Sunday, February 28, 2010

Vampire energy

Americans consumed about 3.7 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2009, about 72% from buildings. About half came from coal-fired power plants. This accounted for approximately 2.5 billion metric tons of CO2 emission, which is equivalent to the emissions from 400 million cars–many more than the roughly 250 million cars on U.S. roads.

A developing nation like India is fast racing to catch up.

Of the energy generated, quite a lot is lost in generation, transmission and distribution, and then there is waste heat resulting from inefficient use of electricity. Then there is also vampire energy, the energy used by any device when the intended audience/purpose of the device is not being served. Look around you, at home and on the streets. Check out ways in which energy can be saved.

Electronics retailers have a wall of demo TVs that are on all day. It does not matter if anyone is watching; they are part of the ambience. Vampire energy!
See all those buildings at night all lit up. How many people are in there working, you guess? Hardly a handful. Want to calculate the energy wasted? The CO2 emissions from vacant office space in Bay area of California was calculated to be equivalent to those made by 8000 cars. Not to overlook habits that sees people switching on lights when sunlight is plenty.

Make a list of ways we can plug energy leak and send it to us. Let us spread the message, and ‘make’ energy in the process out of nothing!

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Share a taxi when in NY

Starting this week, a taxi ride in New York City might get a little cheaper. The NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission just announced that they are launching a taxi share program where riders will be able to pay a flat fare to be picked up and dropped off at designated taxi share stops.

The city used GPS data from cabs to determine heavily trafficked routes and is hoping the share will reduce congestion and emissions by lowering the number of vehicles driving during rush hour.

In little bursts here and there, we are inching towards energy conservation. Here in Bangalore, we have the Bus Day in some routes when commuters are being encouraged to leave personal vehicle behind and take the bus. How many of you out there have given it a try? Write in to us if it is a good idea or not.

Search for storage

A new agency in the US called Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy has mechanical engineer Arun Majumdar, in charge. The agency awarded $400 million in stimulus-act funding to 37 projects. More is expected. In an interview, Arun spoke, among other things, about what excited him most in energy tech. Storage. ‘Let’s say we create battery technology that improves hybrid electric vehicles. You can then use electricity to run our cars, and that becomes part of our energy security. Storage in general is a huge missing piece in the grid today. If you can get it cost effectively, that’s a game-changer.

For those interested in the technical details, Sandia National Lab has just published a study of energy storage applications for the electric grid: “Energy Storage for the Electricity Grid: Benefits and Market Potential Assessment Guide”. The technologies, the opportunities and challenges are all there.

‘The other part is carbon-capture technology for coal.’

Storage has long been seen as the missing link in the energy transformation plan. But coal? In the US (and elsewhere) one of the unresolved burdens haunting the coal sector, in addition to the emissions of CO2, is what to do with the coal ash—the remnant of burning coal—that is accumulating in 194 landfills and 161 holding ponds in 47 states. This ash is not an easy material to dispose of since it is laced with arsenic, lead, mercury, and many other toxic materials.

Yet, governments cannot let go of coal. It is after all cheap and abundant (so far) and the technology is tried, tested. Perhaps, we can place a ban on coal once other cleaner technologies start spinning energy to demand. Or is that a chicken-egg fix? Will clean tech really take off as long as coal is burning bright?

That aside, what advanced research in energy is happening in developing countries? Is it tailored to the need and resource availability? Should multiple agencies work together on this rather than leaving it to technocrats alone?

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

oh-oh!

A new modeling released by the United Nations today paints a very disturbing picture – the emission cuts pledges made by the 60 countries who signed the Copenhagen Accord will not be enough to keep the average global temperature rise low enough to avoid devastating climate change.

Unfortunately, the new study shows that even if every country that promised to cut their greenhouse emissions does so at the levels agreed to (and who knows if that will even happen?), the total amount of emissions produced would still be gigatonnes over what scientists view as tolerable.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) says that annual greenhouse gas emissions should not be more than between 40 and 48.3 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent in 2020 and should peak between 2015 and 2021.

