If the carbon leaks...

CO2 sequestration has many potential advantages over other forms of climate geoengineering. It makes good sense to modify the Earth's radiation balance by putting carbon back in where it came from. Atmospheric CO2 is long-lived and evenly-distributed globally making it possible to manage it in a long-term, controlled way with less chance for unpleasant climate surprises. But is it really safe, especially in the recent oil spill background? If we cannot cap oil, can we do the same for a gas? Is it a good enough excuse to continue using fossil fuels?

Gary Shaffer, professor at the Niels Bohr Institute, and leader of the Danish Center for Earth System Science, made long model projections for a number of sequestration/leakage scenarios. His results show that leakage of the stored CO2 may bring about large atmosphere warming, large sea level rise and oxygen depletion, acidification and elevated CO2 concentrations in the ocean.

Admitting the advantages of CCS, he notes "However, one should not underestimate potential short and long-term problems with leakage from underground reservoirs. Carbon in light form will seek its way out of the ground or seabed. The present situation in the Gulf of Mexico is a poignant reminder of that."

All set for coal tax

The Indian government will start levying the Clean Energy Cess, or coal tax, on all the coal mined in the country or imported from July 1, 2010. A tax of Rs. 50 would be levied on every tonne of coal mined in the country as well as that imported from abroad. The Indian government announced the coal tax in order to generate funding for the research, development and deployment of cleaner and renewable energy technologies.

As of April 1 2009, India’s coal reserves stood at 267 billion tonnes. There has been a steady increase in the coal production over the years. The government has a target of mining 461 million tonnes in 2007-08 as against the actual production of 430 million tonnes in 2006-07.

Coal is the primary source of power generation in India with more than 70 percent of the total electricity generated coming from coal-fired power plants. However, with India already committed to reducing its carbon intensity by 20 to 25 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels, coal is not the way. The government must invest heavily in the renewable energy technologies. Therefore, the need of a National Clean Energy Fund.

Capturing wasted solar energy

Material chemists at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Minnesota claim to be able to increase the efficiency of a solar cell by more than 60 percent, up from what was thought to be a limit of about 30 percent. They report their findings in the journal Science.

If a photon has about the same energy as the solar cell semiconductor’s band gap, it knocks an electron into the conduction band, where it can flow as current. However, some high-energy photons in sunlight exceed the band-gap energy of the cell and is wasted.

The ejected “hot” electron, quickly loses its excess energy, “cooling down” to the bottom of the conduction band within a picosecond. It has been impossible to retrieve the lost energy, according to the team which has discovered that the lost energy can be salvaged and transferred to an adjacent electron-conducting layer and this can be done in less than 50 femtoseconds (quadrillionths of a second).

Their experiment was carried out using a model system composed of colloidal lead-selenide nanocrystals, or quantum dots, coupled with an electron-conducting titanium dioxide layer.

Within the past 10 years, many studies have confirmed the promise held by quantum dots for slowing down the cooling of hot charge carriers so they keep their energy longer.

Essentially, the small size of the nanocrystal forces a high number of electron-electron interactions. This “quantum confinement effect” maintains electrons at a high level of excitement for up to a nanosecond, potentially enough time for their energy to be put to use.

So, we are moving in the right direction. It has been the conversion of the total solar energy which has been the issue. Looks like not for too long.

Biggest disaster in history?

An underwater robot bumping into a vent at the Deepwater Horizon site in the Gulf forced BP to remove the cap that’s been containing a portion of the spillage – meaning that oil was gushing out unhindered for hours. Luckily, the cap is back on thanks to remote-controlled submarines. The cap had been off for much of the day, allowing up to 104,000 gallons per hour of black oil to gush into the Gulf.

Meanwhile, a report prepared for Russian President Medvedev by Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources has warned that the BP oil spill in the Gulf may soon be the biggest environmental disaster in human history, threatening the whole Eastern U.S. with “total destruction”.

