, in 2003 Algeria produced 1.1 million barrels per day; a new Algeria would need to be brought on line in the Persian Gulf each and every year beyond 2010 just to keep up with the projected increase in demand. Consequently, once non-OPEC production reaches a peak, conventional world oil production could peak shortly thereafter, and prices (never explicitly mentioned in the Outlook) would rise in accordance with the laws of supply and demand.
  
• What all this means is that the petroleum industry is approaching a turning point. Conventional petroleum production will soon--perhaps in five years, ten at best--no longer be able to satisfy demand. For their part, American consumers would do well to take a cue from their Western European counterparts, who enjoy a comfortable lifestyle despite a per capita use of petroleum that is half of that in the United States. The sooner the United States begins this transition away from oil, the easier it will be. That's a far more attractive option than trying to squeeze oil from stone.

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY

http://www.businessworld.in/content/view/2252/2329



Cover story on alternative energy in he 13th August issue of BW.



ALTERNATIVE ENERGYGreen EffectThe biofuels revolution has just begun in India. To develop beyond its present confines, the fledgling sector needs a helping hand from the policy makers.



P. HARI AND VATSALA KAMAT

• When have you ever heard a petroleum company make a plea for vehicles that use less gas?” wondered Princeton-based energy consultant Alfred J.Cavallo.
• He had the world listening when he commented in his 2005 article ‘Oil: Caveat Empty’, “Conventional petroleum production will soon — perhaps in five years, ten at best — no longer be able to satisfy demand.” Essential reading for policy makers and tank-full-please consumers alike, Cavallo took serious view of Exxon Mobil Corporation’s quiet, unadvertised voice joining the rising chorus expecting a plateau in non-OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) oil production. Cavallo expects that once non-OPEC oil production reaches a peak, conventional world oil production could peak shortly thereafter. ‘Peak oil’ is seen as the point at which global oil production peaks and we start running out of cheap oil.
  
• From what Cavallo says, that can be three years from now. He writes that terrestrial renewable energy can fuel modern industrial societies, and rates biofuels and the Brazilian ethanol programme among the most promising renewables.
• Cavallo expects renewable liquid fuels and electricity generated from biomass (see ‘Waste From Wealth’ on page 40) to be affordable but not cheap, with relative but only ‘sufficient’ profits. In India, we are listening, even willing, but only just about.
  
• Fuel For ThoughtAround the time Cavallo was arriving at his dire conclusion, India was battling with a drought-induced sugarcane crop failure. This, in turn, led to a crippling shortage in the mandatory 5 per cent ethanol composition of petrol sales, two years after the phased inclusion of the biofuel was imposed in 2003.
• An additive that oxygenates gasoline, ethanol has the ability to substitute fossil fuels entirely. Indeed, Brazil uses 100 per cent ethanol in 20 per cent of its vehicles, and a 25 per cent blend in the rest. The United States, Australia and Sweden are other countries that blend 5-10 per cent ethanol into all gasoline supplies.
  
• India plans to manufacture biodiesel from non-edible vegetable oils. However, this has to be achieved without affecting the country’s food security.
• Moreover, India cannot grow sugarcane only for ethanol production, as the naturally water-plenty Brazil does, nor assign essential agricultural land for growing non-edible seeds such as the newsworthy jatropha, a viable raw material for biodiesel.
  
• Green Is GoldBritish biodiesel major D1 Oils is setting up an 8 million litres per annum modular biodiesel unit. Others into this green gold are Indian giants Indian Oil Corporation and Reliance Industries, and wind turbine major Suzlon Energy. Auto makers Mahindra & Mahindra and DaimlerChrysler are testing biofuel vehicles. Coimbatore-based Bannari Amman Sugars runs a 3,000 litres per day biodiesel plant. They also cultivate 500 acres of jatropha, apart from contract farming an additional 2,000 acres in Tamil Nadu.
  
• But Thirumalaisamy, a farmer in Erode district, who switched to growing jatropha two years ago, says, “We need better yielding jatropha varieties. Then we can make profits.” While returns remain uncertain from jatropha, groundnut would fetch him at least Rs 15,000 per acre. Thirumalaisamy’s problem is emblematic of the industry. The quantity of biodiesel needed for the mandatory 5 per cent blend is far from ready. “We need at least 2.5 million tonnes of biodiesel but don’t have capacities yet,” says Coimbatore-based Sarju Singh, CEO of D1 Oils India. Pricing is another thorny issue. Oil companies have contracted to pay Rs 26.50 per litre of biodiesel, but industry players say that’s below the production cost of Rs 35-40 per litre.
• It’s good news that biodiesel has been exempted from excise duty, and a National Biofuel Development Board is planned. Vivek N.Pai, president, Century Agrotech, in Chennai, says, “Public-private partnership can ensure the supply of sturdy jatropha saplings, and other inputs.”
  
