Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Wasting energy

A new study has found that leaving everyday appliances on "standby" costs UK households between £50 and £86 a year on average. Televisions, satellite boxes and other video and audio equipment are the worst offenders, but people are increasingly leaving computers, mobile phones and other appliances from washing machines to dishwashers on standby, where it is still using energy.
Standby use accounts for about 9% to 16% of the average electricity bill of £530 a year and is helping to push the UK's electricity use upwards, but with little benefit to consumers, according to a new study called Powering the Nation, from the Energy Saving Trust (EST).

People are also failing to use their domestic appliances efficiently, the study found, especially when washing clothes and dishes. According to the study, households are spending at least £80 a year on laundry with 5.5 washes a week when they could be more sparing with water and still remain clean!
In households with a tumble dryer, more than four-fifths of the washing is dried using electricity, while households with dishwashers fare even worse, spending twice as much washing their crockery as they do on their clothes.

The findings come from the Household electricity use study, undertaken by the Energy Saving Trust and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Under the study, a total of 251 households had their habits examined from 2010-11, with 26 of these watched for a full year and the remainder for about a month. This is a situation not only in UK but the worldover. Who will call a halt to such wasteful practices? Is this due to lack of awareness of the energy situation? Or is it simply because power still is largely cheap?


Friday, June 22, 2012

Playing with language

Yet another Earth Summit, and yet another declaration, but does it mean anything more than mouthing few platitudes in perfect prose? Perhaps not. The Rio+20 declaration is remarkable for its absence of figures, dates and targets. Yet, 190 governments seem to have spent the last 20 years in merely acknowledging, recognising and feeling concern about the world’s environmental crises, but not done anything about them. Whether it is climate change, biodiversity or combating desertification, technical insider negotiations have hijacked any action on the well-crafted treaties. 

And while everyone talks of ‘sustained growth’ no one seems to have noticed the incongruity of such a notion on a limited planet with limited resources. Coupling growth with ecology, bringing in another term to replace GDP, etc remain acknowledged concepts, but no more.

However, the UN’s Sustainable energy for all programme announced at the summit promises some action and results. More than 50 governments have launched new clean energy strategies, while private investors have pledged to invest more than $50 billion to reach the program’s goal of doubling renewable energy production and energy efficiency gains while providing all people access to modern electricity services by 2030. Around 1.3 billion people do not have access to electricity, while 2.7 billion rely on wood, dirty fuels or animal waste for cooking and heating. It’s anticipated that the “Sustainable Energy for All” initiative will ultimately benefit more than 1 billion people. Using locally available resources, decentralizing energy production, etc will have to play significant roles, as we have been saying here in our post. Only then will they contribute to SDGs (sustainable development goals).

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Adding up in effect


An incremental approach to closing the gap between where emissions are and where they need to be may be easier and more successful. Without any change in greenhouse gas emissions, the world will be creating 12 more gigatons of carbon dioxide a year than we should be in order to prevent worst-case global warming. In order to close that gap, the research team sought to identify areas that share four characteristics: like existing traction, other benefits, leaders and that the action can achieve at least a reduction of one half billion tons of carbon dioxide by 2020.

The researchers from Germany and Netherlands identified 21 initiatives that meet the four above characteristics. The combined impact of bringing those initiatives to scale, as outlined in the graph, brings CO2 output to near the target range of 44 gigatons a year, reducing output almost the full 12 gigatons it would take to do so.

In essence, being part of a larger coalition that has the potential to completely bridge the entire emissions gap will make it much more attractive to participate in and take action than individual spurts. What is required is a coalition that together provides leadership in bridging the gap.
The team’s calculation shows that the initiatives have in sum substantial potential to bridge the emissions gap, going beyond what governments have pledged. The combined effect of the initiatives can be quite substantial: a reduction of roughly 10 Gt CO2e below business as usual by 2020, plus the effect of enhanced reductions in air-pollutant emissions. This can be compared to the gap of around 12 Gt CO2e between business as usual and what would be necessary for the 2 °C limit.
 A coalition of progressive governments and producers could remove barriers to solar PVs by introducing good grid access and net metering rules, paving the way to add another 1,600 GW by 2020 (growth consistent with recent years). Impact in 2020: up to 1.4 Gt CO2e. The Global Wind Energy Council could foster the global introduction of arrangements that lead to risk reduction for investments in wind energy, with, for example, grid access and guarantees. This could lead to an installation of 1,070 GW by 2020, which is 650 GW over a reference scenario. Impact in 2020: up to 1.2 Gt CO2e. The UN Secretary General's Sustainable Energy for All Initiative could ensure that all people without access to electricity (1.4 bn) get access through low-emission options. Impact in 2020: up to 0.4 Gt CO2e. The International Energy Agency could work with countries to phase-out half of all fossil-fuel subsidies. Impact in 2020: up to 0.9 Gt CO2e.  So on.
For more, read.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Safety vs Security


Even as the Japanese government took a decision to restart two of its nuclear reactors bowing in to the need of the day, elsewhere the Rio+20 summit saw the launch of an online campaign against fossil fuels. Both address growing demand for energy in the world today. After months of shutdown of its reactors, Japan which has been suffering major power shortages decided to fall back on its reactors despite the public outcry seen there. Does this mean safety comes only after energy security??