Russian scientists are basing their apocalyptic destruction assessment due to BP’s use of millions of gallons of the chemical dispersal agent known as Corexit 9500 which is being pumped directly into the leak of this wellhead over a mile under the Gulf of Mexico waters and designed, this report says, to keep hidden from the American public the full, and tragic, extent of this leak that is now estimated to be over 2.9 million gallons a day.

The dispersal agent Corexit 9500 is a solvent originally developed by Exxon and now manufactured by the Nalco Holding Company of Naperville, Illinois that is four times more toxic than oil (oil is toxic at 11 ppm (parts per million), Corexit 9500 at only 2.61ppm).

In a report written by Anita George-Ares and James R. Clark for Exxon Biomedical Sciences, Inc. titled “Acute Aquatic Toxicity of Three Corexit Products: An Overview” Corexit 9500 was found to be one of the most toxic dispersal agents ever developed. Even worse, according to this report, with higher water temperatures, like those now occurring in the Gulf of Mexico, its toxicity grows.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in discovering BP’s use of this dangerous dispersal agent ordered BP to stop using it, but BP refused stating that their only alternative to Corexit 9500 was an even more dangerous dispersal agent known as Sea Brat 4.

River turbine powers a town

In a remote town of Eagle, Alaska, a river turbine is turning kinetic energy to electricity without building dams. The 25 kilowatt turbine, made by New Energy Corp., is attached to a barge in the Yukon River, requires no dam on the river at all and rotates at slow enough speeds that aquatic life is not placed at risk.

AP&T claims the project will make Eagle Village the first town in the United States to be entirely powered by a hydrokinetic river turbine. Pilot and small-scale projects like this are plenty but scaling them to supply bigger areas is the challenge.

What exactly are the challenges of scaling up? Do share your thoughts. Why cannot this model be adopted instead of opting for huge, multi-million dollar projects that displaces people and forests?

Pure fantasy?

While on the subject of vehicles, let us take a look at EVs or electric vehicles – the alternative for polluting petrol/diesel vehicles. True, they have limited range, acceleration and a long recharge time but they eliminate urban pollution. They also have smaller carbon footprint, given that the electricity to power the batteries comes from a mix of sources like thermal, hydro, nuclear and renewables.

But on the matter of price, opinions differ. Proponents claim to save more money avoiding petrol and lubricants than on replacement cost of batteries. Battery technology still is backward in most places and the claims of performance of Evs are pure fantasy, according to the Institution of Engineering and Technology. Citing the examples of Ford Focus or Volkswagen Golf which is capable of travelling more than 360 miles (576 km)on one tank of fuel, the researchers said, for an electric car to offer a similar level of performance, the batteries alone would weigh 1.5 tonnes. Batteries run out in two years incurring heavy expenses.

But range and speed are not the only considerations, surely? Why can’t EVs be the vehicle of choice for short-distance commuting? Why not club some other attractive features to make the EV a better choice? Any ideas?

Bring on the bicycles

The WorldWatch has some interesting points on the merits of cycling!

A bicycle commuter who rides four miles to work, five days a week, avoids [...] about 2,000 pounds of CO2 emissions, each year."

... countries with the highest levels of cycling have the lowest levels of cycling fatalities.

..some 700,000 car trips in Lyon, and 2,160,000 in Paris, are foregone each year because of bike-sharing.

In the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany in particular, a number of cities boast cycling rates of greater than 20 percent, and even 30 percent, of urban trips (compared with about 1 percent of trips in most U.S. and Australian cities).

Bicycling uses 35 calories (of energy intensity) per passenger mile, compared to 1,860 calories for a single person driving a car. That's 53 time less energy required to cover the same distance.

... a bicycle can increase a person's travel capacity (a combination of speed and payload) by at least five time over that of walking.

Finally, 100 bicycles can be manufactured for the energy and materials it takes to build a medium-sized car!

Now, is that a good reason why more of us should start demanding bicycle lanes in our cities instead of ever-widening roads catering to ever-increasing numbers of automobiles?