• Right In My BackyardCapable of growing on under-stocked or fallow lands, field boundaries and even railway tracks, jatropha cultivation can even be factored into work-for-food poverty alleviation programmes. A one-acre jatropha plantation with 1,000 rain-fed plants can yield 1,500 litres of oil. With a projected 66.9 million metric tonnes demand for diesel by the end of the 11th Plan (2011-12), a 5 per cent biodiesel replacement will need about 11 million hectares of land under jatropha cultivation. Currently, there is no consolidated data available to reflect the exact extent of jatropha cultivation in India. A rough estimate puts the figure at around 1 million hectares. On our green mile, the road is long but little travelled, yet.

http://www.businessworld.in/content/view/2253/2330

ALTERNATIVE ENERGYPowering The Future

• The next growth wave is here. Wind, solar and other renewables are transforming India’s energy horizon.When we began working on this story, a usually helpful source at the Ministry for New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) in New Delhi did not reply to an e-mail. When we called to ask why, this was the reply: “So sorry! Problem is, we had no power yesterday.” It’s a telling Indian paradox that the ministry responsible for spearheading former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s call for national energy independence itself remains powerless. But across the country, small islands of hope are using alternative energy technologies to create environmentally clean and affordable power, igniting talk of a coming revolution in the energy industry.

• Once dismissed as kooky ideas spawned by impractical environmentalists, alternative energies are now part of the energy plans and policies of most nations. “Governments all over the world recognise the importance of renewable energy as fossil fuels are finite,” says Prakash Karnik, investment manager of IDFC Private Equity, a Mumbai-based institution that is now aggressively planning investments in renewable energy projects. “Worldwide, the renewable energy industry is growing at 20-30 per cent per annum. Demand exceeds supply in some sectors such as wind energy, and companies are generating returns in excess of their cost of capital.”
  
• Fifteen European Union nations, including Spain and Germany, who are world leaders in renewables, have committed to generating 20 per cent of the energy using alternative technologies by 2020. India has also put in place several renewable initiatives and the country is now the world’s fourth-largest generator of wind energy with an installed capacity of 7,093 MW.
  
• The lone wind turbine whirling gently in the breeze at the headquarters of the Centre for Wind Energy Technology set amidst the waters of the fragile Pallikaranai wetlands 22 km south-west of Chennai, is a testament to officialdom’s embrace of alternative energy. Now, these once-quixotic windmills are set to become ubiquitous national symbols because the private sector has also begun investing heavily in alternative technologies. For example, Citigroup Venture Capital International and UTI Ventures recently invested Rs 250 crore and Rs 40 crore, respectively, in a biomass venture run by Hyderabad’s Ind Bharat Power , and Barings Private Equity has committed $50 million (Rs 200 crore) to Auro Mira Energy, a biomass and mini-hydro player in Chennai. Higher up the food chain, Tulsi Tanti’s Suzlon Energy has become the world’s fifth-largest wind turbine maker, and Tata BP Solar, one of India’s first solar panel makers, has seen its revenues jump to Rs 450 crore a year.
  
• New Delhi-based Ravi Khanna, CEO of Moser Baer Photo Voltaic, says entrepreneurs are venturing into solar power because of the phenomenal growth potential. “India struggled for 20 years with land lines but has beat China to become the fastest growing mobile telephony country in the world today,” says Khanna, who believes energy-starved India will leap-frog into alternative technologies. He, and Warburg Pincus which owns 35 per cent of his company, are betting big on this and Khanna expects the firm’s revenues to touch the billion-dollar mark by 2010.
  
• Khanna’s optimism is rooted in global trends. The United Nations Environment Programme Report (2007) states that renewable energy projects received a record $100 billion (Rs 4,40,000 crore then) in investment in 2006, up from $80 billion (Rs 360,000 crore then) in 2005. Interestingly, venture capitalists are now some of the biggest investors in alternative energy, and their track record of almost single-handedly creating the computer and bio-technology industries is also boosting the industry’s prospects. Consider this. John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, who nurtured Google, Netscape and Amazon, has earmarked $100 million for the alternative energy sector, and Vinod Khosla, who co-founded Sun Microsystems, is funding two dozen renewable energy companies.
  
