Category Archives: Greening India

Cheap energy is the solution

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I received this comment on the previous post on the Indian emissions plan.

Quote: “Wow, for 10 years??? That is ridiculous! They are the second largest country population wise and they set this example? I think there should be some sanctions or something. At least some tariffs. Thanks for the news”. Unquote.

I think this is not ridiculous at all. Why should a poor country like India set an example on emissions when the richest country are doing nothing.

One correlation is for sure from the past. Cheap energy and wealth of a country are connected all else
being equal. Emissions are connected to cheap energy.

The solution is see is not emission caps but cheaper clean energy. Will a emission scheme deliver the incentives or Will it be a pigou tax or will it be government funded private based research.

Whatever way, a solution to cheaper clean energy is the solution to the Emissions problem.

We cannot stop wealth to be created for the poor.

Wall Street Journal – Welcome to 2003

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A great new resource on Rural India from some big guns.

The original incarnation of my website was when I worked in Deeshaa and it was focussed on Rural India and Business.

From 2003, we have come a long way around when the Wall Street Journal launches a special focus resource on this subject. They are a bit late but there is so much potential.

The Wall Street Journal and India Knowledge@Wharton present a unique mix of reporting, analysis, interviews and video on life and business in rural India. This reader resource combines specially-commissioned material with recent articles.

via Rural India – WSJ.com.

What should Akash Ganga’s Strategy be?

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Akash Ganga is a company based in India which has developed a product to create clean drinking water from air. I blogged about the founder earlier .

Akash Ganga in Hindi translates to the “the perrenial river Ganga from the sky”. Very apt.

I admire the intention behind it and I think it is a great product innovation coming out of India. Now that they have launched a new website with their productI want to figure out their strategy.

Their website and news articles suggest that they are going for the home and office market as a fresh water solution. Is this the right strategy?

It will be interesting to check out the economics.

First, they provide a comparison with reverse osmosis. I think number 4 should be the other way round.

S. No
Criteria
RO
AME
1
Durability
Less, because with increasing use, the ground water TDS load on the RO plant increases, till the membranes break-down.
More, because it does not use ground water, but uses only air. Much longer life than RO plants.
2
Effectiveness in ensuring purity of water
Yes, but depends upon frequent changes of filter membranes. Over time its effectiveness declines.
Yes, and remains so for ever, because its effectiveness is independent of any component of the machine. Effectiveness never declines.
3
Effluent water
Yes, and effluent ratio keeps rising as ground water level is depleted
None at all
4
Short run costs per liter of potable water
Lower. Operating costs are lower as are capital costs
Higher on both counts.
5
Long run costs per liter of potable water
Possibly very high. In the long run (i.e. after 6 years) the RO plant might have to be abandoned due to excessive TDS in ground water leading to frequent collapse of membranes.
Very low, because atmospheric water quality is always very high and stable.
6
Environmental resource depletion
Certainly very high. RO often uses up nearly 2.5 liters of ground water to obtain 1.0 liter of potable water. High rate of depletion of ground water.
None at all. Generation of water vapor in the atmosphere is the only perennial source of water.
7
Microbial presence
Yes if membranes are inefficient; water might need UV treatment
Nil

This may not be the right comparison as they both have their uses. Also, most reverse osmosis plants function from sea water and not ground water.

The market for Akash Ganga is different and it works only under some specific circumstances in terms of high humidity, temparature and continous energy.

Their basic product – AS-650 – 40 liters/day – requires a relative humidity of 80% and temparature of 90 Faranheit consuming 750 watts of power per hour and takes 24hrs to produce 40 litres.

Let’s calculate the cost of running this product.

Appliance
 Watts x Hours per Day x Days per Year ÷ Convert to kWh KwH Per Litre kWh Rate = Cost per Litre
Akash Ganga 750 x 24 x 1 ÷ 1,000 40/18=2.22 Rs 5.5 = Rs. 12.2

It takes about 2.22kwH to generate 1 litre of water and costs about Rs12.2 a litre. Average cost of electricty comes from here .

If we add the capital cost and running costs, it may not be an economical alternative in a home.

Next, what about the right conditions for maximum efficiency. It works I think at 50% relative humidity too but provides the maximum output at 80%.

