China Throws Down a Renewable Energy Challenge to the World

While it is currently one of the world's most heavily polluted countries and it needs to import over 90% of its oil, China has decided to act in a manner that needs to be applauded: http://seekingalpha.com/article/142617-china-becomes-global-green-leader-with-massive-solar-projects?source=yahoo I am grateful to Dr Mayraj Fahim for this link showing where South Asian countries, which enjoy the same climatic conditions and suffer from similarly high pollution, are lagging seriously behind. So, for that matter, is the USA where the only action forward seems to be Barack Obama's pious talk along with the constant and stale applause of his drum-beaters in the media and in the blogosphere. While well intentioned US plans like the Pickens proposals fall by the wayside, the Chinese seem to power ahead with their desire to insulate their country from the vagaries and whims of the oil producing nations and of oil traders and their manipulations.

Yes, China has coal - so does India, but the Chinese consider their coal reserves a finite asset. India has no hesitation in preserving some of its own coal reserves while it encourages massive environmental degradation in Indonesia, Australia, South Africa and elsewhere by mining for coal there and pollutes the air and the seas by shipping it back to India. And, though India has recently articulated a massive proposal to work on solar power, it is going to be difficult for it to do much as it is way behind China on the neccessary manufacturing infrastructure to produce solar and other RE equipment.

However, this is a situation that could be a wake-up call if you ask me. There is no reason why South Asian countries - and India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka etc all have excellent engineers and facilities with which to manufacture / develop renewable energy products. This could be the spark with which to ignite a powerful flame (well, yes, this is an inept simile) of Renewable Energy in South Asia. Our antions would be wealthier because of money saved, our air, water and soil cleaner, and our workers treated more humanely as they no longer have to work in near-slavish conditions in Arab countries.

Let's hope this competition is joined, and, at the soonest.

The New York Times Looks at India's New Solar Plans

The new solar plans that India articulated while the election campaign was on (and which I was cautiously optimistic about) are now being looked at by the New York Times: http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/could-india-become-a-solar-leader/ The fact is that India does have the potential to become a solar leader. The country is bathed in sunshine most of the year. There is no question about the fact that sunlight is a resource that could be tapped into, and which has not been seriously considered by India so far. There is also no question that other than talk, India has done little (with the exception of small initiatives by states like Karnataka and Haryana and municipalities around Mumbai for example to encourage solar powered water heaters) about harnessing what the country has in abundance, so far.

The NYT report, though, does make sense in talking about the support that India needs from foreign nations that have done vastly more work in this area than India has done. I do think that this is a good idea - India has excellent engineers and if Indians could do well in writing computer software, for example, they could also do well in working on solar power. A good beginning would be a major plus. And, international help, especially from the USA, is available. The US Exim Bank has funding worth $ 5.5 billion available for Renewable Energy co-operation between the USA and India for 2009 alone. As far as I know, hardly any of this money has been touched. From the focus of the current US government, the amount available in 2010 would, most probably, be higher. And there are superb US designed and made products that could be replicated in India under license from the US patent holders to help achieve the Indian goals.

I shall admit that I am not a supporter of any Indian political party or government - I like being skeptical of politicians like many Indians are. That said, there are two governments - one in the USA and the other in India - that have been talking about renewable energy with increasing fervor. The USA has put money (through the Exim Bank) where its mouth is. Now that India has come up with a plan ahead especially with a focus on solar power, there is the potential for a very positive way forward on this in the future. What will decide whether the two governments are serious about this thrust will be how the Indian plans are implemented. Those who read this blog know, certainly, where my hopes on this lie.

Bad Economic News from India Implies a Greater Need to Focus on Renewable Energy

The New York Times has this article underlining something that I have been telling my friends about for a long time - the Indian economy is not really anywhere near as strong as the Delhi Doofuses have been trying to make it out to be. And when recession hit the USA and much of the rest of the world, India was going to hurt: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/business/global/05rupee.html

This is a Renewable Energy blog and what this blog seeks to encourage is a possible solution to at least a part, if not the complete crisis facing India at the moment. The bulk of India's foreign exchange outflow is to buy fuel - fossil fuel. Yes, exactly that filthy stuff that burns your nostrils when you walk down any Indian street and leaves the inner side of your shirt collar a thick, oily black when you return home. Indians in particular have grown so lazy about resources that they have available right in front of them that they do not want to do anything about them.