• Triggers Of ChangeDaniel Yergin, chairman of the US-based energy consulting group Cambridge Energy Research Associates, says this surge of interest in alternative energy is mainly driven by fears of global warming. “When compared to five years ago, the climate change issue has made a huge difference for the renewables market,” says Yergin, whose Pulitzer-prize winning book The Prize: The Epic Quest For Oil, Money and Power chronicled the birth of the ‘oil age’ (see ‘Wind Stands Out As Most Competitive’ on page 32). With glaciers melting, weather patterns changing and the hole in the ozone layer getting larger, western public opinion is increasingly pushing politicians to search for greener energy. In Asian countries such as India and China, there are also more mercantile reasons to follow suit.
  
• India currently produces 130,000 MW of energy a year and this figure will need to double within the next decade. The cost of building the mostly coal-fired plants slated to produce this energy will be a staggering Rs 5,34,000 crore. The environmental and health costs will be even steeper. India is already the world’s fifth-largest polluter, and hospitals across the country are reporting sharp increases in lung and breathing problems, from asthma to cancer.
  
• New Delhi’s oil bill has also shot up from $7.5 billion (Rs 26,250 crore then) in 1996 to a whopping $50 billion (Rs 2,20,000 crore). By 2010, when Indian consumers are estimated to own 15 million cars, the country’s oil consumption will be twice today’s 2.1 million barrels a day, the US Energy Information Administration says. With global oil production barely 1 million barrels over the global consumption rate of 81 million barrels a day, the surge in demand from India (and China) could eventually lead global demand to outstrip supply, causing fuel prices to shoot up to $100 a barrel, Stephen Roach, chief economist with Morgan Stanley has said. This could cause India’s oil bill to quadruple to $200 billion a year by 2025! More significantly, India will be the only major economy in the world other than Japan importing 90 per cent of its oil needs, a strategic lacuna.
  

Less Is More

• Where Timbaktu? In the drought-prone Ananthpur district of Andhra Pradesh. Here, Timbaktu Collective is home to a 100-strong community that works with landless farmers from what was once 32 acres of wasteland. They use no modern irrigation, chemical fertilisers, or electricity from the state grid. Says co-founder Bablu Ganguly, “It’s not what we use but what we don’t use.”

• At Yelahanka, 15 km north of Bangalore’s hypertensive traffic jams, 51 homes stand in 13 acres of quiet greenery in one of Biodiversity Conservation’s (BCIL) ‘zero emission development’ project. BCIL homes have sun-baked soil-stabilised bricks, refrigerators with a glycol-based centralised system, custom-made air-conditioners consuming 46 per cent less power, solar heaters and biodiesel gensets. BCIL expects to earn a revenue of Rs 60 crore in 2007-08.

• At Gual Pahari on the outskirts of Delhi is TERI’s Retreat, a solar-powered ‘sustainable building’ with ‘passive’ designs such as skylighting, insulation, double-glazed windows, and underground tunnels into which air is sucked and distributed, not unlike ancient underground cellars that were cool in summer and warm in winter. The complex saves 40-50 per cent of energy costs incurred by conventional buildings. In Rajasthan’s blisteringly hot Ajmer district is tiny Tilonia, home to Bunker Roy’s Barefoot College, the only fully solar electrified campus in India. Training the rural poor in water engineering and solar electrification in 13 Indian states, the college has also enabled solar electrification of 136 remote Himalayan villages. Such efforts share many things in common with Christina Victoria Prabhu, a resident of Bangalore, who uses a solar heater and saves around 20 per cent on the electricity bill.

• This is already leading to a race between India and China to acquire oil fields across the world. India has already invested an estimated $5 billion-6 billion (Rs 20,000 crore-24,000 crore) in global exploration ventures and has said it will continue to spend $1 billion a year on more acquisitions. China, which has already invested about $15 billion in foreign oil fields, is expected to spend 10 times more over the next decade. Experts have likened this face-off to the “Great Game” of the early 1900s, when European powers battled for supremacy in Central Asia. But this is a game India can neither afford nor risk, because the costs of mis-calculation could even be war. In fact, the Indian Navy and Air Force consistently defend their annual multi-billion dollar purchases by saying India increasingly needs to secure its oil supply lines.

