Monday, July 21, 2008

With One of the World's Longest Coastlines, India Could Well Consider This

The Brits have one more magnificent new technology working to provide power to their country as this article from the Daily Mail shows: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1035978/Tidal-power-feeds-electricity-National-Grid-world-first.html It would be amazing to have this system installed across the Indian coast (and also the coasts of Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh) to generate electricity quietly and without polluting anything using wave power in that part of the world. As a boy from the coastal city of Madras (now renamed Chennai) I remember going to the Marina Beach every Sunday to look at the wreck of a Greek ship, the Stematis, which broke up when the captain miscalculated the strength of the currents around my former home town. If you go to the nearby town of Mamallapuram, the currents are, if anything, stronger. In India, in particular, now that wind energy has been tapped almost fully, this could be a successful next step to take to harness cheap and pollution free energy from the earth's own forces. India has a close association with the Brits - Madras was the first British settlement in India in the 1600s - and it should be easy for the Indian government to sign an MoU with the British and put some of these across the coasts. In any case, development in India has centered along the coasts for the most part and this would be one way of supplying the power-hungry coastal regions of India with clean power.

But, as always, the million dollar question is, will the Indians do it? If I know India, the country won't. No country has a more irresponsible government and system than India does. The people be damned, the country can go to hell - the politicians will not change or do anything other than work their vocal chords in Parliament, spouting nonsense.

On a more positive note, there is one more electric vehicle that would be ideal for South Asia: http://www.nev-nemo.com/Site/Home_Nemo.html The Nemo Electric Truck from Canada. With speeds that are ideal for short drives and a 1000 lb payload, it would make for an excellent substitute for tempos across South Asia. The problem is that electricity supplies are already bad in the region and governments across the region would need to invest in systems of generation first. Oh well, sadly, the positive news is not so positive after all . . . this happens very often with the part of the world that I come from.

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