The report, which was based on modeling by nine research centres, also said that if we stay inside that range and slash global emissions by between 48 and 72 percent between 2020 and 2050, Earth will have a or 50-50 chance of staying within the 2 degree limit. However, the report went on to say that based on the vows made in the Copenhagen Accord, “the expected emissions for 2020 range between 48.8 to 51.2 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent, based on whether high or low pledges will be fulfilled.”

Which means the promised cuts will still result in emissions that are 0.5 and 8.8 gigatonnes over what scientists see as the cap.

Achim Steiner, UNEP’s executive director says that we should take the study as a wake up call and reason to make even more extensive cuts.

So if it is all anyway irreversible, do we just wait for the waters to rise? Or as Steiner says look at do-able options. Like investing in reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD), which pays poor countries to preserve and enhance their forests.

Is there some danger there in sending the wrong signals - that you can keep puffing carbon out, as long as you pay to keep forests intact, which can absorb your carbon?

Hairy solar panel!


California Institute of Technology has come up with cheap, flexible and efficient solar panels. Instead of making the wires with exotic materials like "indium gallium phosphide", they made them mostly out of plastic with a bit of silicon (2% silicon, 98% is polymer).

These solar cells have, for the first time, surpassed the conventional light-trapping limit for absorbing materials, said the team. The light-trapping limit of a material refers to how much sunlight it is able to absorb. The silicon-wire arrays absorb up to 96 percent of incident sunlight at a single wavelength and 85 percent of total collectible sunlight. A record so far.

Each of the silicon wires (30 and 100 microns in length and only 1 micron in diameter) is a good solar cell on its own, and the light that isn't absorbed is scattered and then hits other wires.

The flexibility of the panels is also important because it means that they can be manufactured using roll-to-roll processes, reducing production costs compared to non-flexible panels.

So far only a few square centimeters of cells have been made, but the Caltech team is already working on making new demonstration panels. The race is certainly hotting up.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Plants show the way


University of Central Florida professor Henry Daniell has developed a groundbreaking way to produce ethanol from waste products such as orange peels and newspapers. His approach is greener and less expensive than the current methods available.

Daniell's breakthrough can be applied to several non-food products like sugarcane, switchgrass and straw.The technique uses plant-derived enzyme cocktails to break down orange peels and other waste materials into sugar, which is then fermented into ethanol.

Producing cellulosic ethanol -- ethanol that comes from wood or the non-edible parts of plants, is tricky. Depending on the waste product used, a specific combination or "cocktail" of more than 10 enzymes is needed to change the biomass into sugar and eventually ethanol. Orange peels need more of the pectinase enzyme, while wood waste requires more of the xylanase enzyme. All of the enzymes Daniell's team uses are found in nature, created by a range of microbial species, including bacteria and fungi.

This finding is significant as it is cheap and also results in lesser emissions than conversion of corn starch into ethanol (which produces more greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline does.)
It also makes good use of abundant waste.

Tobacco was chosen as an ideal system for enzyme production for several reasons. It is not a food crop, it produces large amounts of energy per acre and an alternate use could potentially decrease its use for smoking.

Meanwhile, scientists in France have transformed the chemical energy generated by photosynthesis into electrical energy by developing a new biofuel cell.

Photosynthesis is the process by which plants convert solar energy into chemical energy. In the presence of visible light, carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H20) are transformed into glucose and O2 during a complex series of chemical reactions.

Researchers at the Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal (CNRS) developed a biofuel cell that functions using the products of photosynthesis (glucose and O2) and is made up of two enzyme-modified electrodes.

The cell was then inserted in a living plant, in this case a cactus. Once the electrodes, highly sensitive to O2 and glucose, had been implanted in the cactus leaf, the scientists succeeded in monitoring the real-time course of photosynthesis in vivo. They were able to observe an increase in electrical current when a desk lamp was switched on, and a reduction when it was switched off.