The invisible spill

The new official flow rate of oil from the spill caused by collapse of the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico at 60,000 barrels a day means there's enough oil to flow for two to four years!!

But hopefully the leak rate will fall sharply over time once the natural gas in the reservoir is exhausted. That is the driving force.

The oil spill is a good time to imagine what’s spilling into the atmosphere and oceans in an invisible manner since decades – imagine the damage from carbon dioxide being added to the atmosphere at a rate of about 1,000 tons a second!

A new paper in the journal Science, by researchers at the University of Queensland and University of North Carolina talk of large impacts on marine life and ocean dynamics caused by the ongoing buildup of carbon dioxide, both by warming the planet and changing ocean chemistry.

Ocean systems are being driven toward conditions not seen for millions of years, with an associated risk of fundamental and irreversible ecological transformation. The impacts of anthropogenic climate change include decreased ocean productivity, altered food web dynamics, reduced abundance of habitat-forming species, shifting species distributions, and a greater incidence of disease among marine life.

While we see the oil spill, we cannot see the ‘carbon spill’ and hence remain unmindful of the irreversible change we have induced.

The nuclear dilemma

An interesting TED debate saw two experts take up cudgels for and against nuclear energy. The audience that began loaded on the 'for' side saw some converts at the end!

Of course, the main premise for nuclear was the reductions in greenhouse emissions as against fossil fuels. The other one, rather ridiculous, was that nuclear energy development was one way of checking nuclear arms proliferation! And in the case aaginst nuclear, Jacobson of Standford chose to pick on the considerable carbon footprint of a nuclear plant through its life cycle, the long gestation time as also the waste problem. As a member of the audience pointed, transportation of nuclear fuel would constitute a security issue.

But now, the IEA has it that greenhouse gas emissions could be slashed by tripling the capacity of nuclear power over the next 40 years. The Nuclear Energy Technology Roadmap, which has been drawn up together with the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), sets an “ambitious but achievable” target of generating nearly a quarter of the world’s electricity using nuclear power by 2050.

“Nuclear energy is one of the key low-carbon energy technologies that can contribute, alongside energy efficiency, renewable energies and carbon capture and storage, to the decarbonisation of electricity supply by 2050,” said IEA executive director Nobuo Tanaka, speaking from the East Asia Climate Forum in Seoul.

The technology is a mature one, says the report, but the new reactor designs being constructed now will have to be established as reliable and competitive before being substantially expanded after 2020.

For such as expansion to take place, governments around the world will have to make a clear and long-term commitment to nuclear power and encourage public acceptance.
While new technological breakthroughs are not required to support a major expansion effort, says the IEA, progress on the disposal of high-level radioactive waste will be essential.

Funding will be one of the major hurdles to expansion, warns the report, and could require government-backed supporting mechanisms such as loan guarantees. Governments will also need to invest in developing and training the necessary workforce to build, operate and maintain a new generation of nuclear power stations.

The security issue still remains, in an increasingly polarised world. So what's your vote?

AC innovation promises 90 pc saving

Researchers at the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, CO, have come up with a new air-conditioner design that they say will dramatically increase efficiency and eliminate gases that contribute to global warming.

The desiccant-enhanced evaporative, or DEVap, air conditioner combines evaporative cooling with a water-absorbing material to provide cool, dry air while using up to 90 percent less energy.

The U.S. uses about 100 quadrillion British Thermal Units each year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Up to 40 percent of that is used in buildings, with about 5 percent going to air conditioning. The new system could cut that in half in less-humid areas and by up to 90 percent where humidity is high.

The desiccant used in the system is relatively harmless (calcium chloride is used in road salt), though its corrosiveness requires that metal be eliminated from the hardware. It also replaces the chlorofluorocarbons that are used as the refrigerant in traditional air conditioners. Those CFCs can easily leak, and every kilogram of them provides the same greenhouse gas effect as about 2,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide.

