INFORMATION / IDEAS / Renewable Energy - Sustainable Development

2012-01-05T14:42:00.000-08:00

RENEWABLE ENERGY - SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT / 2011 / 31-32 /

4.31 sustainable society curriculum ???

1. Get some old timers to explain how they managed with so little during their time.

2. Get some tribals to explain how they manage (I had an interesting conversation with a soldier in India's Border Security Force, his heroes turned out to be tribals, who have a no fuss living style.)

3. Get old villagers in developing nations to explain their lifestyle.

Not that we need to live like them; their lifestyle will provide a datum we can build on.

Regards,

Selvaraj

4.32 Grow a tomato

What if every individual in India grew one tomato:

Our population is closing in on 1200 million; so, we would have 1200 million tomatoes. Let's say 20 tomatoes weigh 1 Kg and the cost of 1 Kg is Rs 10. Then collectively we would have increased the GDP of the nation by 1200,000,000*10/20 = Rs 600,000,000 or Rs 60 crores!

The days of old fashioned (or is it modern) agriculture is over, because it depends of humongous amounts of oil which is going to be increasingly in short supply; it depends on chemical fertilisers which again is costly and going to be in short supply.

So compost your waste, put in human energy and grow a tomato.

Selvaraj

2012-01-05T14:36:00.000-08:00

RENEWABLE ENERGY - SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT / 2011 / 26-30 /

4.26 New engine sends shock waves through auto industry

The Wave Disk Generator uses 60 percent of its fuel for propulsion; standard car engines use just 15 percent. As a result, the generator is 3.5 times more fuel efficient than typical combustion engines.

Researchers estimate the new model could shave almost 1,000 pounds off a car's weight currently taken up by conventional engine systems.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42460541/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/

4.27 Solar R/D

Michael Liebreich, chairman of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said at a conference in New York that the cost of large solar photovoltaic projects, which currently average $3.02 per watt, will decline to $1.45 per watt by 2020. It was a welcome prediction for an emerging industry still struggling to wrest market share away from cheaper fossil-fuel and nuclear energy companies.

http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20110406005593/en/Solar/Green-Energy/Energy

The Nobel Prize in Physics 1921 was awarded to Albert Einstein "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect".

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1921/

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Had we known how to put the oil and coal companies in their correct place, by now we could very well be living in a solar powered society.

Selvaraj

4.28 Moving beyond the Automobile

The power of an elevated freeway to dominate and degrade a city's streets is overwhelming. So much so that if you live near one it can be almost impossible to envision what the place might look like if it were gone, and the old patterns of the streets restored.

http://www.grist.org/infrastructure/tearing-down-the-highways-that-choke-our-cities-video

4.29 Pocket Neighbourhoods

"Once I heard about the plan not only for the common areas but for the green aspects, I got excited," says Sowler, a nurse who handles medical claims. "This is what we need to be doing in our homes. We need to build smarter and not larger."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-03-30-pocket30_ST_N.htm

4.30 Biofuels Policy May Kill 200,000 Per Year in the Third World

Research by the World Bank indicates that the increase in biofuels production over 2004 levels would push more than 35 million additional people into absolute poverty in 2010 in developing countries. Using statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Indur Goklany estimates that this would lead to at least 192,000 excess deaths per year, plus disease resulting in the loss of 6.7 million disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) per year. These exceed the estimated annual toll of 141,000 deaths and 5.4 million lost DALYs that the World Health Organization attributes to global warming. Thus, developed world policies intended to mitigate global warming probably have increased death and disease in developing countries rather than reducing them. Goklany also notes that death and disease from poverty are a fact, whereas death and disease from global warming are hypothetical.

Thus, the biofuel remedy for global warming may be worse than the disease it purports to alleviate.

.. SOURCE Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/biofuels-policy-may-kill-200000-per-year-in-the-third-world-118770124.html

2012-01-05T14:27:00.000-08:00

RENEWABLE ENERGY - SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT / 2011 / 21-25 /

4.21 Policy Overhaul Needed For Sustainable Agriculture

A group of prominent scientists, economists and farmers is urging the federal government to shift its agriculture policies in order to accelerate the development of farm practices that are more economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable.