• The Governing DynamicSo why hasn’t the alternative energy revolution already happened? Until, recently, the technology just wasn’t there and the cost of producing a MW of wind or solar power was up to five times that of fossil fuels. Now, the costs are evening out, but the challenge for the alternative energy industry is to achieve the scale necessary to become competitive. Standing in the way of this is the powerful oil and gas lobby, which has consistently tried to tie down the alternative energy industry like a bonsai tree. As Hermann Scheer, a member of Germany’s parliament and a renewable energy crusader, says, renewables need government subsidies to bloom, but these are often opposed by the fossil fuel industry. Yet, subsidising alternative energy makes sense, says Scheer, because there are only two ways of combating the environmental and human cost of using fossil fuels. “If the government levies an energy tax, like a tax on the pollution caused due to use of conventional energy, it can then try to cover the (environmental and human) cost,” says Scheer. “This is a rational option but not a social one, as the common man will suffer. The alternative is to provide renewable energy a privileged market: no taxes, zero interest rates, and a new tariff law.”

• The logic of this has led New Delhi to offer the renewables industry broad concessions, such as 80 per cent depreciation on alternative energy equipment, a 10-year tax holiday for windmill companies and import concessions. Alternative energy companies also get concessional loans from the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency and public sector banks. Industry players are also asking for feed-in tariffs, where power fed to the grid can be metered and the company can raise carbon credits for it, says Suzlon’s Tanti.
  But all this pales in comparison to the direct and hidden subsidies most countries, including India, China and the US, give the fossil fuel industry, which is a huge contributor to political parties. According to US media reports, the Bush administration, after a series of meetings with a group of energy industry representatives and lobbyists, drew up a controversial National Energy Plan, which doled out $33 billion in public subsidies and tax cuts to the oil, coal, and nuclear power industries. In India, the privatisation of oil exploration has also created a huge anti-alternative energy lobby led by oil companies such as Reliance, Essar Oil and Videocon, in cahoots with auto companies. A sign of their power came when New Delhi recently withdrew a Rs 1 lakh per car subsidy it was about to give the Reva, India’s first electric car.

• More importantly, supporters of alternative energy insist that the “full cost” of using fossil fuels is hidden — and could even be higher than the cost of many alternative technologies — because the health, environmental, and defence costs associated with using fossil fuels are not built into their purchase cost. For example, The US-based International Center for Technology Advancement says a gallon of gasoline in the US that costs consumers about $3 (Rs 120) would end up costing the nation about $15 (Rs 600), if the full cost of the medical costs associated with treating people suffering from pollution-related illness, the economic costs of the days lost at work because of people ill with pollution-related problems, the cost of cleaning up the environmental damages caused by fossil fuels and astronomical defence costs associated with oil security were added up. By not doing this and not pricing fossil fuels at their “full cost”, governments are reducing the incentive to shift to alternative fuels.

• The IT ParallelGiven the oil and auto industries have more than a trillion dollars in revenues and have planned investments of nearly $50 billion by 2010, this is unlikely to change soon. Governments also worry that hurting these industries could dampen growth and damage other industries, such as shipping and ports, to paint, steel, petrochemicals, auto ancillaries, and rubber. But supporters of alternative energy, such as previous US Vice President Al Gore, say these losses would be balanced by the totally new industries renewables would create, in the same way that the IT revolution initially cost jobs and killed some industries, such as answering services, but went on to boost global growth.
  But for now, the power of the fossil fuel industry and auto companies is keeping New Delhi, and indeed most capitals, from supporting alternative energy in any greater measure soon and this is angering many. “The barriers to accelerate renewable energy technologies need to be addressed,” says G. M. Pillai, director-general of World Institute for Sustainable Energy in Pune, which is urging the Indian government to put forth a Renewable Energy Law to ensure time-bound implementation of renewable energy efforts.

• As things stand right now, says J. Gururaja, a former advisor to the MNRE and the UN, the official policy is just short of where it should be. “There is no platform for coordination and implementation,” he says. “The butter is spread too thin,” A host of ministries from agriculture to petroleum to rural development are all involved with no single point responsibility for this cause.”

• Significantly, with renewable energy technology maturing and awareness rising, many consumers are sidestepping such policy conundrums and turning into early adopters of these technologies (See ‘Less Is More’). Still, no alternative energy technology is even close to fulfilling its full promise. The reasons, discussed in greater detail in the stories that follow, are not insurmountable, but very real. More than technological changes, consumers will have to change their attitudes and habits before alternative energy can become what it should — the only energy. Imagine mankind powered by infinite renewable energy. The benefits are driving governments, businesses and individuals all over the world to follow that dream. They know there is no real alternative.
  