Furthermore, the researchers showed that a biofuel cell inserted in a cactus leaf could generate power of 9 μW per cm2. Because this yield was proportional to light intensity, stronger illumination accelerated the production of glucose and O2 (photosynthesis), so more fuel was available to operate the cell. In the future, this system could ultimately form the basis for a new strategy for the environmentally-friendly and renewable transformation of solar energy into electrical energy.

Remember, after two billion years of evolutionary improvements, photosynthesis only converts about one percent of the solar energy falling on leaves into chemical energy and even taht depends on soil quality, water and nutrients availability. Will technology beat Nature in this game? Any bets?

Friday, February 19, 2010

Flying on waste energy

British Airways has announced plans to source a part of its fuel supplies from waste municipal waste to fuel plant. The company plans to procure 16 million gallons of green jet fuel annually from the Solena plant that would come up in London.

The plant which is expected to come online in 2014 would convert 50,000 tonnes of municipal waste into jet-grade fuel. The volume of fuel supplied initially would be 2percent of the total fuel consumption of British Airways. This would cut down on the carbon emissions that is generated due to the conventional jet fuel, kerosene.

British Airways aims to obtain 10 percent of its jet fuel waste-to-energy processes by 2050. London produces 3 million tonnes in organic waste every year.

Waste to energy process provides a three-pronged advantage. One, it helps in the management of the ever increasing waste in the cities, two, it converts the methane an efficient fuel and a greenhouse gas) which is produce from the decomposition of municipal waste and, third, its use results in reduction in carbon emissions.

Yet another waste to energy plan was announced by Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) last year. DIAL in partnership with two other companied will build a Rs 1.4 billion ($28.6 million) plant that generates energy using municipal waste.

The plant, to be built on 5.7 acres, is expected to be commissioned in late 2010
With about 4,000 MW of generating capacity, Delhi still has a shortfall of about 400 MW. In addition, Delhi's landfill sites are running out of capacity. The proposed plant would need 1,300 metric tons of municipal waste a day, which is 100 metric tons more than what Delhi produces each day. That could be the pitfalls of such plants, as waste quantities and moisture content are crucial for the operation of the plant.

The world needs more such ventures, not only to optimize on energy waiting to be tapped but also to tackle the alarming waste problem. If you have heard of individuals or groups undertaking such projects, write in to us. Let us share the success stories and scale them up.

No time to go slow n steady

Bill Gates ranked clean, cheap energy as his number one wish at the TED conference recently. "We need energy miracles. The microprocessor and internet are miracles. This is a case where we have to drive and get the miracle in a short timeline."
Gates emphasized the need for an energy miracle portfolio that includes carbon capture and storage and nuclear as well as wind and solar. He also set 2050 as the deadline for reducing carbon emissions to zero and outlined a tight innovation and deployment timeline: 20 years to innovate, 20 years to deploy.

Gates has hence acknowledged that the reducing the carbon intensity of energy is the only feasible way to achieve a zero-carbon world, put in a rather simplistic equation as:
CO2 = Population x Services x Energy x Carbon

Energy efficiency too can help, but getting to zero carbon will require major innovation if we want abundant carbon-neutral energy. He sees a clear need for investment in clean technology innovation, notably asserting that current technologies are not sufficient. (This is not what Al Gore believes!)

According to Gates: "All the batteries we make now could store less than 10 minutes of all the energy [in the world...So, in fact, we need a big breakthrough here. Something that's going to be of a factor of 100 better than what we have now."

Given the climate change imperatives and time paucity, the need to scale up clean tech very fast becomes important. Not easy, especially making such clean energy cheap too! Any solutions/ideas how this can happen? Do you think we need a step-change or two to get there? Some experts believe that experience-curve effects alone won't get us to the goal cheap and fast, because they deliver diminishing returns.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Time to hop on to the smart wagon

The smart grid industry in the US has almost 4 billion dollars invested in stimulus funds. A lot of attention has been focussed on upgradation of the decades old power grid there. But smart grids will cost money. Can developing nations afford a fancy? According to experts, rapid economic growth requires smart grids but there are also some other reasons in this segment.