.. Current agriculture policies focus on the production of a few crops and a minority of farmers, and fail to address farming's contribution to global warming, biodiversity loss, natural resource degradation, and public health problems, the scientists said. "We have the technology and the science right now to grow food in sustainable ways, but we lack the policies and markets to make it happen," said John Reganold, a Washington State University soil scientist and lead author of the paper.

.. The scientists are particularly critical of the Farm Bill, which is slated for renewal next year. While only one-third of farmers receive payments under the bill, it has a significant influence on production while "distorting market incentives and making our food system overly dependent on a few grain crops mainly used for animal feed and highly processed food, with deleterious effects on the environment and human health,” the scientists said.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/2042610/policy_overhaul_needed_for_sustainable_agriculture/

4.22 Will Cost Kill Future Nuclear?

As the price of nuclear power steadily rises and that of renewables falls, inevitably the cost curves will cross. The only question is when—and it is likely to occur well within the decade that it will take for the next nuclear plant to come online in the industrialized world. In other words, before we finish building the next nuclear plant, it will be an expensive and increasingly irrelevant relic of the 1950's dream of "atoms for peace."

That dream always contained the seeds of a nightmare. While the risk that nuclear power could fuel nuclear proliferation seems to have receded as a cause of public angst, by many accounts we have simply been lucky so far: the larger the nuclear economy becomes, the higher the chances of a mistake. Even in the absence of proliferation risks, leaving dangerous trash for future generations is morally dubious. We would judge Alexander the Great differently if his conquests had left a toxic legacy that we were still living with today.

... The evidence of the link between carbon reduction, economic growth, and job creation is mounting. In the past six months, studies by the United Nations Environment Program and Johns Hopkins University, as well as "A new growth path for Europe," a blueprint proposed by six leading European universities, all project the creation of millions of jobs before 2020. Notably, these are not just "Green Jobs"; they are "Green Growth jobs" across all industrial and services sectors.

http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/commentary/data/000214

4.23 Decentralized renewable energy

Reaching our renewable energy goals can be met cost-effectively, more quickly, and with greater economics benefits if Californians focus on decentralized renewable energy.

That’s the powerful conclusion in the recently released report, Community Power: Decentralized Renewable Energy in California, and the lessons are applicable in every state across America. These lessons are attracting attention, as large-scale desert solar projects and new transmission lines meet stiff resistance from an increasingly broad-based opposition.

The cost-competitiveness of renewable energy is not news to anyone familiar with the industry, but Weinrub shows that for the most prominent decentralized renewable energy source – solar power – decentralized production from photovoltaics (PV) has better economics than centralized solar thermal power plants. His research is reinforced by data from the California Solar Initiative that shows that large majority of decentralized solar PV’s economies of scale are captured by projects as small as 10 kilowatts. Research from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance shows that wind economies of scale are similarly limited for larger wind projects.

Weinrub also shows that California has plenty of decentralized renewable energy potential – with rooftop solar alone – to meet its ambitious renewable energy target (33% by 2020). As he notes, the actual potential far exceeds the necessary amount required to meet the state standard:

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2011/04/reach-clean-energy-goals-faster-and-cheaper-with-community-power

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The future of nuclear energy:

"The industry was arguably on life support before Fukushima. When the history of the nuclear industry is written, Fukushima is likely to begin its final chapter," according to Mycle Schneider, lead author of the report, The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2010-2011: Nuclear Power in a Post-Fukushima World.

Some of the report's key findings include:

Annual renewable capacity additions have been outpacing nuclear startups for 15 years. In the U.S., the share of renewables in new capacity additions grew from 2 percent in 2004 to 55 percent in 2009, with no new nuclear capacity added.
In 2010, for the first time, worldwide cumulative installed capacity from wind turbines, biomass, waste-to-energy, and solar power surpassed installed nuclear capacity. Total investment in renewable energy technologies was estimated at $243 billion in 2010.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/the-end-of-nuclear-worldwatch-nuclear-alive-and-well-mit/

4.24 Cutting-edge energy research

The latest funding round is also operating in collaboration with the DOE’s $112.5 million SunShot Initiative, which aims to reduce the cost of utility-scale

solar facilities by 75% over the next ten years.

http://www.energyefficiencynews.com/transport/i/4049/

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Is there some way to find out what energy research is going on in India? Do we have some way to put all the areas of research (Phd thesis, etc. ) on the net, so as to discourage duplication and encourage collaboration?

