Reduced Oil Consumption in the US is a Fantastic Development

Whatever the analyses might conclude - though Bloomberg typically does not say anything conclusive about why US oil consumption is sliding, beyond making some guesses - this is a great development. What is even more significant is the fact that a proper study of what is happening in the US, might have answers for the rest of the world, especially countries like India and China, where oil and gas use is on the increase. It is particularly interesting how Bloomberg are dismissive of nuclear energy, while China rushes ahead to build as many new nuclear powerplants as it can, and India tries to work with foreign nuclear powerplant suppliers and works at fighting its own anti-nuclear activists' propaganda. In any case, the US has a lot of knowledge that it could use to help the rest of the world become more efficient with how it uses fossil fuels. It will be interesting to see how this happens - some entrepreneur WILL take the challenge up in the years ahead.

Siemens - Fjellstrand Electric Ferry

Gizmag has this piece about a very innovative ferry designed in Norway by Siemens and Fjellstrand that is entirely electric and which can be quick-charged in 10 minutes. This is a most interesting design that I hope will get sold more around the world. As a boy, I traveled from India to Sri Lanka by a steamship, the SS Irwin, which caught fire and had to be scrapped several years after I last went on it. In the USA, I have taken several ferries at different points in Southern Illinois. It would be great if this design (with its cleanliness and efficiency) could be introduced in many of the areas that are connected by ferry in this country. I am sure that there are other parts of the world where such a service would be very useful as well.

Solar Light Bulbs - An Invention that This Blog Has to Love

Considering that this blog is called "Showing Fossil Fuel the Fist," a product like the Nokero (for "no kerosene") solar light bulb has to be something to instantly fall in love with! While I can see from their website that they are marketing these bulbs in Pakistan, I hope that they plan on entering the Indian market next. India is a country where even large cities suffer from 8 to 12 hours of power failures a day. These bulbs should sell to both the poor as well as the not quite impoverished population in that country.

Here's wishing the Nokero guys good luck!

Using Used Vegetable Oil to Generate Power

I learned about the Vegawatt Power Generation System from the Smart Planet blog which I subscribe and link to over here. The units throw out several very interesting possibilities especially for India and the Middle east, all countries where a lot of fried food is consumed and where the used oil almost invariably goes down the drain. Needless to say, these are also nations with severe electricity shortages. The system could be used to supplement power generation in large hotels and possibly also on a community collection basis. I need to find out more - I'll shoot these guys an e-mail and report back. Some very interesting stuff here!

Pythagoras Photovoltaic Glass Units - Combining Windows and Solar PVs

This is a really interesting product that a friend alerted me about, and which has been featured on several green building websites - combining a transparent window and solar cells in such a way that light is let into the building while electricity is generated with an energy payback time of five years suggests some very exciting possibilities. I would think that the product would make a lot of sense in countries that have to build upwards because they lack land - India comes to mind, as do the various small Gulf Arab nations - and these are all nations with severe power shortages already. These are also nations that receive abundant sunlight. I would hope that someone in these countries (and in India in particular) checks these windows out.

Germany's First Offshore Wind Farm - Der Spiegel

As the world's most balanced and well run economy, Germany always has something for the rest of the world to look at and be inspired by. Der Spiegel has this excelelnt analysis of the first offshore wind energy powerplant in Germany off the Emden coast. The 220 GW project will power 50,000 households. Knowing the Germans, this powerplant will be fully commercially viable and not a mere demonstration of left-wing idealism by a bunch of starry-eyed jholawala types (yes, an Indian expression there, ha, ha!) hellbent on doing little other than preaching to the rest of the world.

Considering that India, the country of my birth, has a huge power deficit problem and that it also has one of the world's longest coastlines, and, considering that some reports suggest that if India continues on its current path of building more and more coal fired powerplants, it will have to spend more than $ 40 billion a year on importing coal alone in about 7 years time, I hope someone in New Delhi is watching this development. I also hope that whoever is watching it is open-minded enough to think seriously about looking at replicating this around the country. Not to do this would be stupid in the extreme - the Germans didn't become as rich as they are by half measures. If India - and other countries in the region - want to enjoy the same levels of prosperity, they will need to follow in the Germans' footsteps.

What Renewable Energy is Really About: Saving Money

Trust a hard-nosed business newspaper like The Wall Street Journal to make the case that Renewable Energy is about saving money and not about some loony left-wing desire to save the world: Link Somehow, the morons who go around with a messianic zeal touting Renewable Energy never make the case that the use of RE is good economics. You save money over the long term because you use natural energy that you do not have to spend money to access - sunlight is free compared to buying electricity generated from coal or whatever other source, reduced pollution means less sick people and less spend on keeping your environment clean, less spending on medical treatment etc and much more. The list goes on and on.