China is predicted to be one of the hottest smart grid markets in the coming years given its energy needs are expected to double in 10 years, and the country’s dominant power distribution company, State Grid Corp., has a goal of building out a smart grid by 2020. Indian utilities are still looking at pilot projects and the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM) is working on a smart grid pilot project.

According to research from the Bangalore-based nonprofit Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), there are five reasons why developing countries need, and want, smart grids: stop power theft (by simple power accounting), power quality (often poor) that can be improved through grid load balancing, a chance to leapfrog to smart grids in places where the grid is non-existent, while the cost can be offset by taking on new consumers! Not to forget how a smart grid will help with renewable energy.

Agree? Do you think developing nations can bear the costs? Considering how in parts of the US, smart meters have no takers, given their costs! Or is there some way of financing the cost?

Knowing is not enough

Does knowledge drive lifestyles? It is a clear NO, when you go by a survey done in Bangalore on energy conservation. Even the authorities who preach audits and conservation find it tough to get an energy audit on their premises!

A senior Bescom official said that a recent survey found that 79% of domestic power users in Bangalore were aware of methods to reduce the consumption of energy. Despite the knowledge, power consumption remains high in the city. An energy-extravagant lifestyle and cheap energy could be the reasons for this indulgence. How can change be brought? How can energy efficiencies be promoted? Are power shut downs the only way?

Efforts to spread the message are not totally absent. For example, last Saturday saw a city-wide initiative that recalls the Earth Hour, a global campaign that saw lights going off across the world in a bid to save electricity. ‘Batti Bandh Bengaluru’ was organised by Idea Cellular, Radio Indigo, The Energy Resource Institute, Greenpeace and The Indian Youth Climate Network. It was ‘powered’ by the city’s college students. Not all citizens switched off, but well, even a few making the effort is good news!

But again, if knowing is not enough, will campaigns work? Or raising the price of power?

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Cheap, abundant and efficient

Researchers at IBM have increased the efficiency of a novel type of solar cell made largely from cheap and abundant materials by over 40 percent. According to an article published in the journal Advanced Materials, the new efficiency is 9.6 percent, up from the previous record of 6.7 percent for this type of solar cell, and near the level needed for commercial solar panels. The IBM solar cells also have the advantage of being made with an inexpensive ink-based process.

The new solar cells convert light into electricity using a semiconductor material made of copper, zinc, tin, and sulfur--all abundant elements--as well as the relatively rare element selenium (CZTS). The IBM solar cells could be an alternative to existing "thin film" solar cells. Thin film solar cells use materials that are particularly good at absorbing light. The leading thin film manufacturer uses a material that includes the rare element tellurium.

While total worldwide electricity demand will likely reach dozens of terawatts (trillions of watts) in the coming decades, thin film solar cells based on the rare tellurium will likely be limited to producing about 0.3 terawatts, while the new cells from IBM could produce an order of magnitude more power.

There sure is no stopping research on solar cells. After all, this is one source we can bank on for a few more billion years.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

World's 'largest' green project in India

A mobile phone company and a public body have come together for what they say would be the “largest green energy project in the world” in India. The project with an investment of $50 billion in a major clean energy project (perhaps the world’s largest) over the next 10 years will see 13 GW worth of wind and solar power capacity in a rural area of Karnataka. The majority of the planned capacity would be from solar photovoltaics — 10 GW. And the remaining 3 GW would be from wind farms.

The first phase will be 100 MW of solar and 200 MW of wind capacity and it is expected to be commissioned in the next 36 months.

Twelve high potential sites in Karnataka for the solar energy project and four districts to set up the 3 GW of wind farms have been identified.