Selvaraj

4.25 Global village construction set

Open source ecology

Open source hardware

Global village construction set

Industrial productivity can be achieved on a small scale.

Focus on hardware, because it is hardware that can change people’s lives in tangible material ways.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GEMkvT0DEk

http://www.ted.com/talks/marcin_jakubowski.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2011-04-19&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email

(A good number of comments)

2012-01-05T14:13:00.000-08:00

RENEWABLE ENERGY - SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT / 2011 / 16-20 /

4.16 A billion vehicles

.. The message here is that an all-purpose motor vehicle that can move 6-10 people 300 miles in exquisite comfort in any weather is what we will no longer be able to afford. Specialized motor vehicles ranging from electric bicycles and tricycles through one or two passenger cars can be manufactured and operated for a tiny fraction of the average car on the road today. The folks over at Volkswagen say they are about to announce a single seat electric car that will be powered only by renewable energy. They have already demonstrated a two passenger car capable of 260 miles per gallon. In short the form factor for cars and trucks has got to change to something more efficient.

Many in America love the iconic full-sized pickup, yet a quick survey will reveal that most are being driven around by one person with nothing in the back - at great expense to the future of the global oil supply. Wouldn't it be better if those who really needed to move the occasional pickup sized load had something equivalent to a micro tractor-trailer that would not require that thousands of pounds of useless steel be dragged around behind one person going to the store.

http://www.fcnp.com/commentary/national/9997-the-peak-oil-crisis-a-billion-vehicles.html

4.17 Organic Bihar

PATNA: Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday inaugurated the first-ever three-day international conference on 'Organic Bihar' here on Wednesday.

"Bihar is standing at the threshold of Rainbow Revolution which is more holistic than the ill-fated Green Revolution. Bihar's road map for this revolution will well take care of future needs of environment and human life and also resulting in prosperity for farmers," Nitish said.

Rainbow Revolution refers to a sustainable agricultural revolution where equal focus is given on minimizing cost of production and increasing produce, environmental impact, and impact of fertilizers on consumers and soil health.

The conference, being attended by agriculture scientists from United States, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Switzerland, saw a lively discussion on various aspects of organic farming in Bihar. The conference is also being attended by 100 and odd farmers.

Referring to the experience of Green Revolution, he said "the states (leading the revolution) exhausted soil fertility. Their soil has got deficient of micro nutrients. Farmers are in the throes of a deep crisis as productivity has gone down heavily due to indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides," the CM said.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/patna/Bihar-set-for-Rainbow-Revolution-CM/articleshow/8956530.cms

4.18 Gardening boom

Forty-three million American households planned to grow at least some of their own food in 2009, a 19 percent increase from the estimated 36 million who did the year before, said the National Gardening Association, citing the most recent figures available. Spending on food gardening — including growing vegetables, fruit trees, berries and herbs — jumped 20 percent in one year to $3 billion in 2009 and stayed at that level last year, said Bruce Butterfield, research director for the nonprofit association.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/still-struggling-economy-rising-food-prices-food-safety-concerns-keep-gardening-boom-going/2011/06/20/AGT2JWcH_story.html

4.19 Bikes are the future, not cars

Transport analysts have been making the case for some time for an argument they call 'peak car', just as those who believe usable oil reserves will dwindle in the years to come have been said to follow the theory of 'peak oil'. 'Peak car' adherents, such as Phil Goodwin, Professor of Transport Policy at the University of the West of England, and Lyn Sloman, director of Transport for Quality of Life, point out the following:

Between 1992 and 2007, the number of UK 17- to 29-year-olds who held driving licences fell by about 10 percent
Private transport's share of UK trips declined from 50 percent in 1993 to 41 percent in 2008.
According to Lynn Sloman, between 2004 and 2008, car trips per person went down by nine percent and car distance per person by five percent.

"Car use in Britain is on the decline but no-one is exactly sure why," said Goodwin.

... But the UK Government certainly don't seem to have fallen in behind the peak car theory – the Department for Transport are working on the assumption that motor traffic will grow by 25 percent from 2003 to 2025.

http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/bikes-are-the-future-not-cars-30372

4.20 Bikes are the future, not cars

Between 1992 and 2007, the number of UK 17- to 29-year-olds who held driving licences fell by about 10 percent
Private transport's share of UK trips declined from 50 percent in 1993 to 41 percent in 2008.
According to Lynn Sloman, between 2004 and 2008, car trips per person went down by nine percent and car distance per person by five percent.