In a country like India or Sri Lanka where most of the year brings abundant sunlight, this could mean immense savings in electricity costs, as hot water is something that everyone needs. The import of coal from other countries would slow considerably because electricity would not need to be used for heating as much as it is. Power shortages and outages would also be reduced as the load on the generation and transmission system would be minimized. Yes, without beginning with the intention of becoming another Mahatm Gandhi or Nelson Mandela, it would be possible to become self-reliant, conscientious and to save the world as well as one's own finances in a world that is increasingly getting more expensive to live in. Now, if only the loudest voices for renewable energy could see things this way . . .

China Leads Renewable Energy Race

The New York Times has this wake up call for the USA: Link But this could as well be directed at another country that needs to wake up and compete with China: India. While the Americans have a problem with cheap Chinese wind turbines coming up here, I think India needs to rejoice. A surplus in China will mean even lower prices - India imports a lot of turbines even now. It would be better to spend money on buying these from the Chinese than on spending India's hard-earned money on coal from China, Indonesia and Australia. In the long term, India would be less dependent on both the vagaries of pricing fossil fuels from other countries as well as on depleting supplies. This is an opportunity for Indians to not only work with the Chinese, but also to compete with them at the same time.

I hope someone in New Delhi is listening . . .

Very Interesting way of Powering Cellphone Towers

Ecogeek is one blog that I follow and enjoy. It does not try to foist the political attitude (left wing and extremist, of course) that bigger blogs like Treehugger try to put out as propaganda these days. And this is a good post that has implications for every country that has a cellphone network: http://ecogeek.org/wind-power/2995 Using Vertical Axis Wind Turbines to power cellphone towers is an innovative idea - the towers are at the location where they need to be, they are compact, and they save on energy generated at a distant location, probably using fossil fuel.

India and Pakistan are both investing large amounts of money in upgrading their respective cellphone structures. I hope that both countries will look at this technology. I have written about Helix Wind and their turbines on this blog before and their website is: http://www.helixwind.com/en/ The original CNET post that Ecogeek links to is at: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10395216-54.html?tag=mncol;title

Oxford Analytica on Chinese Push into renewable Energy

When some of the best business analysts in the world - from Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews and more form a consultancy, they would be expected to do a superb job of evaluating whatever they look at. And this analysis of the Chinese http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/16/china-beijing-renewable-energy-business-oxford-analytica.html?partner=daily_newsletter thrust into Renewable Energy is honest in what it speaks about in a way that is certain to be ignored - the Chinese have understood that RE is cheaper than fossil based energy and not just cleaner.

This deserves to be seen in India and other countries which are largely dependant on coal and which have to industrialize like China does. The implications and lessons are huge - apart from the idiotic Times of India and from halfwitted clowns who send me nonsense from it, there is increasing evidence from those with the money to invest in new sources of energy which are the cheapest ones to focus upon.

This would be a lesson that is well learned, whoever learns from it.

Positive Chinese Action on Renewable Energy and the Environment - Can India at Least Play Catch-UP?

It is always disheartening when a bunch of perennial whiners keep beating their breasts and wailing about supposed injustices meted out to them while doing nothing else. India's socialist politicians top the list of professional jokers who do this and they have ample support from the left wing sections of the Indian media in their public shrying. In the meantime, a country that India is wary of and talks about competing with, simply goes ahead and works hard to beat the rest of the world in implementing Renewable Energy projects while India keeps arguing with the rest of the world over why it does not want to move in this direction, leave aside the fact that half of the Indian money that goes overseas, goes to pay for fossil fuels that India sorely lacks, and, which after they are imported, only hurt Indians health-wise because they are basically filthy.

Forbes has this article about the Chinese thrust into the area of Renewable Energy: http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/01/china-environment-pollution-leadership-citizenship-innovation.html?partner=globalnews_newsletter Let there be no doubt about it - Forbes is a business magazine but it is also nationalist and wants the USA to lead the world in every area of activity possible. This article has a tone of regret over the USA's taking second place to China even where it does not explicitly mention this. Where this will leave India, is something that I shudder to think about - in the dirt, both literally and figuratively. I wish it were otherwise, but socialists are never good for anything other than whining. And, India's socialists are easily the world's leaders in doing this.