It might take about five years to develop the system to a point where NREL can hand it off to industry for commercialization. The system is designed to replace existing systems without many changes, so it could be phased in as people upgrade their old air conditioners.

The desiccant can be reused simply by heating it up to boil off the water. In an industrial setting, that might be done using waste heat from another industrial process. In the home, natural gas or solar energy would work.

The setup could make solar thermal energy systems, which absorb sunlight to heat a home and its water, more cost effective. During hot summer days, solar energy that might otherwise go to waste could therefore actually help keep a building cool.

Cheaper fuel cells

Creating catalysts that can operate efficiently and last a long time is a big barrier to taking fuel-cell technology from the lab bench to the assembly line. The precious metal platinum has been the choice for many researchers, but platinum has two major downsides: It is expensive, and it breaks down over time in fuel-cell reactions.

In a new study, chemists at Brown University report a promising advance. They have created a unique core and shell nanoparticle that uses far less platinum yet performs more efficiently and lasts longer than commercially available pure-platinum catalysts at the cathode end of fuel-cell reactions.

The chemistry known as oxygen reduction reaction takes place at the fuel cell's cathode, creating water as its only waste, rather than the global-warming carbon dioxide produced by internal combustion systems. The cathode is also where up to 40 percent of a fuel cell's efficiency is lost, so "this is a crucial step in making fuel cells a more competitive technology with internal combustion engines and batteries," said Shouheng Sun, professor of chemistry at Brown and co-author of the paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The trick, as a team member explained, was in molding a shell that would retain its shape and require the smallest amount of platinum to pull off an efficient reaction. The team created the iron-platinum shell by decomposing iron pentacarbonyl [Fe(CO)5] and reducing platinum acetylacetonate [Pt(acac)2], a technique earlier reported in a 2000 Science paper.

The result was a shell that uses only 30 percent platinum, although the researchers say they expect they will be able to make thinner shells and use even less platinum.

They are melting fast

After all the noise about the IPCC mis-quote, it still turns out glacier melting could pose a big danger to the Indian sub-continent.

Melting glaciers in the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau will decrease river flows and possibly cause food shortages in some regions of South Asia, but will not severely impact other river basins farther east, according to a study by Dutch scientists. Using satellite observations of glacial retreat, data on river flows, and computer modeling, the researchers from Utrecht University projected that rivers whose flow depends heavily on melting glaciers — including the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and, to a lesser extent, the Indus — could see water supplies decline by 20 percent by 2050.

That could threaten the food security of an estimated 60 million people in Pakistan and India, according to the study, published in the journal Science.

But rivers whose flows are more dependent on monsoon rains than glacial melt, such as China’s Yangtze and Yellow rivers, could actually see an increase in water supplies as monsoon patterns change this century due to rising temperatures. The study projected that the Yellow River basin could see a 9.5 percent increase in precipitation.

High time we started to manage water more effectively.

Mind-boggling numbers

The Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been the focus around the world, and many have wondered what the impact on the price of oil and the amount of oil we have left will be. Most of the experts have concluded that, given the limited data available and the small amount of time to process that data, the best estimate for the average flow rate for the oil leakage is between 25,000 to 30,000 barrels per day, but could be as low as 20,000 barrels per day or as high as 40,000 barrels per day.

Assuming 20,000 barrels per day, the total leak in 52 days would be 1,040,000 barrels, or 43,680,000 gallons. Assuming 40,000 barrels per day, the total leak in 52days would be 2,080,000 barrels, or 87,360,000 gallons.

A calculation by University of Delaware Prof. James J. Corbett shows that all the oil lost could have powered, as of Wednesday June 9, a total of 38,000 cars, 3,400 trucks and 1,800 ships for a full year.