"Car use in Britain is on the decline but no-one is exactly sure why," said Goodwin.

http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/bikes-are-the-future-not-cars-30372

2012-01-05T08:20:00.000-08:00

RENEWABLE ENERGY - SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT / 2011 / 11-15 /

4.11 The energy trap

The Energy Trap study found cases in which more than 50 percent of a family's income was going into paying for and fueling the car. What is most alarming is that 30 years ago the spike in gasoline led to a 12 percent reduction in the demand for gasoline as consumers drove less, switched to smaller cars, and sort of adhered to the 55 mph speed limit that had been put in place to save gasoline. It is now more than three years since the $4+ price spike of 2008 and demand has only fallen some 3 percent.

The problem starts with the nation's collective gasoline bill which is on track to reach a new high of nearly $500 billion this year. This, of course, is only for gasoline; if we add in the other oil products we burn here in America each year - diesel for trucks and trains, jet fuel for planes, propane for heating, and numerous other uses the total is in the vicinity of $1 trillion.

... A second suggestion is that some geographic areas are being affected by the energy trap worse than others. Concentration on bringing alternative forms of transport to these areas could bring big dividends in form of a more efficient and effective workforce.

http://www.fcnp.com/commentary/national/10380-the-peak-oil-crisis-the-energy-trap.html

4.12 Organic agriculture

.. But that's not necessarily the case anymore. Just as conventional agriculture has made gains, notably due to huge investments in research and development from both the private and public sectors, so has organic through shoestring research budgets allocated from non-government foundations, universities and public funding.
New research is emerging, based on long-term, scientifically valid trials, to show that organic yields of field crops can mimic conventional yields and in some cases, overtake them. And they can do this while consuming less energy.

The latest such effort has emerged from the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania, which released a report last month based on a 30-year research trial comparing conventional and organic production methods.
"Organic farming is far superior to conventional systems when it comes to building, maintaining and replenishing the health of the soil," the institute reports. "For soil health alone, organic agriculture is more sustainable than conventional. When one also considers yields, economic viability, energy usage and human health, it's clear that organic farming is sustainable, while current conventional practices are not."
The trials, which were based on corn and soybean crops, found over the 30-year period organic yields not only surpassed conventional systems, the organic trials outperformed conventional during drought conditions, they consumed 45 per cent less energy and they were more profitable. The study also found the conventional approach produced 40 per cent more greenhouse gases.
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists/research-shows-organics-are-no-longer-marginal-132370223.html
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One major problem for organic agriculture is the transportation of waste from cities back to farms. To solve this problem it is necessary to integrate the planning of human habitats with food production. Since the planning of human habitats is done by engineers my suggestion would be to make organic agriculture a part of the engineering discipline.

(From my weekend farming experience, and some roof top gardening that I do, I am reasonably certain that if engineers get into the act, we can bring about a revolution in agriculture).

Selvaraj

4.13 Living Bridge

Another example.

Selvaraj

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Reed plants proliferated in the wetlands and the Marsh Arabs of Iraq made floating islands of tightly-woven reed packed with soil, atop which they built sturdy, reed homes and barns 100 to 200 square feet in area, with gabled roofs eight to 10 feet high. They fished, farmed and fashioned baskets, mats and other reed goods; and, most remarkably, maintained cows and buffaloes on their artificial islands, creating a thriving, largely self-reliant economy that provided the rest of the country with two-thirds of its fish supply as well as milk and cheese.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/247051/a-solution-for-coping-with-the-floods/

4.14 Urban agriculture blossoms in Berlin

Some Berlin friends of mine recently got married and I had to rack my brain for a suitable gift. The days when silverware or crystal champagne glasses would do the trick are over - now you either have to chip in for the honeymoon or, if you're lucky, you're told that your presence at the wedding suffices.

In the end, a group of us decided on an organic box. It may sound rather prosaic - but what is more romantic than a candlelit dinner for two? Even better if it's made with fresh, seasonal, regional and, of course, organic ingredients. A year of vegetables should provide a great, healthy start to decades of happy marriage!...