Climate activists would have us think otherwise. The 24-hour "Twitter storm" launched at Rio summit against the hundreds of billions of dollars of government subsidies paid each year to the petroleum and coal industry was making a case for the planet’s safety/health. While the campaign saw a record breaking number of participants, the moot point is whether such twitters are more than a glitch on the graph. Can online organising work any real wonders or do they serve as mere gimmicks? Does reaching out to youth serve a purpose on the grand scale of things? Do they remain in public memory for more than a twitter of a second?!

International Energy Agency figures show that government subsidies for fossil fuels are 12 times greater than those for renewable energy. The G20 promised action three years ago to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, but a new report suggests they have not yet eliminated any because the definition of "inefficient" is vague.

A piece of hope from the summit is what the United Nations Environment Program is offering as an alternative to GDP - called the Inclusive Wealth Index, it adds natural capital to the list of economic measurements in a bid to assess the sustainability of a country's growth. For example, China's growth drops from more than 400 percent since 1990 as measured by GDP to just 45 percent in the IWI, thanks to the decline in that country's natural resources. GDP, it has been argued, isn't a very good measure of whether people are benefiting from growth. A rise in cancer diagnoses registers as growth!
 

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Bad morphs into good!

We just can’t stop throwing up carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. So why not try using it in a way that cancels out the gas in the air? Better still; why not integrate the gas into a sustainable form of energy production? That is exactly what a research team at the Freiburg Materials Research Center has done. They have developed a new system for producing methanol that uses CO2 and hydrogen.
In order to produce methanol, the carbon dioxide is combined with hydrogen in a high pressure environment, a process known as hydrogenolysis. New catalyst systems and methods for accelerating the chemical reaction even more are among what the team is studying.
They currently use the metal oxides copper, zinc, and zirconium dioxide as catalysts, enabling the reaction to happen at lower temperatures. In this way, the gases don't have to be heated as much. Together the catalysts form a so-called mixed system of surface-rich porous solid matter with defined properties. If the catalysts consist of nanoparticles, their activity is increased even more.
Methanol can be used as an environmentally friendly alternative for gasoline. When used as an alternative to gasoline, methanol is less dangerous and less harmful to the environment than conventional fuels. In around two years, the researchers aim to be able to produce methanol on a mass scale according to this technique. Then the CO2 will be filtered out of the waste gas stream of a combined heat and power plant and used to produce methanol. 

When methanol is burned in a motor, CO2 is released again. If the same molecule were used twice, it would theoretically be possible to use 50 percent less CO2 to create the same amount of energy. The amount of methanol that could be converted from 10 percent of the yearly CO2 emissions in Germany would cover the country's yearly fuel needs. Capturing waste gases from power plants and filtering out the CO2 which then can be converted to methanol... sounds like a legitimate next step. But is it?

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Decentralisation the way

In the US the average electricity bill is 5 pc of total income. Compared to that, the average domestic consumer in the middle class here in India pays much less, while the poor and farmers pay more! For a farmer who pays Rs 8500 per annum per 5 HP pump, his income going by the US standards should be over a lakh, while we know it is a pittance, hardly crossing four digits!
 Should the farmers be charged at average cost of supply? How will it affect agricultural productivity? However subsidizing will mean industrial and domestic consumers bear the burden. What is the solution?
One, encourage farmers to become energy independent by using local resources. Biomass could generate either energy for cooking needs or even produce electricity. The latter will mean a shift from cash crops whose stalks and remains alone will not be enough to generate enough biomass. Around 6500 MT of biomass is required for 1 MW of power. Perhaps they need to be encouraged to grow yield rich crop that can serve as fodder for cattle and biomass. This will have to be done jointly with groups of farmers as individual growers will not be able to sustain the demand.
A program on this concept has been initiated in Rahuri in Maharashtra. The concept revolves around power from biomass. Following the identification of AG feeder serving 400-600 pumps, some 40-60 DPs are provided to supply power to the pumps. Farmers get around 25k per acre plus energy at low cost, jobs are generated, manure produced, so on.
The APDRP provides for dedicated agricultural feeders to facilitate load shedding for AG pumps while government offers subsidy of 10 and 30 pc for biomass gasification and biogas respectively. It is conceived that around 5000 11 Kv feeders can supply power to 31 lakh pump sets at low cost using biomass! Shouldn’t this be the way ahead?