The oil spill could worsen and expand the oxygen-starved region of the Gulf labeled "the dead zone" for its inhospitability to marine life, suggests Michigan State University professor Nathaniel Ostrom. It could already be feeding microbes that thrive around natural undersea oil seeps, he says, tiny critters that break down the oil but also consume precious oxygen. (Pic shows the oil spill nearing the Mississippi delta, taken from a Nasa satellite)

The dead zone is believed to stem from urban runoff and nitrogen-based fertilizers from farmland swept into the Gulf by the Mississippi River. Higher springtime flows carry a heavier surge each year, nourishing algae blooms that soon die and sink. Those decay and are eaten by bacteria that consume more oxygen, driving out marine life and killing that which can't move, such as coral. The dead zone can grow to the size of a small state.

Kick the carbon

Phew! Fifa will send 2.75 milion tons of carbon dioxide up into the atmosphere! That is the equivalent of emissions from over 1 million cars driving on the roads in a year.

And that’s six times the size of the last World Cup that was held in Germany four years ago.

According to a Norwegian government study, when FIFA chose South Africa as the host for the World Cup, the country was faced with the enormous task of having to build entirely new stadiums, whilst Germany used many existing venues, meaning massive amounts of carbon-intensive concrete. When it comes to construction, the cement industry is one of the main producers of carbon dioxide, with a ton of carbon being released for every ton of cement made.

On top of that, an increase in energy production (which is heavily coaled based in Africa) has seen more carbon emissions pumped into the atmosphere, especially when compared to Germany with its renewable energy installations. Compared to other European nations, South Africa also has poorer energy efficiency especially in buildings such as hotels. With a massive increase in accommodation use over the four week period, it is estimated that poor energy efficiency will be three and a half times worse per person for the South African World Cup than in Germany.

Well, we can't stop mega events like Fifa for climate considerations, as the fans will say. the least that can be done is to look at carbon offsets. South Africa has constructed the Gautrain, a high-speed rail network that will transport fans around the country. There are also projects to reduce fossil fuel consumption such as a US$10 million scheme to install solar panels and efficient lights on the streets, stoplights and billboards of the six host cities. Further efforts to reduce the footprint has seen the government initiate substantial offset programs, including urban tree planting.

But wait, Fifa also has its green points in its jerseys! NIKE recycled nearly 13 million plastic bottles, totaling nearly 254,000 kg of polyester waste, from landfill sites in JAPAN & TAIWAN, enough to cover more than 29 football pitches, into Polyester and finally into jerseys (see pic). Nine National teams (Brasil, The Netherlands, Portugal, USA, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Serbia, and Slovenia) in the FIFA World Cup Football in South Africa are using these recycled jerseys. If the bottles used to make the jerseys were laid end-to-end they would cover more than 3,000 kms, which is more than the entire coastline of South Africa.

To go smart or wait?

Smart is the way to be, and India is not going to lag behind. The government is in the process of setting up the “India Smart Grid Task Force” which will be chaired by Sam Pitroda, Advisor to the Prime Minister on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovation.

The task force will be an Inter-Ministerial Group and will serve as a focal point for activities related to the Smart Grid and will lay a roadmap for development of Smart Grid in India aided by the most modern and latest technologies in the field.

The Stake Holders Ministry of Power (MoP) will be the Patron of the Forum and PFC, REC will be permanent invitees and members. Initially the Forum will be open by invitation to selected state power utilities, private power utilities, power sector PSUs, empanelled System Integrators, SCADA Consultants and Implementing Agencies of R-APDRP, selected educational and research institutes, NGOs, CEA, CERC, CPRI, FICCI and NASSCOM.

Smart grids are digitally enhanced power systems that use modern communication and control technologies efficiently. Apart from providing choices to the consumer and motivating them to participate in the operations of the grid, causing energy efficiency and accommodating all generation and storage options, Smart Grid also envisages various properties for the Grid like self-healing and adaptive islanding. This all will enable electricity markets to flourish.

In the west there are as many success stories of smart grids as failures. Failures have been where having a smart meter did not encourage efficient use of power, as also worries over the cost of gadgets. This is going to be all the more pertinent in a developing nation where ordinary meters are wont to be stolen.