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,6609359,00.html

4.15 Can New Refrigerators Help Cool Global Warming?

Refrigeration is the third largest consumer of energy in the home after central heating/cooling and hot water heating. It is the highest among those devices we generally think of as appliances. Measurement is often confused then you consider the raw amount of power that devices consume, which in the case of ovens or electric dryers is generally higher. But when the amount of time that a device runs for over the course of a year is factored in, refrigerators use more total energy and therefore have a greater impact.

According to EnergyStar, a typical refrigerator today (frost-free, 17.5 cubic feet, top freezer) uses about 1195 kWh per year. A comparable unit meeting the new standards might use only 408 kWh in a year, which might actually drop it down the list. This is exactly what we want to do in a kind of leap-frog energy-saving game. If your electricity cost 11 cents per kWh, then you would be saving $86.56 per year on your electric bill with one of these new units.

http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/09/new-refrigerators-cool-global-warming/

2012-01-05T08:02:00.000-08:00

RENEWABLE ENERGY - SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT / 2011 / 6-10 /

4.6 The power of exponential growth

I like to use a thought exercise to explain exponential growth. I have this magic eyedropper. A drop of water from this thing is going to double every minute. So one drop will become two drops in one minute. In another minute it will be four drops. After about six minutes, it will be enough to fill a thimble. If we started this experiment at noon on the pitcher's mound of Yankee Stadium and you are handcuffed to the highest row of the bleacher seats, how long would you have to escape from your handcuffs? By 12:50 that same day, the park would be completely overrun with water. In fact, at 12:45 this is still 97% empty space with a little water in the infield. You have 45 minutes to sort of fool around, but the next five minutes are critical. That is the power of exponential increases. If you have that sense that world events are speeding up, you are right. They absolutely are.

... This same dynamic impacts natural resources. Some 150 years ago, we found giant nuggets of copper the size of cars sitting in streambeds. Eventually we went after smaller nuggets. Then we went after copper ore grades of 10%. Now we have huge open-pit mines with ore grades of 0.2%. Regardless of whether copper is $4/lb or $3.50/lb or $35/lb, think about the energy required to take 500 lb of copper ore from the bottom of that pit, haul it up a quarter mile, run it through a crushing machine, smelt and refine it to get that 1 lb of copper out. Would we be doing that if we didn't have liquid fuels, if we didn't have diesel to run big trucks? I think the answer is no. And this is after just 150 years. What happens over the next 150 years? How about in 500 years? If we continue to deplete all of our mineral reserves at 2% growth in extraction per year, which has been our 40-year historical run, how long will they last? We might find more, but sources will be more remote, further away from infrastructure needed to extract them, refine them and move them to market. The end product will be more diluted and lower quality, with deeper costs attached.

4.7 Population control to save endangered species

Major American environmental groups have dodged the subject of population control for decades, wary of getting caught up in the bruising politics of reproductive health.

Yet, virtually alone, the Center for Biological Diversity is breaking the taboo by directly tying population growth to environmental problems through efforts like giving awaycondoms in colorful packages depicting endangered animals. The idea is to start a debate about how overpopulation crowds out species and hastens climate change — just when the world is welcoming Baby No. 7 Billion.

... Groups contacted for this article generally declined to discuss the issue or did not return calls.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/science/earth/bringing-up-the-issue-of-population-growth.html

4.8 Ecological limits to population growth

Demographers are predicting that world population will climb to 10 billion this century. But with increasing pressure on water and food supplies will this projected population boom turn into a bust?

... What's odd about this demographic forecast is how little it seems to square with environmental ones. There's little scientific dispute that the world is heading toward a warmer and harsher climate, less dependable water and energy supplies, less intact ecosystems with fewer species, more acidic oceans, and less naturally productive soils. Are we so smart and inventive that not one of these trends will have any impact on the number of human beings the planet sustains? When you put demographic projections side by side with environmental ones, the former actually mock the latter, suggesting that nothing in store for us will be more than an irritant. Human life will be less pleasant, perhaps, but it will never actually be threatened....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/14/1?newsfeed=true

4.9 Composting toilets the future of sanitation?

Ask any water supply board engineer and he will tell you that the bigger

headache is sewage management and not water supply. Statistics will also

show that almost all of India has access to water supply –of varying quantity

and quality no doubt- but far too few have access to good sanitation.

