Up or down, does it matter?

Pumped hydro storage is a simple technology already in wide use. Pump water up a hill when you have available energy, let it fall when you need its power.

But Riverbank Power; a new start-up is trying out a new idea. Instead of using hills for the height, it will go the other way. Down into the ground.

Their Aquabank would let gravity drop water underground to turn turbines and make hydro electricity. That electricity would be sent from underground to the grid day time. At night, when excess wind is available; wind powered electricity would gently push the water back up to replenish its surface source.

Each project would use a source of water at ground level, an excavated cavern approximately 2,000 feet below ground and four 250-MW generators in a below-ground powerhouse.

The surface footprint would be only 5 to 10 acres, mainly for the water diversion structure and transmission infrastructure. The underground footprint would be about 100 acres.

It would use about 1 billion gallons of water for six hours of electricity production. It would take eight hours to pump out the cavern. The remaining sixteen hours each day the water supply would not be diverted.

To avoid sucking up fish inadvertently, the initial intake from the river is extremely slow and filtered so that the natural flow of the river remains unaltered, unlike conventional hydro power.

Given that the water is stored underground only for a short time, the pumping does not change the quality or temperature of the water before it is returned to the river.

So is this simply a tweaking of what was already done? Down instead of up? What are the advantages of going down? For one, you don’t need hills around. What else? Write in to us.

Island of waste spotted

Finally it has been confirmed: at least 1,700 miles of plastic trash is floating in what is now famously known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

A vague image of the trash the team expected to find in the North Pacific Gyre, a vortex where four ocean currents meet (see pic), has been located and data collected. The team of researchers, sailors, journalists, and government officials on a nearly four-week journey through the gyre say that plastic shards and netting abound in a space bigger than the state of Texas.

Among the assortment of items retrieved were plastic bottles with a variety of biological inhabitants. On August 11th, the researchers encountered a large net entwined with plastic and various marine organisms; they also recovered several plastic bottles covered with ocean animals, including large barnacles. The team collected several species in the gyre.

Shocked at the sheer mass of floating trash, the SEAPLEX, the Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition, has brought home the ultimate lesson of what happens to waste simply discarded! It resurfaces and spells trouble for someone, somewhere.

Will they, won't they... save themselves

Western nations are trying to use India's "profligate reproductive behaviour" to force Delhi to accept legally binding emission reduction targets, India's environment minister noted. Jairam Ramesh’s speech comes as the 100 day countdown begins to the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen, which will agree on a successor to the Kyoto agreement, due to expire in 2012.

India's population of over 1 billion means that while it is the world's fifth biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, its per capita emissions are just one-twentieth of the United States. However, its population is rising quickly and the United Nations predicts India will have 1.7 billion people by 2050 – while China will by then have a population of 1.4 billion.

The minister minced no words when he said, "For us this is about survival. We need to put electricity into people's homes and do it cleanly. You in the west need to live with only one car rather than three. For you it is about luxury. For us, survival."

The Indian government – along with 37 other developing nations – has argued that rich nations such as the US should set a goal of cutting emissions by 40% from 1990 levels by 2020. As proof of concept that reductions can be made. Whether you believe population or consumption is the problem, there is no doubt that there is a big problem!

“When every (rich) country is in violation of the Kyoto protocol obligation, to ask China and India to take on legal targets smacks of hypocrisy… ” Which is true...

...but consider what happens if India’s per capita emissions rise by a factor of 3.5 and the population increases by 70% from now until 2050, as projected. This would make its current CO2 emissions from energy use 1,293 million metric tons/year in 2006 grow to roughly 7,700 million metric tons/year. (China’s 2006 emissions were 6,017 million metric tons, and the US’ were 5,902.)

Add to that China’s restricting their emissions only to the point where they equal their 2005 emissions in 2050 or the US simply refusing to budge, it would seem that life on the planet is set for sudden brake very soon. Apocalypse 2012 is no more laughable!

Meanwhile, the United Nations is pulling out all the stops, seeking millions of online signatures for the Seal the Deal! campaign. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon himself is calling on people around the world to add their voices to the petition demanding a fair and effective climate change agreement.

As governments quibble, citizens of the planet can come together!

Crores lost

A joint study by Manufacturers Association for Information Technology and Emerson Network Power (India) had earlier noted that Indian companies lost Rs 43,205 crore in financial year 2008-09 due to high occurrence of power outages, both scheduled and non scheduled. The study said that the amount of such direct losses has more than doubled since 2003 when it amounted to Rs 22,000 crore.

Now a study by power genset maker Wartsila India says Indians are spending around $6.2 billion (Rs.30,000 crore) every year to run their power back-up systems to escape frequent outages.

The erratic power supply in the country has helped the power back-up equipment industry - inverters, batteries and small gensets - grow to the present size of around $20.8 Billion (Rs.100,000 crore).

The real cost of power that Indians pay is far higher than what they think. The diesel used to power gensets is subsidised. Further, the quality of power from those equipment is also poor, according to the company spokesperson.

With the money people have already invested for buying power back-up systems, the country could have set up power plants with a capacity of 25,000 MW. The solution cited by the company is that the government go for rapid capacity build-up, for which resources could be raised by charging a "reliability surcharge" of 50 paise per unit on consumers.

Whether it is outages or power quality, an equally good solution would be for big industrial units to go for their own captive power plants rather than use diesel back-up systems. The options are many for such plants, with renewable energy also showing much promise.