Should India be getting into the smart business now or first tackle issues like power theft, etc?

Sun's wrath

As the world gets more technologically tuned and connected, life has become easier and information and services accessible at the click of a button. So much so that we have become too dependent perhaps on such buttons. How well protected are our communication and power systems from something as powerful as a solar storm? A full-blown one could wreak havoc by disrupting essential services.

Richard Fisher, head of NASA's Heliophysics Division: "The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we're getting together to discuss."

The National Academy of Sciences framed the problem two years ago in a landmark report entitled "Severe Space Weather Events—Societal and Economic Impacts." It noted how people of the 21st-century rely on high-tech systems for the basics of daily life. Smart power grids, transformers, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications can all be knocked out by intense solar activity.

A century-class solar storm, the Academy warned, could cause twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina.

Mighty waters

'The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides'
- Jules Vern, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea

The World Oceans Day has just passed by. How many of us are aware of the role oceans play in ensuring we have a comfortable stay on the planet?

The health of our oceans is directly linked to our health and the health of future generations. The ocean regulates the planets temperatures by absorbing a vast majority of the CO² we continue to pump into the atmosphere, whilst at the same time providing us with more than half of the air we breathe. They drive the hydrological cycle and regulate climate.

And what are we doing in turn? Creating more dead zones with our mindless activity. Dead zones with so little oxygen that no sea life can survive are caused by fertilizers from agricultural land spilling into the sea. The Gulf oil spill will take years to vanish, and in the process will affect so much of marine life. Plastic from our homes have virtually formed islands on the oceans. The carbon we are eschewing into the atmosphere enters the oceans and acidifies them to a point where life becomes a struggle. And remember, life first stepped out of the oceans.

This is yet another day to introspect on how we live our lives, how every action has its imprint on the environment and in turn on our future... do we care?

Dark side to solar panels

Catch the energy of the sun. It's abundant, free and clean. Right? Rooftops glimmering with solar panels turned skywards are slowly coming up as the solution to erratic or inadequate power supply. But wait, there is a new fear being voiced. A threat to biodiversity.

Shining dark surfaces of the solar cells, which reflect light, resemble water surfaces resulting aquatic insects like mayflies depositing their eggs on the solar panels. The solar panels are posing a false habitat hazard to more than 300 species of insect. This leads to a reproductive failure which may have far-reaching cascading adverse effects to the food chain. The insects fall a prey to predators. This data was discovered from a research held at Hungary.

Reflected sunlight from expanses of dark surfaces that are shiny like glass-clad buildings, even vehicles, solar panels of all sizes, becomes a worrisome new source for polarized light pollution. This is what causes the caddis flies and other aquatic insects to mistake shining surface to be water surface to lay their eggs.

However, there is a solution. The group discovered that the aquatic insects can be warned off by fixing white-color grids and other methods to break up the polarized reflection. And efficiency not greatly affected either.

This research is significant as in it brings attention to the many aspects that need to be studied before we go for the total energy transformation from fossil to green.

Time to remove the appendicitis

A draft of a comprehensive new study from the International Energy Agency reveals that total global subsidies to dirty fossil-fuel energy amount to $550 billion a year -- about 75 percent more than previously thought.

The Financial Times that got a peak at the draft quotes chief IEA economist Faith Birol: "I see fossil fuel subsidies as the appendicitis of the global energy system, which needs to be removed for a healthy, sustainable development future."

The IEA estimates that energy consumption could be reduced by 850m tonnes equivalent of oil -- or the combined current consumption of Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand -- if the subsidies are phased out between now and 2020. The consumption cut would save the equivalent of the current carbon dioxide emissions of Germany, France, the U.K., Italy, and Spain.

Meanwhile, a major new report from environmental group Greenpeace says that existing technologies can provide 95% renewable electricity by 2050 without affecting economic growth.

The Energy [R]evolution also claims that this can be achieved while phasing out nuclear power and creating 12 million jobs by 2030 – a third more in the global power sector than if a ‘business as usual approach’ is continued.