Well, the solar mission to build 20 GW of solar power by 2022 seems poised to take off. Alongside distributed solar power is also making strides.

Yet another Indian telecom company is in the news for deploying simple cell phone base stations that need as little as 50 watts of solar-provided power. The components can be assembled and booted up by two people and mounted on a rooftop in six hours.

Expanding cell networks in many rural areas is blocked by non-availability of sufficient electricity to power base stations. Existing off-the-grid base stations in India require expensive diesel generators. Energy costs are particularly high, as [base-station] sites often have two generators. In such a scenario, the solar powered base stations should be a big hit.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Can we save the forests?

Thomas Lovejoy, biodiversity chair of the Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment, and biodiversity advisor to the World Bank, says the Amazon is "very close to a tipping point." By 2075 the forest could shrink to 65% of its original size.

The tipping point for the Amazon is 20% deforestation, and we are currently at 17-18% deforestation. Main factors in the decline include climate change, deforestation and fire. Just what the IPCC 4th assessment report said.

If fears of climate change are not enough for nations to save their forests, then perhaps making it a business prospect may help. A mechanism to protect forests by steering millions of dollars from the developed world to poor countries, known as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), was endorsed by governments in Copenhagen.

Protecting forests is a cheaper and quicker way to curb emissions than by switching from coal or natural gas to low-carbon energy sources like nuclear, wind or solar power. All you need to do is pay up some money to some third world country for conserving some forest and your mark sheet places you on top for reducing emissions!

But well, though controversial, offsets can help protect forests. Scientists estimate that nearly 20% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from deforestation, as trees are slashed and burned to make way for agriculture. Standing forests also act as carbon sinks by absorbing CO2.

Neither afforestation (planting trees) nor avoided deforestation (stopping trees from getting cut down) were part of the Kyoto climate agreement, largely because of opposition that felt forest protection could not be reliably monitored and verified and that offsets would allow polluters to avoid mending their ways.

“Additionality” (how do you know the forests would not have been saved anyway?) is another factor.

But things have changed with the support of Nobel Peace prize winner Wangari Matthai, the founder of the Green Belt Movement, which planted trees across Africa, as also the WWF. How does one regulate forestry projects to insure that they are real, verifiable and long-lasting? For one, by involving poor communities to protect and monitor forests.

Like most ideas, this one too two sides to it. But perhaps one needs to weigh out the advantages against the negatives. There are many big companies looking to forest offsets to establish their green credentials. The whole idea has spawned an entire industry of project developers, carbon traders, verifiers and regulators in the US, both to create and manage offsets. Green jobs?? Right.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Catch the glitter


A new bill was introduced to the US Congress yesterday to incentivise solar power. Using incentives and tax rebates for solar roofs and solar water heaters, the bill aims to get 10 million solar roofs and 200,000 solar heaters up and running--producing a total of 30,000 megawatts--over the next 10 years.

The cost will be 2 and 3 billion dollars a year, and at the end of a 10-year period, the nation will be producing 30,000 new megawatts of energy--the equivalent of what 30 nuclear power plants produce.

Distributed power is surprisingly taking off in the developed west. Given its versatility and fewer clearance issues, this is seeing a surge. Around 1300 megawatts of such distributed solar projects have been approved in California in just the last couple of weeks.

Photovoltaic module prices, meanwhile, have plummeted by about 30 percent over the past year thanks to an oversupply of modules and the rise of low-cost Chinese manufacturers. Thin-film solar companies, which make solar cells (slightly less efficient than the crystalline counterparts) that use little or no expensive polysilicon and which layer or print them on glass or metal, have begun to produce solar modules for less than a one dollar a watt.

Looks like solar will get hotter in days to come. Perhaps with price fall, distributed solar power will also take off in the developing world where the need is much more.

Cheap and recyclable lighting!