Let me point one thing out - while investment funds are not available for stuff like call centers and software subcontracts at the moment, they are certainly (and increasingly) available for Green Energy efforts. The US Exim Bank actually raised the amount of money available for Renewable Energy equipment exports to India from $ 2 billion in 2008 to $ 5.5 billion for 2009. Sadly, I doubt that more than a small fraction of these funds will ever be used. India is, after all, a country where Rs 78,000 crores worth of foreign aid is lying unused: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/india-sitting-on-unutilised-foreign-aid-of-rs-78-000-crore-cag/426883/ The tragedy does not end there. The all knowing Government of India, aka the Delhi Doofuses, are paying commitment money to International lenders because they asked for this money and are now not using it.

Recently, while elections were underway, there has been more than a little noise about focusing on solar power. During the crisis while the world slowly gets out of the present recession, India needs to look at the unutilized money, look at encouraging solar power, at using the sewerage that it sends out into the rivers and the seas constructively by extracting methane from it for use as a fuel and also by processing fertilizer from it, and more. The most efficient economies eventually become the richest ones. India cannot afford to continue to throw resources away as it is doing at the moment. If it continues to do this, it will sink. If it doesn't, it could well become one of the richest countries in the world.

Abdullah Starts Whining About Alternative Energy

After acting like thugs for the major part of their history, the Saudi Arabians have suddenly started acting like hurt kindergarten girls. And, the reason for this is their fear of the world destroying them by switching to alternative energy: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/04/saudi-arabia-claims-climate-talks-threaten-their-economic-survival.php This link to a piece on Treehugger has been reported on several other websites as well.

I have a few things to say about this - if this does work in bankrupting the desert thugs, the world needs to go far it as fast as it can! No country has held the world to ransom and in so many different ways as the Saudis. Leave aside, for a moment, their sending the bulk of the 9/11 hijackers or of their funding terrorist groups in virtually every country around the world. Leave aside, also, their thuggery towards their own people - I do not have the room on this blog to go into the regular abuses of human rights conducted by Saudi thugs and neither is there enough room even in a set of volumes as bulky as the Encyclopedia Brittanica. And, like a parasite that sucks on the blood of the creature that it lives on and grows stronger while making the organism that it feeds off weaker even as it introduces diseases in addition to sucking its blood, the Saudis have been supplying the rest of the world with oil and bleeding it systematically, building palaces for themselves and sending funds and arms to jihadis everywhere else in the world.

Now, these thugs want to offer their deserts as locations for the rest of the world to generate solar powered electricity from. There has been talk for some time of large solar powered electric plants in Saudi Arabia sending power via transmission lines to Europe. If the Europeans fall for this colossal fraud, they deserve whatever problems they are certain to get. There are enough European locations as well as locations in other civilized countries that are located closer to Europe than Saudi Arabia from where the Europeans could get their solar power if they feel that what they could generate in Europe itself would not be enough. As far as the Saudis are concerned, it would be best to work hard towards reducing the use of oil, to let them spend the trillions of dollars that they have on whatever they want to, and then let them go back to their camels. SOmeone out to read out Shelley's "Ozymandias" to them. I can only hope that the Saudi sheikhs meet with the fate of the Egyptian pharaohs as soon as possible. They deserve it.

Pakistan Decides to Focus on Solar Power

As a habit, I usually read all major newspapers in South Asia and today's edition of "The News" has this very encouraging editorial about a new official policy in Pakistan in looking at solar power: http://thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=156598 With much the same weather conditions that India faces, Pakistan is as ideally suited to harnessing the power of the sun as India is and it is good to see the country take this step. From the newspapers I know that Pakistani cities have the same problem of load shedding that Indian cities have - it is obvious that they have chosen to take a more practical approach to managing their power problems than India has, as a matter of public policy. I must wish them the best and hope that in the spirit of positive competitiveness, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and other nations in the SAARC region follow this example.