If we look at today’s map of India there are not many places where this product will provide the maximum efficiency.

(Source: Intellicast )

To really take this forward they need to predict the relative humidity in the various cities in India. A journal article like “Prediction of monthly-mean hourly relative humidity, ambient temperature, and wind velocity for India” could be a good start.

Then combined with temperature averages we can narrow down to a possible list of places.

For Bombay these are the following averages for decades.

Unit Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Average temperature
over 21 years		 °F 80 75 77 80 84 86 84 82 82 82 84 80 78
Average high temperature
over 21 years		 °F 87 84 86 89 89 91 87 84 84 86 89 89 87
Average morning relative humidity
over 19 years		 % 82 75 73 79 84 81 84 88 89 91 86 75 73
Average evening relative humidity
over 18 years		 % 58 42 41 48 57 61 72 80 81 74 58 44 39

Add to this the availability of power. There is a 14% shortage of power in India in general due to subsidized power for farmers.

Once locations are filtered through this constraints then market scenarios need to be looked at.

Are homes the best place for this?

I think there needs to be a better strategy in place if this product needs to succeed.

Carbon credits incentive drives Indian cities to CNG buses

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Cities plump for Central scheme, take to CNG buses – Home – livemint.com

The opportunity to earn money by selling carbon credits, growing environmental awareness and the novelty value of buses fuelled by compressed natural gas (CNG) may have prompted some 14 cities to order hundreds of CNG vehicles, taking advantage of a one-time funding scheme offered by the Centre.

The opportunity to earn money by selling carbon credits, growing
environmental awareness and the novelty value of buses fuelled by
compressed natural gas (CNG) may have prompted some 14 cities to order
hundreds of CNG vehicles, taking advantage of a one-time funding scheme
offered by the Centre.

Green fleet: Low-floor CNG buses run by Delhi Transport Corporation. Ramesh Pathania / Mint

Green fleet: Low-floor CNG buses run by Delhi Transport Corporation. Ramesh Pathania / Mint
The cities that have placed orders for CNG buses include Visakhapatnam, Delhi, Indore, Ujjain, Thane, Navi Mumbai, Pune, Pimpri Chinchwad, Agartala, Tripura, Agra, Kanpur and Lucknow, according to urban development secretary
M. Ramachandran. Many of these cities are getting CNG vehicles for the first time, he added.

CNG is a substitute for petrol and diesel, and considered to be a more environmentally clean alternative to those fuels. Trading of carbon credits awarded for controlling emissions offers a potentially lucrative opportunity for cities that switch to CNG-fuelled public bus fleets.

“We have a carbon credit system that is under validation and if we go for CNG, it helps us in getting money,” said S.C. Garg, chief technical adviser for Indore’s city transport service. The municipality also reasoned that the prices of
diesel, which is the preferred fuel for most bus operators, are likely to increase at a faster rate than the price of CNG. “Also, we can tell people to come and sit in a CNG bus for the first time,” he added.

Oz India strategic relations

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Strengthen Team India | The Australian

Rudd had planned to go to India in January, but Singh had a heart attack. Both Rudd and Foreign Minister Stephen Smith are determined to put India in the front rank of Australia’s foreign relations. Rudd is sure to visit India soon.

There is a good deal of growth and development in the Australia-India relationship that can go ahead even without Australia agreeing to sell India uranium. But if Canberra wants to move the India relationship to the next level of strategic engagement, that will be necessary.

Tim Flannery, with whom this column is not always in perfect agreement, has pointed out that if you are concerned about greenhouse gases it is bizarre to export coal to India but not uranium, and thereby delay India’s move to cleaner energy sources.

Moreover, the whole world is beating a path to India’s door right now. The only real play Canberra has at a genuinely strategic relationship with New Delhi is to become a critical energy supplier, and that means uranium. Further, with the long-running insurgency in Sri Lanka solved at last, India will lead an accelerating process of South Asian regional economic integration (Pakistan excepted).

We need as intimate as possible a relationship with India across all policy fronts: the economy, security, global governance structures, pandemic and health issues, cultural exchange, everything you can imagine. There is a Labor Party federal conference in June and uranium policy won’t be changed before then. But surely a government as sensible and pragmatic as Rudd’s will make the leap on uranium some time in the next year or two at the latest.