WSJ: Organic Farming Helps Farmers in India

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words - this short film from the Wall Street Journal's website is worth several million. Remember - this is from a dyed in the wool business journal and not from an activist of any kind. My hat's off to the WSJ for highlighting this and I hope that India's authorities look closely at this video from the website of the most influential newspaper in the USA seriously.

Why India Needs to Look at Renewable Energy RIGHT NOW

Treehugger has this sad piece that speaks about how bad things are in India and how much worse they are getting, environmentally speaking: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/08/india-carbon-emissions-land-degradation-increase-groundwater-declines.php While there are some positive attempts being undertaken at growing more trees etc, the country's huge demand for energy to power gadgets for an increasingly wealthy population has caused more than a few problems. India is building more and more coal fired powrplants - the NLC complex at Neyveli seems to come out with new tenders for mroe and more large coal fired powerplants by the day. And huge quantities of coal get imported from Australia, Indonesia etc. The coal burning plants need water ajnd this drains the country's already meager supply of clean water. This forces the people to draw ground water for drinking, washing, agriculture etc and depletes ground water supply.

As visitors here know, wind turbines do not require water to be drawn, greatly reducing the quantity of water used up because of its use in power generation. And, the use of solar water heaters, as is mandatory in some parts of India, could help significantly in reducing power consumption from those filthy coal-burning powerplants by redcing the amount of electricity that is used, reducing the use of water even further. A win-win situation? Of course! And, best of all, one that shows fossil fuel the fist!

Energy Facts: India Vs China

Forbes has this interesting slideshow showing comparative energy consumption in India and China: http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/27/china-india-energy-biz-energy-cx_pm_1127energy_slide.html

While both the energy consumption and the impact that India makes on the world's environment is smaller than China's, the fact is that India's rapidly growing population and relative prosperity is causing problems. I do think, though, that the fact that India is relatively underdeveloped compared to China could actually be an advantage. This means that by focusing on conserving energy and investing in more efficient designs than the Chinese did during the crazy 1990s and the first eight years of the 21st century, India could lay the groundwork for a much more efficient energy utilization infrastructure for the future. The technologies are available and there are more being developed by the day as the many blogs on this subject show. It is a question of will now. China is changing its ways after beginning with a disastrously old-world approach. Will India start with a modern, high-tech approach to energy planning? Watch this space - this blog will keep an eye on what happens.

Why On Earth is This Not Being Implemented in Chennai?

For the past thirty years at least, as I can recall, the British have sent technology and money to help clean up the Cooum River / Buckingham canal in Chennai, but nothing has happened. Where has the money gone? Those in the Tamilnadu State government know, if someone does. And the two outlets, once navigable canals in which boats went all the way to Chingleput, become filthier by the day with more and more sewage pumped into them. The Adyar River, on whose banks much of the Chennai elite lives along Boat Club Road and Archbishop Mathias Avenue, is yet another example of a water body that was once clean turned into a filthy cess carrying canal by the State government.

Dr Mayraj Fahim, who has been a strong supporter of this blog, has sent me a very interesting link which has implications for Chennai: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1193169/Human-waste-heat-thousands-homes-4m-plan-recycle-gas.html British utilities already send sewage derived gas to generate power, and they now plan to offer the same gas for use in domestic kitchens etc. How difficult would it be for the Government of India and the Tamilnadu State government to revive the old British initiative and get the relevant technology from the UK to implement large-scale projects along these outlets? The raw material is there, and, it is not going to diminish in quantity as long as Chennai-vasis eat and then clear their stomachs out. There is an old initiative where the British have offered support - perhaps, the state could look at creating a utility under the common administration of the Water and Electricity Boards to use gas to generate electricity for the city? Or, alternately, as there are many gas powered cars running in the city, use this to supplement gas supplies for fueling vehicles and save foreign exchange?

Is anyone listening? Our Prime Minister who is supposed to turn the country into a new superopwer, perhaps? Or the Chief Minister whose wisdom is always hailed by his followers? Anyone? United Utilities, the British business involved in this project, has a nice website: http://www.unitedutilities.com/ Over to India . . .

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.

Will India Rise to This Chinese Challenge?

The New York Times reports a Chinese plan to lead the world in the building of electric powered cars: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/business/global/02electric.html The Chinese have a huge amount of money from their export oriented economy at a time when the rest of the world is not doing very well. They also have been looking at buying up some car companies in Europe - Austin Rover is already Chinese owned, for example. And while their local industry has been making rip-offs of popular western designs, this is, perhaps, the first sign that the Chinese are interested in focusing on a huge, new emerging market. Look at it this way - an electric car does not need an engine and this means no worries about emissions etc. The Chinese already manufacture a lot of cell-phone batteries etc for the rest of the world - exactly the kind of batteries that drive the expensive Tesla cars. And their labor, already cheap, is now going to be even cheaper with huge numbers of workers out of jobs in the various Chinese export mills in that country's coastal South. So why not use these workers to build and flood the world with cheap electric transportation?