Using graphene, which consists of a single layer of carbon atoms, Swedish and American researchers have succeeded in producing a new type of lighting component that is inexpensive to produce and can be fully recycled.

The invention paves the way for glowing wallpaper made entirely of plastic.

While organic LEDS which have been in the news (OLED) consist of a light-generating layer of plastic placed between two electrodes (one transparent) they have two drawbacks -- they are relatively expensive to produce, and the transparent electrode consists of the metal alloy indium tin oxide. Indium is rare and the alloy has a complicated life cycle.

Graphene has high conductivity, is virtually transparent, and can moreover be produced as a solution in the form of graphene oxide.

The alternative to OLEDs, an organic light-emitting electrochemical cell (LEC) makes use of graphene for the transparent electrode. By using graphene instead of conventional metal electrodes, components of the future will be much easier to recycle and thereby environmentally attractive.

Playing with energy


Well, if energy is at the center of our concerns, wouldn’t it be simply great if we could produce work and move people and things at the expense of very little energy? For instance, simply teleporting, Star Trek style!

Quantum physics has been playing with this concept in the realm of information, and now a Japanese physicist believes he can teleport energy. According to MIT, The process of teleportation involves making a measurement on each one [of] an entangled pair of particles. He points out that the measurement on the first particle injects quantum energy into the system. He then shows that by carefully choosing the measurement to do on the second particle, it is possible to extract the original energy.

How could it impact our world, when and if this is achievable beyond theory? It could mean transporting people and goods across distances in a jiffy and without having to spend gallons of diesel or emitting tons of carbon!
It will take some ‘time’ before this is even accomplished in the lab, but is a comforting idea. An exciting one too!

Friday, February 5, 2010

Not enough

Fifty-five major industrial powers that produce nearly 80 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions have submitted voluntary CO2 reduction targets, but a top UN climate official says they still fall short of what’s needed to limit future temperature increases to 2 C (3.6 F).

Meeting a Jan. 31 deadline established at the December climate summit in Copenhagen, the European Union set a goal of reducing emissions 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020; Japan pledged to slash CO2 emissions by 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020; the U.S. set a more modest target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020; and China vowed to cut the so-called “carbon intensity” of its economy — the amount of CO2 produced per unit of gross domestic product — by 40 to 45 percent by 2020.

India reaffirmed to the United Nations that it would reject any attempt to impose legally binding climate change goals, but pledged to reduce emissions intensity by 20 to 25 percent by 2020 compared to 2005 levels.

So, is this all hot air? What if global warming is a hot air balloon? Simply because of a slip up by the IPCC, it does not augur well for the world to ignore the established facts in independent researches. Yes, even the glaciers. Using data from the Indian remote sensing satellite RESOURCESAT-1, scientists from the Ahmedabad-based Space Applications Centre (SAC) — part of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) — analysed changes in snow cover in the central and western Himalayas. The data shows that snow has started to melt during winter too, which could affect river patterns in the Himalayan river basins.

Rivers originating in the Himalayas depend on melting snow during the crucial summer months.

The team, writing in the February issue of Annals of Glaciology, monitored 28 basins in the Ganges and Indus river systems every five to ten, between October and June for three years from 2004. Annual changes in snow cover patterns reflect immediate responses to climate change, compared with changes in glaciers that respond slowly, over decades, according to Anil Kulkarni, coordinator of the research.

NASA’s satellites have been showing the shrinking of the polar ice caps over the years.

What do you think? Should your country be doing more? Or less? Is there some way to get the nations of the world to act together?

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Play and generate power


What can be the poor man’s alternative to kerosene lamps, which emit hazardous fumes and generate 190 million metric tons of CO2 each year? A soccer ball! Four Harvard engineering students developed a Soccket – a soccer ball that generates and stores electricity during play. A stroke of genius in a place like Africa where soccer is played everywhere.

The Soccket was designed for use in off-grid areas. The ball works by capturing kinetic energy through an inductive coil mechanism, which works in a similar manner to those flashlights that are powered by shaking. As the ball is batted about, it draws a magnet through a coil, creating current that is stored in a battery.