Ceramic Fuel Cells – good match for India’s needs

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Gottliebsen writes about a small Australian company trying to generate de-centralized clean power.

Ceramic Fuel Cells has developed a small $6,000 home generator that has an 85 per cent power/heat conversion rate. A normal large power station has a 40 per cent power conversion rate. Ceramic’s high conversion figures have fascinated a whole range of European and Japanese power utilities who can see that the units can slash greenhouse emissions and halve the amount of gas required to generate home/office electricity and heating. And as the energy is produced in the home or office there is no transmission waste, although surplus electricity can be sold back to the grid.

Rural India and parts of urban India need local electricity and cooling facilities and lack continuous electricity. AUD6000 is about Rs 200,000 which is not a large amount for a business or a small shop. Depending on the operating costs and fuel required, this could be a good replacement to the millions of diesel generators used across India. Same will be true for a number of developing countries.

I think there is a good market and a business plan can be developed.

The Tata Nano : A green car

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The launch of the TATA Nano yesterday was a groundbreaking event in many ways. For me it was personal too. To see a automotive breakthrough from India is very satisfying. And it was all possible due to the vision of one man, Ratan Tata.

There has been much written on how the car could be a harbinger of problems in the world. Well, in this scenario any car is. Every car creates congestion (even electric cars!), pollution, uses materials to produce, creates waste at the manufacturing level and pollutes in some form or the other. The Nano is no different in that sense. However, it is much better in many ways.

The Nano Europe and Ratan Tata

The Nano  produces only 101g/km of emissions (It passes emissions norms – Euro III) , is as fuel efficient as a Prius (25 km per liter/4.2l for 100km or 52 mpg – US), is designed to use less materials, and is cheaper than any other car. In every sense it is green or greener than a Prius.

To compare, check out the Green Vehicle Guide from the Australian government. The Nano beats all.

All the environmentalists who praised the Prius and curse the Nano need to explain how a efficient car like the Nano is worse than a Prius. The same environmentalists must also been happy that the US and world automotive industry have had sales decreases of 45% in the last few months however, I do not see them celebrating it. Because it effects jobs too.

For comparison, a small country like Australia buys 1 million new cars a year. According to the LA Times, “India’s car industry has ample room to grow by the standards of other nations, with just 14 cars per 1,000 population, according to industry figures. That compares with 28 per 1,000 for neighboring Sri Lanka, 400 to 600 per 1,000 for Europe and Japan, and more than 700 per 1,000 for the United States.”

The Nano in order to cut costs has delivered a car which uses less material, less parts and less maintenance.It will also create jobs and may possibly make India the global hub of small cars. What will be interesting would be a lifecycle energy study of the Nano compared to the Prius.

The biggest benefit is in the future. When Tata Motors start putting in their electric technology developed for Indica EV into the E-Nano it will be a whole different game. A small, efficient, electric car below $10,000. Beat that!

Learning from Tata’s Nano

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As Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata group of companies, observed in an interview with The Times of London: “A bunch of entrepreneurs could establish an assembly operation and Tata Motors would train their people, would oversee their quality assurance and they would become satellite assembly operations for us. So we would create entrepreneurs across the country that would produce the car. We would produce the mass items and ship it to them as kits. That is my idea of dispersing wealth. The service person would be like an insurance agent who would be trained, have a cell phone and scooter and would be assigned to a set of customers.”

In fact, Tata envisions going even further, providing the tools for local mechanics to assemble the car in existing auto shops or even in new garages created to cater to remote rural customers. With the exception of Manjeet Kripalani, BusinessWeek’s India bureau chief, few have focused on this breakthrough element of the Nano innovation (BusinessWeek.com, 1/10/08).

via Learning from Tata’s Nano.

Public vs Private Transport

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In January 2008, when the Tata ‘Nano’ was unveiled with much fanfare, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) had come out clearly – as always — against the growing trend of private motor vehicles taking over our cities. Today, CSE reiterates its position once again – that it is against all cars, and not just the Nano. Our cities don’t need more cars; they need better public transport.

via The New Nation – Internet Edition.

Yes, India needs public transport. But who should be providing this? The govt. or the private sector. That is the issue.

Blaming the private sector for the mistakes of the govt. is ill advised.