Green India, Green World

Over the past few decades India's forest cover has come down significantly. Many fast growing Indian cities specially in the North and Western part of India are highly polluted. This pollution has lead bad health of people living in these cities.

The most polluted city in India is Delhi which has a population of 17.5 million people. It is followed by cities like Agra, Ludhiana , Kanpur, Ahmedabad etc. This are fast growing cities and pollution levels in this cities have put the health of people living in this cities in danger.

The city of Agra is well known for Taj Mahal which is an architectural wonder made with some of the most finest marble stone in the world. The Taj Mahal is regarded as one 8 wonders of the world. This Taj Mahal is losing its lustre because of the pollutants released by nearby factories in Agra. The marble is turning yellow.

One of the major reasons why India went through this massive deforestation is that India's population has increased by a factor of 4 after independence. This has lead to greater demand for food production so more and more forest land had to be cleared for agriculture, industries and residence.

There was a time when people used to drink water directly from the river Ganga, for Hindus the water of this river is sacred , however no longer can anyone even think of directly drinking water from that river , it is one of the most polluted river on earth. The river Ganga has to pass through some of the most populated areas in north India.All the industrial and human waste of this cities are thrown into this river.

As the river has tremendous religious significance people bath in this river and people who regularly bath in this river often fall ill reporting various stomach and skin problems. The Indian government invested lot of money into the cleaning of Ganga but the projects were shoddily implemented and most of the money meant for the project was lost to corruption, so the condition of the river did not improve.

This are some of the multiple pollution related issues that we are facing in India for air pollution- the solution is use of green energy in generation of electricity. India is blessed with ample sunlight . Solar energy can reduce the need of coal and gas based power plants.

The states of Rajasthan and Gujrat can become the solar powerhouses of the country. The electricity from sun produced in both this states would be enough to power entire northern, western and central India. Even states like Madhya Pradesh , Chattisgarh, UP get enough sunlight to generate more than enough power for themselves.

India is blessed with a 7,517 km long coastline. The sea coasts are always windy so ample Wind energy can be generated here but the real opportunity lies in harnessing the tidal energy along the coastline. There is enough scope to generate enough tidal energy along the coast that use of fossil fuels would be totally unnecessary. The energy is green and the energy is cheap. Even in south India there is lot of sunlight so great amounts of solar energy can also be generated.

An Indian IT- services company Infosys intends to power its offices with solar electricity from its own captive power plant. According to the company the power generated from the solar power plant would cost them a little more than Rs 3 per unit. Far lower than Rs. 5.65 it pays for its Bangalore office.

Similarly there would be other companies that would surely follow the suit. Green Power is the future and need of mankind. If environment is not taken into consideration while planning our future the result would be disastrous.

The cleaning of rivers like Ganga is very essential since this rivers are the major source of water for human consumption and agriculture. However for this to happen government's will is a must. The waste discharged by industries and the waste from sewage should be treated. Harmful materials like lead, arsenic and others should be removed from this before disposal. The industries that throw out poisonous gases into the atmosphere should be equipped with pollution control devices that can neutralize the harmful gases. There should be some regular monitoring mechanism that ensures that the pollution control devices are used properly and are maintained properly. 

Sewage itself can be great source of bio gas that can be used to generate electricity. In Delhi there are power plants that are powered by bio gas from sewage.

Environment and Development can coexist and should coexist because environmental balance is essential for the sustenance of human life and animal life on earth. Yes we want development but development with healthy life and a green world. 

Floating Offshore Wind Power Grid

In the sea the speed of winds is more and constant. Offshore wind power harnesses this by placing wind towers a few kilometres away from the coast. Now major portion of the earth is ocean ,70% of it. However these offshore wind towers can only be setup in areas where the sea or ocean is relatively shallow since only a certain height can be given to the wind towers. The base of the wind towers is on the seabed.

     However a new kind of off shore wind tower . This tower is actually a floating tower in the sea, so it is possible to set it up anywhere in the ocean. This brings major portion of the earth as a potential area of generation of wind power. In the past I have discussed many other wind power generation technologies in this blog. This one is equally exiting and promising . There is an excellent Wikipedia page on this floating Wind turbines .

The motivation behind writing this blog came from a NHK world programme I stumbled on today in which they showed this and described to potential for Japan to harness this energy . Japan does have very little shallow sea in its coastal areas so this technology is a boon for them and they estimate that Japan can generate many times more energy from this floating wind power stations as compared to solar power in that country. 

What other possible other applications of this floating wind power stations : one wild thing that comes to mind is that today Fuel Oil which is extracted from Crude Oil power most of the ships today. So if we can possibly have a chain of such floating power stations across the oceans of the world maybe our ships can draw energy from them and run on green electric power rather than the pollution causing fuel oil. This possibility deserves to be looked into although implementing this idea on such a large scale would be a huge challenge.

Also US Navy has come out with a technology which extracts CO2 and hydrogen from seawater and uses it as a fuel . 

Electricity from Kites

Makar Sankranti everyone knows about this day in India which falls on 14th January. This day is celebrated across the nation by flying kites millions and millions of them. This festival has been celebrated in India since times immemorial. The humble kite is known to people across the world and many among us have flown kites for fun.

