Not Strictly Renewable Energy But a Pioneering Operation in India that Impacts on Energy Consumption in a Huge Way

Madras / Chennai, the city that I was born in and lived in for more than 35 years, is one that is perpetually starved of water. The city authorities are corrupt and send in millions of gallons of useable rain water into the sea every year instead of trying to conserve it for use. And there is a huge industry in bringing water to peoples' homes by water tankers, making the city one of the most congested and worst polluted places on earth. While I do have pleasant memories about growing up there in the late 60s and early 70s, I shudder to think about moving back for the above reasons - the city is egalitarian in making all its residents suffer from the twin problems of water deprivation and horrendous pollution. And, these days, it has one more problem - power shortages for several hours every day, leading the State Government to co-ordinate with the Central Government of India to build ever more coal fired powerplants at Neyveli, adding to the already filthy pollution.

Amid all of this, there are committed individuals trying hard to overcome some of these problems - and succeeding in small albeit very important ways. Old friend Vasanthi Rajiv and her friend Kamla Ravikumar who has commented here recently, reminded me about one such individual - Dr Sekhar Raghavan whois a pioneer in working to popularize Rain Water Harvesting. Dr Raghavan has shown how a simple method of channeling water that is collected on rooftops into the soil could charge ground-water and make water available from borewells to city residents. Charging ground water is good for the environment - there is water available underground for plants and trees - carbon sinks in keeping with the anti fossil fuel line of this blog - and for people. Most importantly, this reduces the pollution from transporting this water from neighboring states and territories to Chennai.

Dr Raghavan's trust has a lovely website that is a must for anyone who is interested in this idea: http://www.raincentre.org/ I would hope that his ideas are implemented in all other cities, whether they are water starved or not - this is a simple practice and it is excellent for the environment to boot.

India's Water Mess - A Sign of the Disaster in the Making as Chhatisgarh Farmers Commit Mass Suicide

I am grateful to Dr Mayraj Fahim for the main article here as well as other pieces referenced later on in this post. This blog is about Renewable Energy but I have focused on grain storage and water conservation in the past - indeed, my interest in water conservation is one of the reasons why I personally believe that wind energy is an important way forward as far as energy is concerned. Wind turbines do not need water for cooling, making them a superb way of generating electricity in a clean manner and without using water which is already a scarce resource in several parts of India. Ask me - I grew up in Madras and while I lived with my parents at the government owned Old Tower Block, I never had to worry about water. The government keeps its own happy. The hassles came when I got married and left home - the only reason why we had water on a daily basis at Gowri Chitra Gardens where my wife and I lived before we came to the USA is that the building implemented rain water harvesting long before it became fashionable. On the flip side, in the poor state of Chhatisgarh, several farmers have committed suicide because they have run out of ground water as this article shows: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/1500-farmers-commit-mass-suicide-in-india-1669018.html This is news that you will not see in the Indian newspapers. They are too busy lying about how great life is in India. What are some dead poor farmers in Chhatisgarh when there is India Fashion Week waiting to be covered in Mumbai, with a dinner with some nubile models thrown in?

I have also talked about the fraud being committed in India not going in for a modern grain storage system both on this blog as well as in articles in the Indian media. NABARD has had over $ 200 million in funding available from Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau and the Swiss Development Corporation for non-farm sector loans for over 20 years as far as I know. I had arranged for an expert to talk to the Ministry for Agriculture in New Delhi when the current government had just been elected five years ago on this subject, without pushing any particular company or agenda. They took the information that I had arranged and did nothing. That is the Indian way - farmers commit suicide when they are in debt and pests eat three times the amount of grain that people do in India. The poor die of starvation but the Ministry of Agriculture will not implement an old plan of setting up co-operatives to run grain storage businesses and rent them to the FCI with shares given to farmers so that they have an income during lean times, and the silos actually save tens of thousands of grain. What was it about Nero playing the harp while Rome burned? India has thousands of Neros working simultaneously and in co-operation while Indians die of starvation. This country is a basket case. Make no bones about it. The following links show you exactly why:

1. http://www.marketskeptics.com/2009/04/indias-green-revolution-heading-for.html India's Green Revolution is Heading for Collapse

2. http://www.marketskeptics.com/2009/04/usdas-india-estimates-are-bogus.html A US blogger explains why the USDA's India estimates for a 2009 wheat crop are bogus

3. http://www.marketskeptics.com/2009/04/india-will-be-importing-millions-of.html This is what happens when wheat crops fail - the country is forced to import wheat. And more farmers will commit suicide . . .