According to the designers, the device weighs little more than a standard soccer ball, and 15 minutes of play produces enough energy to illuminate a small LED for three hours. That is something.

Small ways in which the energy demand can be reduced by such innovative methods could have a major impact on the global emissions scene.

In the state of Karnataka in India, a company joined hands with the handicraft corporation to sell e-charkas –wheels that spin khadi loom and generate power to light up a LED lamp. The e-charkha is so designed spinning yarn for 2 Hours in a day will provide at-least 7.5 hrs Hour of the light operation. The power saved in the battery can also be used to play a radio, a common mode of infotainment in rural India.

Take the case of fleet vehicles owned by companies – they are driven hard, averaging nearly double the mileage, fuel consumption and emissions of personal vehicles. Currently, there are more 3 million corporate fleet vehicles in the United States alone, emitting 45 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year.

Managing the fleet efficiently could mean fuel saved and emissions reduced. Some companies have done that. One took unnecessary parts and tools out of its repair vans, reducing weight. Another introduced a rule to discourage use of SUVs, which brought down the requests!

In Bangalore, the local bus service has introduced 'bus-only' days on certain routes on certain days. People are encouraged to take the public transport.

Climate change or no, fuel is all set to go dearer. Makes sense to save every drop.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Emperors of the lab

From a hero to a villain it takes but a small step! Behold the IPCC and where it stands today, thanks to some laxity. The IPCC’s 2007 report had mentioned that glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate. Now it turns they were wrong. It will take many more years for the catastrophe.

How did a statement of such magnitude make its way to the report, with no peer review, but solely based on speculation borrowed from a magazine?

Even more alarming is that it took almost two years to discover the mistake. Does it point to the way the body of scientists works? The way info is collected, verified and analysed?

However, taking it one step further and to question credibility of global warming and the anthropogenic causes is ridiculous. But that is exactly what is happening. The skeptics and deniers are seizing this opportunity like a heaven-sent.

We need to keep some points in mind even as the IPCC is judged. That glacial melt has increased is no more a fiction than the heliocentricity of our solar system! The reduction of water is already impacting lives.

Ren, Jiawen, et al state: “Many glaciers on the South slope of the central Himalaya have been in retreat, and recently their retreat rate has accelerated … due to reduced precipitation and warmer temperatures” (Annals of Glaciology, vol. 43, no. 1, Sept 2006). Anil Kulkarni, et al’s oft-quoted study of 466 glaciers in the Baspa, Parbati and Chenab basins indicates greater fragmentation of glaciers, and reduction in glacial area by 21% since the mid-20th century (Current Science, vol. 92, no. 1, 10 Jan 2007).

Lonnie Thompson, in an interview to Nature said: “Back in 2006, we drilled three cores in the southwestern Himalayas. At 6,050 metres, where these glaciers reach their highest elevation, we found that … the glaciers are being decapitated. Not only are they retreating up the mountain slopes, but they are thinning from the top down” (Nature Reports Climate Change, 9 July 2009).

That the now-infamous speculation was based on reports gathered from natives should not make it unworthy. Guides and locals have been seeing the changes to the glaciers in their lifetime and are no less credible than drilling ice cores to check the age of glaciers!

As noted in New Scientist, perhaps it is time science came out of the closet and opened up for review by more than peers. Maybe the blogosphere can really help. ‘Some argue that the views of an untutored blogger, or even a scientist from another discipline, should never carry the same weight as those of someone with a lifetime's expertise in a relevant field. But if occasionally the emperors of the lab have no clothes, someone has to say so.

Scientists should welcome the outside world in to check them out. Their science is useless if no one trusts it.

The other side to this is that of public interest. Whether it be climate change, or Bt Brinjal, it is time the public take some interest in science and start asking questions. Or else, we will be taken for a long ride.