The scenario modelled in the report proposes an investment system that shares costs fairly and would provide energy to two billion currently without access to a reliable supply.

Global CO2 emissions under the plan would peak in 2015 and then start falling, by 2050 emissions would be 80% lower than 1990 levels.

The Energy [R]evolution relies on a decentralised energy system, producing power and heat close to point of use to minimise energy wastage from conversion and distribution.

A supergrid, however, would be needed to transport large amounts of offshore wind and concentrating solar power to where it is needed.

Greenpeace proposes phasing out all subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear power and setting mandatory targets for renewable energy and combined heat and power generation. Renewable generators would also be granted priority access to the grid.
Feed-in tariffs would be used to guarantee returns for investors and cap-and-trade emissions trading would be used to make the energy sector bear the brunt of energy production costs.

All energy-consuming appliances, buildings and vehicles would be subject to strict efficiency standards and better labelling would be required to inform consumers about the environmental performance of products.

But all that after the appendicitis operation.

India top of Green index

Now here's something that will make you sit up! On Environment Day.

The latest installment of the National Geographic and GlobeScan's Greendex rankings of consumer behavior in 17 countries has been released, with similar results to past years: India, Brazil and China rank as the most sustainable, with the US and Canada ranking last.

The Greendex just measures the impact of the individual consumer in each nation, not the nation as a whole. For those of us living in developing nations and seeing consumerism at a high, this reads downright funny. Is it about green conscience or simply affordability is the question. The answer lies in affordability. It is still not more than 30 percent of our populations who can afford to splurge. A large chunk still lives on less than 2 dollars a day! No wonder the impact on the nation seems low.

But the index does prove one thing - to create a more sustainable human civilization, resource consumption levels have to stabilize somewhere between US levels and Indian levels if we are to live within the natural regenerative capacity of the planet.

But does knowing that make any difference? Not really. This is the age of consumerism, climate change and resource scarcity notwithstanding. How many of us are environment conscious when it comes to pandering to our desires? Either side of the equator. Very very few. As long as they roll out the latest SUVs and electronics, we cannot believe any talk of resource crunch. So also, as long as cool showers follow sweltering heat, we can brush aside global warming. We still have ACs in the malls to cool us.

The climate doom is not something that will rise swiftly like a tsunami, but is a slow process already in motion. Its consequences will take some more months or years to be really felt, but by then it will be too late.

Water, food, energy are all shrinking as a result of over-consumption and mismanagement. Awareness of the environment degradation and sustainable development are essential in today's paradigm of growth. Else, the quality of life for the next generation will be badly compromised. Let us leave a little bit of oxygen for them to breathe, a little water to drink, some fertile soils for their food cultivation, some fuel to keep them warm.

Let us practice some sustainable, green act on this Environment Day.

Desal plant in London

The UK now has its first desalination plant at London. Using a world's-first four-step reverse osmosis process (most plants use just two steps), the plant will be able to produce enough fresh water from the Thames to support up to one million Londoners with an 85% efficiency rate. The need for this was felt as existing resources - from non-tidal rivers and groundwater - simply aren't enough to match predicted demand in London.

The desal plant was originally opposed by London's previous Mayor, Ken Livingstone, who pointed out the primary problem with all desalination plants - it'd be too energy hungry and the benefits of more drinking water would be negated by the problems associated with more carbon dioxide from powering it. But after the operators agreed the plant would be run entirely from renewable energy sources, the construction moved forward. Though, the "renewable energy" is coming mainly from sustainably produced biofuel, another contested source given that its lifecycle is not carbon neutral.

Should more cities opt for this solution to water scarcity? Or go for better rainwater harvesting measures while curbing waste?

As with energy or food, water too brings out the obvious choice – rather than learn to manage our sources better, we are keen to add more sources. Is that a wise choice, or simply a way of stealing from tomorrow to satisfy our today’s runaway appetite?