But what if the same humble kite be modified and used for better purposes. To satisfy one of the most important needs of modern life electrical energy and at the same time not cause any pollution at all. Yes we have come to a time when researchers across the world have designed Kites that can generate electricity with the help of winds both in air and also under water using underwater waves.

For low water speeds less than 2.5 metres per second a Swedish company Minesto has developed a technology to generate electricity from underwater kites that can produce electricity. Water is 800 times denser than air and hence contains 800 times more energy. The Minesto Underwater Kites are tethered to the Ocean or river beds as shown in the picture. The rudder on the kites is controlled externally by the operators . Therefore the kites move along a controlled path. There is a gearless fast rotating turbine affixed to the kites that rotates along with the motion of the kites and generates electricity. The project is named deep green and has now 4 different products that are extensively tested one has 8 meteres wingspan and can generate 120 kilowatts of wind power at a stream velocity of 1.3 m/sec. The one with the largest wingspan Dg -14 has a wingspan of 14 metres and can generate power in tune of 850 kilowatts at a stream velocity of 1.73 m/sec. So this technology promises to be green and renewable source of energy. Ocean tides are predictable unlike Winds which are intermittent. You can get more information about the technology and the product form the this link .

In this video Link you can see how electricity can be generated using atmospheric kites. This technology developed at Delft University 

The other short video explains ho Dutch scientists have harness the power of kites to generate electricity. As seen in the video they used a 10 sq meter kite and raised it to a height of around 800 metres and generated 10 kilowatts of electricity. At this height the wind speed is higher than the wind speed on ground traditional wind turbine towers cannot reach such a height. 

   Now energy and speed has a cubic relationship. If the speed of wind is 5 m/sec at the height of wind turbines then the height at which this kite would rise it will have a speed of 7 m/sec. Thus approximately 4 times more energy can be generated at this height but it is not possible to have a wind tower that high. But kites can get to that height at a much lower cost. Scientists plant to create an array of such kites to generate many megawatts of electricity.

    So you see what was a source of fun to people when made better and when more thought and science is put into it has potentially become a solution to one of the most major problem on earth and that's totally clean and green energy.

Searaiser

        I have mentioned about tidal energy lots of times in  my blog , there are different ways in which the energy from the ocean currents can be tapped into and one of the ways is this searaser technology .

     The following video demostrates this technology SEARASER VIDEO

             The diagram shown below shows how the setup work the searaser pump units that are fixed in sea the top portion moves up and down depending on the tide and this motion moves the piston attached to it which pumps the water through the pipes to the reservoir where the water is collected and then water is made to flow downstream thereby moving the turbine and creating electrical energy , its a pretty simple setup and ones the things are in place except the maintentce costs the electricity generated is free.

          

                There is absolutely no fuel costs involved since the tidal energy of the sea which is caused due to the gravitational effects of moon and sun is used , the tides are regular and will stay there forever unlike rivers which may go dry during summers in some places. 

       The energy thus generated is totally green and renewable does not cause any pollution at all. 

      India has over 7000 kms of sea cost , the tides in Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean are very high and this technology can be effectively tapped into to generate electricity. With such a long coastline many terawatts of electricity can be generated , this would totally eliminate the need to use coal , and imported crude oil for energy purpose also the energy will be very cheap around 30% cheaper than electricity from nuclear power plants. 

         Currently in India 85% of the crude oil has to be imported by investing in renewable technologies like this one the dependence on foreign oil will come down. Its better to have cars running on electricity generated from renewable energy than have them run on imported petrol. 

           Tidal energy will save the whole world not only billions of dollar but will reduce the CO2 and other SPM  emission into the atmoshphere which is responsible for global warming. 

         Investing in green and renewable energies like tidal energy , solar energy , wind energy will lead to cleaner , greener future of the world . 

         

       

                  

      

Tidal Energy with Davidson Hill Venturi turbine.

A great source of energy largely untapped is is the energy from the ocean currents it is also called Tidal Energy. The tides in oceans are caused by the gravitational effects of the sun and moon. Tides follow a pattern and can be predicted years in advance unlike wind. Water is 832 times denser than air so a relatively small turbine can produce large amounts of electricity as compared to Wind Turbines. 

This is the diagram of the davidson hill venturi turbine , it makes use of the Venturi effect the flow of ocean current is in the smaller side of the turbine so at the other end where the area of the crossection is larger there  velocity of flow of water is reduced thus creating a low pressure area which leads to more current rushing towards that side via the turbine thus making the turbine rotate a very high amount of efficiency is achievable through the Davidson Hill Venturi turbine ,This video of Davidson Hill Turbine will explain more .

Tidal energy is a largely untapped but a very promising source of energy , and it would have very low maintenance costs. This link would shows that a DHV turbine with a 10 meter rotor will produce a few megwatts of electricity at moderate water speeds. 

      Fossil fuel and coal are  getting scarse and of course their combusiton leads to realese of green house gases which are resulting in global warming tapping into renewable sources of energy like tidal energy can produce many terawatts of energy without producing any pollution no loss of limited natural resource. 

We can do away with coal and gas based power plants at least in areas of earth that are within a distance of 1000 kms from the ocean.

       Talking in context of India we have one of the longest coastlines in the world, the power of the sea currents across Arabian Sea, Indian ocean and Bay of Bengal can be tapped into and power can be generated for entire south, east and western parts of India.