The Millennium Development Goal adopted by the UN in September 2000

and of which India is a signatory seeks to halve the number of people

without access to sanitation by 2015. That means India will have to build at

least half of 115 million toilets to cover half of 78% of our rural population

and 24% of its urban population un-served sanitation units by the year. A

huge task indeed.

Typical sanitation solutions have included the septic tank or simply a pit

latrine. Both tend to pollute ground water and are environmentally

unsatisfactory. Even in water resource rich area like Goa or Kerala

inadequate sanitation has ended up contaminating ground water to such an

extent that many wells are unusable. Sanitation and water supply are

inextricably linked. If it is not ‘fouling the nest’ it is the unavailability of

water which has made many toilets unusable in rural area. If you do not have

water to drink will you use it for a toilet?

http://www.rainwaterclub.org/docs/composttoilet.pdf

4.10 Geothermal energy could power entire U.S.

Google is dipping its toes in renewable energy – according to Science Daily, it provided a grant to SMU Geothermal Laboratory which indicates a pretty hefty amount of geothermal power lurking across the United States. The total amount of available power is claimed to be more than three million megawatts (current coal power plants produce 300,000 megawatts, for the curious). Maps are viewable on Google Earth (where else?) and SMU believes that they are accessible with current technology.

We Know More Than Before!

Traditional geothermal production in the U.S. is in the western part of the country, where there’s more tectonic activity, but the new research has refined the geothermal map. Using nearly 35,000 data points (twice the number in a previous survey, and primarily drawn from oil and gas drilling), more local variations were found for temperatures at depth. The eastern half of the country seems to hold much more potential than previously thought – through the Appalachians, for example.

The new data points were used for in-depth analysis (more information means a better overall picture, usually) to create heat flow maps and temperature-at-depth maps from 11,500 to 31,000 feet. Surprisingly, some of the areas of the eastern part of the U.S. actually appear to be hotter than the areas in the Western U.S. currently generating the bulk of American geothermal power.

http://cleantechnica.com/2011/10/27/geothermal-energy-could-power-entire-u-s-maybe/

2012-01-05T06:17:00.000-08:00

RENEWABLE ENERGY - SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT / 2011 / 1-5 /

4.1 ‘Public transport is social service'

The man who made public transport a lucrative and feasible option for Delhiites and brought in a new culture of orderliness in a city known to be brash and impatient, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation's outgoing Managing Director Dr. E. Sreedharan says the way forward for the city is a comprehensive, integrated public transport system.

... The ever-increasing number of private vehicles in the city also needs to be curbed by bringing in stringent measures: “Vehicles are a status symbol for the wealthy in Delhi. The Government should come down heavily on them [private vehicle owners] and make them pay for the pollution they are causing. They should pay for the congestion they are causing on the road,” he says.

Public transport services in a city, says Dr. Sreedharan, should not be treated as business. “It should be looked at as social service,” he says.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/article2746848.ece

4.2 Zero budget farming

Zero budget farming

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN83hnfqSvI

4.3 New IEA report

.. Among the more interesting reactions to the new report was the one from Greenpeace which is among the more outspoken and militant environmental groups. Somewhere in its report the IEA opines that if we want to keep industrial civilization humming along, maybe we should be investing more in nuclear power stations which don't emit carbon. This of course is like waving a red shirt at a bull and brought back a blast about the Agency's being intellectually and morally inconsistent.

Despite the IEA's having made great progress along the stop-emitting-now-or-we-are-all-dead path, Greenpeace takes umbrage at the IEA's skepticism that renewables will be enough to keep civilization intact and the assertion that fossil fuels are likely to be around for a while.

This new IEA report is clearly not for the faint hearted.

By. Tom Whipple

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/The-IEA-s-Dire-Warnings-on-Peak-Oil-and-the-Desperate-Need-for-Energy-Innovation.html

4.4 Mindless Waste of a Priceless Resource

Can anyone guess what this resource is?

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So far as we know, out of the 200 billion stars in the milky ways galaxy, only the Solar System has a planet orbiting it that supports life. The basis for this life (on land) is soil which teems with microorganisms and is fortified with nutrients and minerals to support the growth of plants.

There was a time when plant life flourished on this planet in extensive forests and grasslands, supporting in turn a huge number of different life forms.