The excess power from such captive plants could be sold to the grid and help bring in revenues.

This would also ease the power demand from the grid. What do you think?

Tax individuals, not nations

As the climate change curve continues its ascent, it is time for all who are convinced on the science behind to get going on some action. Even in the developing world, like we have written about, renewable energy and energy efficiency drives are accelerating. Individual organizations and groups are at the forefront even where governments remain mulish.

How about reduction limits imposed on individuals rather than nations, as proposed by a team at Princeton University? Under this framework, the international community would draw a single, global line for carbon emissions. Countries would then be responsible for reducing the carbon footprint of individuals living above that line.

Overall, the researchers found that the United States and China would have the largest carbon dioxide reduction targets, while Russia, India, the Middle East, South Africa and north Africa would all have sizable targets, due to their energy industries.

Is this simply a way of transferring the onus? Is there really a comparison at all of the number of people living carbon-heavy lifestyles in the developed and developing world? For instance how many people in the US can boast of per capita emissions at 2 tonnes per person?

However, it would be a different thing to go by nations overall and in the developing world to assess emissions by individuals. After all when considering per capita, the total emissions is being divided by the population figure. Some sections in developing nations are emitting well above this figure.

The proposal also sets a floor for the 3 billion people predicted by 2030 to be emitting less than one ton of carbon dioxide a year. Those people - the poorest of the poor - should focus solely on bettering their lifestyles, and they should do so via any economical means, the authors say.

Should we actually go by the numbers then? Is that a better way of ensuring upliftment of the really poor without drastically altering the carbon bank?

And the winner is...

When talking of efficiency, we cannot ignore records being continuously broken on the solar cell arena. The latest claim for the world’s most efficient solar power cell comes from scientists at the University of New South Wales in Australia, who have concocted a multi-cell combination that converts 43% of sunlight into electricity, beating the previous record of 42.7%.

Yes, even 0.3 % counts. Ask Usain Bolt!

The team used a special silicon cell optimized to harness light at the red and near-infrared end of the light spectrum. When the silicon cell was combined with four other cells made from gallium, indium, phosphorous and arsenic, the scientists were able to reach the magic 43% mark. Far from commercialization, this is still something.

Solar cells could soon be produced more cheaply using nanoparticle “inks” that allow them to be printed like newspaper or painted onto the sides of buildings or rooftops to absorb electricity-producing sunlight.

Brian Korgel, a University of Texas at Austin chemical engineer, is hoping to cut costs to one-tenth of their current price by replacing the standard manufacturing process for solar cells. Korgel is collaborating with professors Al Bard and Paul Barbara, both of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Professor Ananth Dodabalapur of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department.

The team used copper indium gallium selenide or CIGS, which is both cheaper and benign than silicon in terms of environmental impact. But efficiencies are at 1 percent and need to be taken to 10 before commercialization. Thin film solar cells have that disadvantage of efficiency but make up in the sparse amounts of material required and hence, reduced costs.

One percent efficiency may look as bad as zero efficiency, but consider if you can paint your rooftop at low cost and generate even a few watts. Something in itself!

Materials and methods hold the key.

India offers big incentives for energy efficiency

It is being picked by climate change watchers and energy observers as a big news – India opening a Cap and trade market worth 15$ bn. For this is what the nod to the National Mission on Enhanced Energy Efficiency amounts to.

Under the Mission, some of the country’s most energy intensive industrial units will be able to cap and trade in energy savings certificates accrued from energy efficiency improvements.

This is the ‘Perform, Achieve and Trade’ (PAT) mechanism which would assign energy efficiency improvement targets to the industrial units, with the provision of allowing them to retain any energy-efficiency improvements in excess of their target in the form of Energy Savings Certificates, called ESCerts. Units will also be allowed to use purchased ESCerts to meet their targets.

According to an official release, the Mission will enable about Rs 75,000 crore worth of transactions in energy efficiency. In doing so, it will, by 2015, help save about five per cent of the annual energy consumption, and nearly 100 million tonne of carbon dioxide every year. India’s emissions now stand at around 1.5 b tones annually. The Prime Minister expects the Mission to act as a powerful signal to the international community on India’s willingness to meet the climate change challenge.

The Mission is the second of the eight under India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change to be approved by the Council. The Solar Mission was earlier approved.

Other Mission initiatives include expanded use of the carbon market to help achieve market transformation towards more energy-efficient equipment and appliances, and the creation of two funds to help channel investment into energy-efficiency projects.

One of the funds, the Partial Risk Guaranty Facility, will provide back-to-back guarantees to banks for loans to energy-efficiency projects to reduce the perceived risks of these projects.
The other fund, a Venture Capital Fund, would support investment in the manufacturing of energy-efficient products and provision of energy-efficiency services.

A good initiative but as the PM mentioned, strict monitoring and implementation must be ensured. Else it stands in danger of becoming mere rhetoric in the face of growing international pressure to limit emissions.

PS: Yet another 'big news' is IPCC's Pachauri's comments on emission limit. He told AFP that, 'As chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), I cannot take a position because we do not make recommendations, but as a human being I am fully supportive of that goal. What is happening, and what is likely to happen, convinces me that the world must be really ambitious and very determined at moving toward a 350 target.'

Now consider that the CO2 emissions are now at 390 ppm and most nations are making plans to limit them to 450 ppm! Is what Pachauri says, and which is indeed necessary, practical??