  SOUVIK KHAMRUI - Renewable Energy: Improvised T
  IP: 2007-08-10 07:48:48
  Improvised technology and innovation to achieve higher generating efficiency hold key for renewable energy business to be economically more viable and attractive. Experiments could be done converging sunrays using powerful lenses and focusing these concentrated rays on solar panel to get more output of the panel. To increase the production capacity of a plant and consistent power supply, different kinds of renewable energy sources may be combined. Possibility to be explored to rotate same turbine in tandem by wind power as well as small hydro power at the same time or at different times depending on the availability and quantum of the wind and water.
  

THE POWER WITHIN

• The ancient Romans drew on hot springs for bathing and heating homes without having to pay a single coin. That's because a clean, quiet and virtually inexhaustible source of renewable energy lies literally beneath our feet.
• The interior of the earth is hot — up to 6,500 degrees Celsius at the core and generally cooling off towards the top but still about 200 degrees Celsius three to 10 kilometres below the surface. In Switzerland, Australia and elsewhere engineers are drilling down to these depths to tap the heat trapped in hot rocks by injecting cold water into the shafts and bringing it up again superheated to generate power through a steam turbine. They feel it could meet the electricity needs of nearly 10,000 households and heat over 2,700 homes.
• In India the potential for harnessing geothermal power has been under investigation since the late 1960s. Currently, an organisation incubated in IIT-Bombay is carrying out a year-long survey to assess the heat trapped beneath the Konkan coastline. Preliminary calculations indicate this could generate some 2,000 MW of power, reason enough for the ministry of non-conventional energy of Maharashtra, a state with a shortfall of approximately 5,000 MW, to be interested in co-funding the project.
• The total stored heat potential in India, however, is believed to be the equivalent of 27.6 billion barrels of petroleum.
• At present, geothermal power supplies less than 0.5 per cent of the world's energy. But global estimates of exploitable geothermal energy vary between 65 and 138 GW.
• Taking this into account a 2006 MIT report concluded that extractable resources would be sufficient to provide all the world's energy needs for several millennia.
• What's needed is to move beyond easily developed hydrothermal systems, such as hot springs and geysers, and begin to tap the earth's deeper, stored heat, which is available everywhere. The report estimates that a billion dollars of investment in research and development over the next 15 years would lead to the enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) that would make this possible.
• Since the earth's heat is everywhere, EGS would deliver the ultimate form of energy security: no more dependence on suppliers of fossil fuels, or even uranium. And it's one of the cleanest forms of energy available: greenhouse gas emissions are close to zero. India ought to map its existing hydrothermal resources in Maharashtra and elsewhere, as well as collaborate in exciting research projects being undertaken in EGS in various countries.
  

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/The_Power_Within/articleshow/2269532.cms

Race to Earth's centre harness energy

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Race_to_Earths_centre_harness_energy/articleshow/2257772.cms

Race to Earth's centre harness

BASEL (SWITZERLAND): When tremors started cracking walls and bathroom tiles in this Swiss city on the Rhine, the engineers knew they had a problem. "The glass vases on the shelf rattled, and there was a loud bang," Catherine Wueest, a teashop owner, recalls. "I thought a truck had crashed into the building." But the 3.4 magnitude tremor on the evening of December 8 was no ordinary act of nature: It had been accidentally triggered by engineers drilling deep into the Earth's crust to tap its inner heat and thus break new ground - literally - in the world's search for new sources of energy. Basel was wrecked by an earthquake in 1365, and no tremor, man-made or other, is to be taken lightly. After more, slightly smaller tremors followed, Basel authorities told Geopower Basel to put its project on hold. But the power company hasn't given up. It's in a race with a firm in Australia to be the first to generate power commercially by boiling water on the rocks five kilometres underground.

• On paper, the Basel project looks fairly straightforward: Drill down, shoot cold water into the shaft and bring it up again superheated and capable of generating enough power through a steam turbine to meet the electricity needs of 10,000 households, and heat 2,700 homes.
• Scientists say this geothermal energy, clean, quiet and virtually inexhaustible, could fill the world's annual needs 250,000 times over with nearly zero impact on the climate or the environment.
• A study released this year by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said if 40% of the heat under the United States could be tapped, it would meet demand 56,000 times over.
• It said an investment of $800 million to $1 billion could produce more than 100 gigawatts of electricity by 2050, equaling the combined output of all 104 nuclear power plants in the United States. "The resource base for geothermal is enormous," professor Jefferson Tester, the study's lead author, said.
  