I shall follow this development and blog about it.

What Does Not Work for Renewable Energy in the West is Exactly What Would Make it Work in India

The one thing that the media in South Asia in particular need to look at is how the Western media focuses on issues of importance to the markets that they cover and to the rest of the world by extension - there has been a major focus on renewable energy in recent months in virtually every major US newspaper and magazine as journalists fill a very strong public need for more information on this subject. The facts are clear - the world cannot afford to depend on the Middle Eastern monarchies to blackmail it over its energy needs. Correspondingly, we cannot afford pollution caused by fossil fuel based vehicles, powerplants etc. There has to be an effort at maximizing efficiency and the positive thing is that increasing public sentiment in favor of this is making even reluctant governments to act. This is not a debate over global warming - that is for scientists to concern themselves with and let those of us who are not as well informed know what the facts are. That said, this is about the environment that we live in. If our water and air are cleaner, if the foods we eat are healthier and if we spend less on transport, on heating our homes etc, we all stand to gain.

Which brings me to the point of this post: the record cold weather this winter across the USA and Canada has forced several solar powered homes to draw electricity from the grid as this New York Times piece shows: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/26/business/26winter.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink Which suggests that for parts of the world which do not endure snow ever, and this means 90% or more of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, or about one and a half billion people in all, solar power is a very real substitute for coal or other dirty power. The warmer weather that these parts of the world experiences also means that biodiesel can be used the year round if active efforts are made at collecting used cooking oil for example and also that wind turbines are a much better option because there is no question of their blades icing and fracturing. In effect, this means that these countries are ideally endowed with everything that would be required to use renewable energy year round.

The unfortunate part is that stupid politicians and bureaucrats and incompetent policy commentors are responsible for throwing a spanner in the works whenever anyone even thinks about any of this. It is unfortunate that the negative posts here outnumber the positive ones two to one, but that is how it is. Hopefully, things will change for the better. Personally, I prefer to be an optimist even if what I see around me is nothing but doom and gloom.

Some Hard Facts for the Clowns Who Say that Solar Power is Too Expensive

I have talked in this blog about self-styled "experts" like C A Sadanand in India who have been shooting their mouths off about solar power being excessively expensive and not a substitute for dirty fossil fuel derived power. Well, here's something that makes these bozos look like the clowns that they are: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/12/solar-power-system-nevada-reaches-grid-parity.php This solar power system in Nevada has reached grid parity without any subsidies. This means that it produces electricity cheaper than conventional fossil fuel based plants without any subsidy whatsoever.

Now, will some brave entrepreneur start something like this in India / Pakistan / Bangladesh / Sri Lanka and prove the jokers who have been talking BS wrong? What is more, whoever gets into this would enjoy profits that would have them laughing all the way to the bank.

Some More Interesting Links

It is always refreshing to see more and more information about efforts in the field of renewable energy come out - with more people working in this area, something decent cannot but be in the offing. Ecogeek talks about an Indian Green community in Kolkata: http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1948/83/ There is also an excellent analysis in easy to understand terms of the problems with the pricing of electric cars (and no, I don't mean quadricycles like the Reva G-Wiz) at: http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1939/

There is also the matter of using sewage to power homes. There have been experimental gas collection centers at some bus termini in Tamilnadu from what I have read in the Indian media but there has been no systematic attempt at using human poop to do anything useful. In a country of 1.2 billion people squeezed into an area a third the size of the USA, this could be a fantastic idea. If the governments of the various states and the centre offered the use of toilets free to the poor, then this would also make the country vastly cleaner. Check out the Ecogeek Link: http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1931/77/

Finally, an interesting New York Times piece on the Pickens Plan: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/opinion/27friedman.html?_r=2&ref=opinion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin Yes, he is planning to show fossil fuel the fist. Life is good!