.. and then tragedy struck. A species of monkeys who till then had confined themselves to the arboreal environment, decided to become intelligent – unfortunately there intelligence was of a selective kind, very intelligent in some ways, and hugely dumb in other ways.

This species of monkeys (who call themselves ‘humans’), over a period of just a hundred years, got rid of most of the forests and converted a lot of the land into huge cities; cement and concrete, which on their own cannot support the growth of plants ….

...........

I am referring to the roof over our heads. When I tried to calculate the total roof area in India, I got a shock. If we assume that there are 100,000,000 homes in India – or home equivalent like offices, shops, etc – each covering a plinth area of 50 sq m. (500 sq ft)

Then:

The total roof area in India = 100,000,000 x 50 = 5000,000,000 sq m = 5000 sq Km !! This is unique real estate, which directly receives the elixir of life, sunshine, and we are doing practically nothing with it ....

http://selvaraj-garden.blogspot.com/

Selvaraj

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According to internet sources, area of India is 3287263 Km^2 and 43% is used for agriculture, giving approx 1.4E6 Km^ of agricultural land. Would increasing this by .3% increase GDP by "tens of thousands of crores" ?

- Sreenadh

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Well, my 'tens of thousands of crores' was somewhat rhetorical. However, since you have posed the question let us calculate and see whatfigures we obtain.

1. Solar power on 10% of available roof top area:

- Total area available 500 sq Km. On this we can produce 50,000 Mw of power for four hours every day.
- No of units produced in an hour = 50,000,000
- At the rate of Rs 5/unit (I am cheating a little here :-), the value of electricity generated = Rs 250,000,000 = Rs 25 crores/hour
- For a day the income will be Rs 100 crores
- In a year Rs 36,500 crores.

2. Vegetable cultivation on 20% of available roof top area:

Lets keep in mind that the rooftop will be considerably more productive than an average farmer's field due to better drainage and less pathogens. Since 'farming' is done is less area it will also be economical to use high tech techniques like drip irrigation, green house etc. My estimate is that it should be easily possible to harvest one kg of vegetables per day from 200 sq ft of raised bed cultivation on a rooftop (In India).

- Total area available 1000 sq Km.
- One Kg of vegetables produced on 20 sq m / day
- Vegetables produced from an area of 1000 sq km = 1000,000,000/20 = 50,000,000 Kg / day
- At the rate of Rs 20/kg (we seem to be paying about this much in Trivandrum) this works out to 1000,000,000 Rs
- Or Rs 100 crores / day
- In a year this works out to Rs 36,500 crores.

* Using 30% of the roof area we have already reached Rs 73,000 crores!

Please note, the value of using rooftops goes beyond GDP figures.

1. We are going to face serious problems in the availability of fertilizers in future; Its cost is already zooming. In the home environment, fertilizer will be available from recycled waste.
2. Fresh vegetables, from which nutrients have not been sapped out.
3. Poor people need not spend on common vegetables.
4. Decentralization will lead to more sharing of wealth.

Regards,
Selvaraj

4.5 Solar cells having 50% efficiency?

In Mountain View this week, workers are unloading and assembling a pilot plant to manufacture the most efficient commercial photovoltaic solar panel yet. It turns almost one-third of the sun's energy into electricity, a new record.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/drive_to_discover&id=8439532

2012-01-05T05:42:00.000-08:00

RENEWABLE ENERGY / SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT / 2011

Dear Friends,

The purpose of this blog is to make available to a larger audience my posts, mainly in the IIT Global Current Affairs Group and a few other groups.

Most of these posts refer you to the store house of knowledge - The Word Wide Web. A few of the posts are also my 'bright?' ideas.

This blog is for posts in the category 'Renewable Energy / Sustainable Development'.

4. RENEWABLE ENERGY / SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

4.1 Public transport is social service (25/12/2011)

4.2 Zero budget farming (29/11/11)

4.3 New IEA report (24/11/11)

4.4 Mindless waste of a priceless resource (14/11/11)

4.5 Solar cells having 50% efficiency (21/11/11)

4.6 The power of exponential growth (2/11/11)

4.7 Population control to save endangered species (1/11/11)

4.8 Ecological limits to population growth (31/10/11)

4.9 Composting toilets the future of sanitation (30/10/11)

4.10 Geothermal energy to power entire U.S. (27/10/11)

4.11 The energy trap (27/10/11)