Biopower - going waste

Garbage is a problem not only in developing world but also the developed world. Landfills are running out of space in UK which we read has decided to export waste pellets! In cities like Bangalore and Chennai and Kolkatta, you cannot drive too far without seeing some dump right within the city with waste rotting and flowing over.

What a waste we are letting all our garbage rot in landfills from where they emanate methane, etc. Instead we can be generating energy out of this waste both at individual flats level and community levels. There are people and organizations practicing this and happy with the same. Unfortunately, they are not news makers!

All it requires is 15 kgs of waste on alternate days for replacing the LPG for a family of 9. A moderate hotel can save upto Rs 75,000 annually by turning its waste into gas. The cost of disposal of waste for such a hotel is around Rs 25,000. Cowdung is also an excellent fodder for such biogas plants.

Success of such biogas plants however depend on proper segregation of the kitchen waste. Materials that can pose problems to the efficient running of plant are coconut shells and coir, egg shells, onion peels, bones and plastic pieces. While bones, shells and utensils can spoil the mixer physically, onion peels, coir and plastic can have detrimental effects on microbial consortium in the predigester and main digestion tanks. But above all, primary segregation of waste is the problem. If this can be inculcated at household levels, it could make a big difference.

Meanwhile, the total energy consumption generated from biomass in Sweden grew from 88terrawatt hours (TWh) to 115 TWh between 2000 and 2009, while the usage of oil-based products declined from 142 TWh to 112 TWh during the same period, according to the Swedish Bioenergy Association Svebio.

Biomass surpassed oil to become the number one source for energy generation in 2009, accounting for 32% of the total energy consumption in the country. It is projected that biomass consumption will continue to increase by another 10% in 2011.

A different kind of export!

Britain will start exporting domestic waste converted into fuel pellets to mainland Europe as it struggles to recycle the growing amount of household waste.

The generation of domestic waste seems to have exceeded the capacity of the British municipalities to recycle them. With limited land the solution of landfills is also completely exhausted. Hence the decision to export waste pellets to neighboring countries like Germany and Holland!

Household waste is turned into dense fuel pellets through a series of conversion processes like densification, removal of water and pressing. The resulting pellets can be directly used to generate heat which can then be used directly for heating purposes or convert water into steam to run a steam turbine for power generation.

In developing countries these energy conversion processes have been in use for quite sometime, for instance dried cow dung cakes are used as fuel. While it is illegal to export waste to other countries, through this project the energy value of the resource would be upgraded to a level from which significant benefits can be exploited.

The problem is that burning this fuel source releases carbon emissions. Conversion process of waste to fuel will have to be modified so that net energy content is increased while the potential of carbon emissions decreases.

Of course a simple way to make use of waste is to turn it into manure for unfertile soils!

Coal consumption to grow

The world's hunger for energy is insatiable, according to the most recent Energy Outlook published by The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). This will lead to an increase in coal consumption from 132 quadrillion Btu in 2007 to 206 quadrillion Btu in 2035, most of which will come from growth in India and China. As a result, annual Greenhouse Gas Emissions could rise from 29.7 billion metric tons in 2007 to 42.4 billion metric tons in 2035.

The report (based on current trends) predicts that things will be generally flat in the OECD countries, as they move from manufacturing to service based economies, and focus on efficiency rather than growth in their transportation sectors. But as manufacturers locate factories in developing countries where wages are cheapest, and those wage earners increase their standard of living, those countries will be the most active in growing their energy and fuel use – mainly coal and oil.

Nothing new. We have been hearing this for some time. But it’s the kind of stalemate with no clear solution. Can the developing nations take on the burden of climate change and give up on its development chart? No. Will the rich nations fund clean energy in these poor nations? Hardly anything substantial to help make the total shift. So then, we are left with the business as usual scenario. Energy intensity helps a bit but not enough to alleviate the climate damage.

As Baloo the bear asks Mowgli, ‘what do we do?’