My question here is where does this leave India? The most that India has had to boast about s far as cars are concerned is about the Tata Nano - a cheap car with an internal combustion engine that is certain to clog the already terribly crowded Indian roads and pollute the air over India even more. Tata have access to advanced electric car technology through their acquisition of a Norwegian company and they do sell electric Indicas in Europe. Unfortunately, they cannot sell these in India thanks to the lousy state of affairs vis a vis power generation in the country. With as much as eight hours or more of power cuts a day in every major Indian city (and, most probably, worse conditions in the rural areas) where on earth are Indians going to charge their electric cars even if they buy them? Another area where China seems set to beat India hollow if you look at the massive deficiencies in Indian infrastructure . . .

Or wait! If - and this is a big "if" considering Indians' penchant for government jobs or the new magic destination - software industry and call center jobs - some Indians could find that they have some entrepreneurial spirit, then there are major avenues for marketing renewable energy products in the country. Small wind turbines and solar water heaters and solar roofs and windows, advanced buildings which help save on cooling / heating costs as the case may be, larger-scale projects that woudl take the algae in shit carrying "rivers" like the Adyar and the Cooum in Chennai, for example, and convert the algae into biofuel, sewage-treatment plants that would use methane to generate power and so on. The technology is available and has been for years. Even in these recession-hit times, money is available to work on the smaller projects, at least. Perhaps, and this is a big "perhaps" like the "if" that came earlier in this post, someone is thinking about doing something about this in India at the moment. I daresay that whoever does his job right could become the next Ambani or Tata or whatever you want to call him. There has to be more than a little potential in making life more comfortable for at least the 300 million strong Indian middle class. And as this huge group does well, life will improve for the 700 million poor Indians makinf life even better.

Will India rise to the challenge? I, for one, hope that it will . . .

Tiny Maldives Sets an Example for Bigger SAARC Countries in Working to go Carbon-Neutral

In one of the most crowded parts of the world which has the sad characteristic of being horribly polluted, South Asia crowds millions into a once beautiful region that is now dirty, which has disease, malnutrition and whose hard-working people find their governments sending much of their money away to the Middle East to buy expensive fuels. It iss here that the Maldives, a tiny island nation, has now decided to set an example by working to go carbon neutral within a decade as this post on Earth2Tech explains: http://earth2tech.com/2009/03/16/clean-energy-island-maldives-goes-carbon-neutral/

While I worked briefly at the Vijaya Hospital in Chennai some years ago, I got to know a number of Maldivian people including some of the seniormost politicians in the country. The one thing that you could rest assured about when you met any of them, was that they would be extremely polite and soft-spoken. Many of them also had strong views about the development of their island paradise. That is why, their recent fears about their beautiful country getting submerged if Global Warming continued have, most probably, prompted their efforts in setting an example to the rest of the world.

Let me not sugar-coat what happens in the Maldives, though - about ten years ago, the air in tiny Male was very badly polluted because of the large number of vehicles there. But, the Maldivians had some respect for the environment that I did not see anywhere else in the region. For example, dropping any trash - even a cigarette butt - in the sea could get you prosecuted as some Indians found out when they got slapped with heavy fines. The intention to do something positive was there. And that is what, I think, is pushing the Maldivians to make the changes that they seem set on making.

I am prepared to wager a bottle of fine wine that the Maldivians will achieve what they are setting out to do with time to spare. Their government and people do work together, after all, and do not suffer from the imperious politician-citizen disconnect that you find in other parts of South Asia. My only hope is that this new approach would find favor and imitators among the politicians and people of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the three large nations in the region and the worst polluted ones as well.

Video Reviews of Electric Trucks on Autoblog Green

Again a very interesting concept that should be dynamite on Indian roads - if the country could generate electricity without 8 hours of power cuts a day, that is. Autoblog Green has this series of expert video comments and a review in progress of Smith Truck's Newton, a new electric truck design that is being tested right here in Chicago. I shall keep an eye open for these trucks and all I can say is that Tata, Ashok Leyland or one of the van manufacturers in India needs to seriously look at making one of these.

Check out the Autoblog Green link at: http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/03/13/video-smith-electric-trucks-get-pro-reviews-at-work-truck-show/

Smith Electric Vehicles have a website that is equally interesting at: http://www.sev-us.com/default.html