MUSCLES TAP POWER FROM OCEAN WAVES

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Muscles_tap_power_from_ocean_waves/rssarticleshow/2260721.cms

• Scientists in the United States are using artificial muscles made from electroactive polymers to generate electricity from the ocean’s waves in a novel project off the coast of Florida.
• The 'muscles' produce electricity as they bob up and down attached to buoys. They can be physically activated with a jolt of electricity.
• Although presently they only generate enough power to light a small light bulb, scientists involved in the project see it as a first step to implementing a new, cheap technology for harvesting renewable energy from the ocean.
• Electroactive polymer artificial muscles — heralded as a key technology for powering future robots and other machinery, comprises essentially of several sheets of specialised rubber sandwiched between two elastic, oppositely-charged electrodes. When an electric charge is applied the electrodes squeeze the rubber. When the charge is dropped, the rubber relaxes. Roy Kornbluh of Stanford Research Institute International in California, US, and colleagues simply reversed the process.
  

HYDROGEN HARVESTING TECHNIQUE

• A scientist at IIT Kharagpur, Debabrata Das, has patented a technique to harvest hydrogen from a commonly found strain of bacteria , providing a possible alternative to the current extraction techniques, which are quite expensive.
• His technique induces the bacteria, Enterobacter cloacae, to discharge free hydrogen, via a fermentation process.
• The foul smelling stain of bacteria is hardy and found in a variety of locations, including the intestines of human beings and industrial sewage from chemical factories.
• The professor and his team are trying to induce the bacteria to yield a significant portion of its biomass as hydrogen. One way was to mix a gooey mixture of malt, yeast and glucose in a 10 litre vessel, called bio reactor.
• At present, even though Hydrogen exists abundantly in nature, it doesn't exist in isolation and is often found hitched to carbon or oxygen as bio gas or water.
• Isolating this bound hydrogen , in sufficient quantities to store in fuel storage devices , is what makes it expensive as a fuel. Presently, hydrogen as a fuel costs Rs 240 per kg, which is very expensive.
• The government is looking at every possible method, from microorganisms, solar heating, electrolysis etc, to cost effectively produce hydrogen.

SUNCUBES

• The suncube behaves like a sunflower, facing it and tracking it till sunset. It captures solar energy with a twin axis. Its triple junction solar cells concentrate the energy and provide greater efficiency at a lower cost.
• The Australian developer, Green and gold energy has tied up with square energy of India for it.
• A rooftop location of the 20 kg equipment will cost a home owner Rs 2 lakhs, with per unit cost of power working out to about Rs. 4.5.
• This will not take heavy duty loads like ac's or ovens.

UP PRIMARY SCHOOLS BASK IN SOLAR POWER

In Lucknow district, Solar photovoltaic cells were installed in 10 government primary schools, by the Non conventional energy development agency. ( NEDA)

• The cells have a 240 watt capacity and run on 12 V, 120 AH batteries, used for each computer in the schools. They have a backup time of four hours.
• The cells trap solar energy from the sunlight. This is then converted into electricity and stored in an installed battery bank, for use even at night. These batteries can also be charged by an AC supply when it is available.
• Each unit of the SPV system costs around Rs. 53000/-.

SOLAR ENERGY

• Solar home lighting systems.
• Solar lanterns
• Solar street lighting.
• Solar cookers.
• Solar SPV water pumping systems.

There is is a need for efficient solar collectors , that capture the available solar radiation and transfer it as heat to various useful activities, like heating, cooling, water purification and sundry other industrial processes.

Design of buildings and solar systems which enable solar energy to be used for both heating as well as cooling will bring about a manifold increase in the use of solar energy in India.

GREENEST ENERGY IS ENERGY SAVED

Tere was a very interesting article in the economic times, by Mr Fred Kindle , the CEO of ABB ltd. You can read the article by clicking on the link beow:

://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-06/07/content_6208882.htm

As per this article, the more effective way of reducing Co2 emissions is by using available and proven energy efficient technologies , like CFL and LED for lighting, putting speed regulators in electric motors etc.Speed regulators can reduce energy consumption of motors by 50 % while CFL can cut down energy consumption by 60 %.