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Bacteria grids!

A wide variety of microbes can send electrons into, or accept electrons from, conducting materials. Most organisms internally generate energy by coupling the addition of electrons to one molecule with their removal from another. But some microbes must cooperate to generate the energy for life, swapping molecules or electrons with other species. Research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on June 4 suggests the some bacteria do indeed build electricity-conducting grids in the wild.
Microbes use conductive minerals as electric wires for transferring electrons between each other, the team found.
The researchers tested a variety of solutions containing the soil bacteria Geobacter sulfurreducens and Thiobacillus denitrificans, which thrive by eating acetate and nitrate respectively, when they can find a spare electron or two. When the scientists placed either of these microbes alone into a solution containing the two compounds, nothing happened. Nor did the situation improve when both types of microbes were put together into this solution of their favorite foods, suggesting the organisms lacked the ability to directly transfer electrons between them.
But when the scientists added magnetite, an electricity-conducting iron-based mineral, the bacteria got to work eating, cooperating merrily by shuttling electrons back and forth via the magnetite grains. And, although the same effect could be had by adding the rusted red iron mineral hematite, which is a poor conductor, the resulting microbial growth was much smaller and slower (and non-existent when nonconductive aluminum minerals were tried).
Lessons out there for us energy-hungry humans? Meanwhile, here is a question for you: could energy rations be a good option in an energy scarce scenario?

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Biofuel method shows promise

A Purdue economic analysis shows that the cost of the thermo-chemical H2Bioil method is competitive with crude oil at $100 per barrel when using certain energy methods are used to create hydrogen needed for the process.

For biofuels to be competitive, crude prices would need to be at about $120 per barrel. This process looks like it could be competitive when crude is even a little cheaper than that. The team is confident the process is ready to go commercial.

H2Bioil has significant advantages over traditional standalone methods used to create fuels from biomass.


The process is quite fast and converts entire biomass to liquid fuel; as a result, the yields are substantially higher. Once the process is fully developed, due to the use of external hydrogen, the yield is expected to be two to three times that of the current competing technologies, says the team.

The energy source used to create hydrogen for the process makes all the difference when determining whether the biofuel is cost-effective. Hydrogen processed using natural gas or coal makes the H2Bioil cost-effective when crude oil is just over $100 per barrel. But hydrogen derived from other, more expensive, energy sources -- nuclear, wind or solar -- drive up the break-even point.
However the bigger question still remains whether biofuels can be any more than supplements to the liquid transport fuels. Can it go on to produce power at large scales? Would the ensuing scenario affect foodgrain production? These will remain questions to be addressed.
H2Bioil is created when biomass, such as switchgrass or corn stover, is heated rapidly to about 500 degrees Celcius in the presence of pressurized hydrogen. Resulting gases are passed over catalysts, causing reactions that separate oxygen from carbon molecules, making the carbon molecules high in energy content, similar to gasoline molecules.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Slow down

One more year around the sun and the going is not so good for our home planet's environment. Latest measures of CO2 show the number at 400 ppm, after 800,000 long years. There is no sign of let up. Strange things have begun to happen like shrubs in the Siberian part of Arctic growing into trees and leading the way to hotter climes. While the Sahel region in AFrica has started to see signs of food security, climate change and conflict come together as thousands of Malian refugees flee from home in search of food and water.

A study found that up to 90 percent people in Niger in danger of running out of food by next harvest! As the heat wave picks up and rain dwindles, those surviving on rain-fed agriculture and pastoralists face a grim future.
A more recent study shows that rising water temperature and poor river flow will see a drop of up to 16 percent in thermal power production! Is this nature's way of crying halt to what is bad??

Meanwhile, Environment Day will see many of us paying lip service to the environment. Plant a sapling. Or take a bus to work. Or switch off lights for an hour. The next day will come with its own challenges of running the ratrace, even if it means racing blindly across a road where trees lie hacked for a road widening!

Perhaps, much of the problem lies in the fact that few of us have time to think. If we can take life a bit slower, live each moment fully, maybe we can learn to get more out of less. That could be the easiest way we can reduce our impact on the planet. The Zen way.
o we really understand what the Environment is all about? Do we see how closely connected our lives are to the health of the environment?
As we consume resources at a rate 35 percent faster than it can regenerate, we are closing the walls around ourselves. It is common sense to anyone that we live in a limited sphere of things. Today we panic as fuel prices go up but fail to understand that the season of plenty is long over. We have been enjoying petrol at a highly subsidised rate actually!