The Indic View

Solar Concentrators - A Quick Primer

2007-08-01T19:21:00.000-05:00

Here is an excellent primer on solar concentrators.

As the name suggests solar concentrators concentrate solar power onto a solar (photovoltaic) cell. So the cell gets more sunlight and that improves its efficiency. Today the additional components that a concentrator has wipes out the cost advantage of using fewer solar cells per unit of output power. But as the efficiency of the solar cell goes up, the output of the concentrator multiplies, and it is estimated that with solar PV cells of efficiency 18% and above the concentrators offer significant price advantages.

However many believe that solar concentrators are merely a transitory technology. As solar cells get so cheap that we can incorporate them on our walls and even our clothes, the cost advantage offered by the concentrators might not amount to much.

Do check out the primer linked above if you want to answer the following questions:

What are the primary forms of solar concentrators?
Why is there interest in concentrating photovoltaics?
Why not just improve solar cells?
OK, concentrating light onto solar cells means more power output. But does that mean it's more cost-effective?
So what do these solar concentrators that use photovoltaic cells look like?
What are the tradeoffs of this approach?
Are these concentrating photovoltaic systems commercially available?
How will things look a few years from now?

Indian Telcos Going Green

2007-07-26T12:36:00.000-05:00

Introduction

Erratic power supply in rural areas is pushing more and more Indian telcos to alternate energy to power their towers. Early this year Idea Cellular announced that it was looking at bio-diesel to power some of its rural cellular base stations. The fad apparently is catching on.

The Trend Catches On

Ericsson AB has already set up 4 towers running on fish and vegetable oils, for Idea Cellular in the power-strapped Maharashtra circle.

Reliance Communications is tapping wind and solar power. While it has already installed windmills on its towers at Kunustara and Murugathal near Durgapur in West Bengal, it is in talks with Pune-based solar cell manufacturer Machinocraft on the solar power front.

"On a rough estimate, a wind power turbine or a solar panel mounted on towers will generate around 1,800-2,000 watts during peak sunshine hours or high-windy days. Of this, the repeater sites consume up to 500 watt each, while the remaining is stored in batteries and used to power the network at night or low windy times."

Hutch is also looking at wind power, while BSNL and MTNL are "experimenting with multiple sources like solar, wind, gobar gas and biofuel from molasses."

Potential Impact

In most cases the alternate energy sources replace diesel gensets which are currently almost universally used to ensure uninterrupted power supply at the base stations. So the shift will certainly save petroleum and prevent emissions.

In the big picture the financial and environmental impacts will be very small, but it will be a good experience for Indian corporate houses, and the alternate energy culture in general. The villages will get exposed to alternate energy too and that should help adoption in these areas.

India's Tallest Green Building

2007-07-23T19:05:00.000-05:00

Though India has never been a significant player in the global skyscraper stakes, one building promises to change that and for all the right reasons.

Introduction

The India Tower, currently under construction on the Queen's Necklace, the scenic Marine Drive in South Mumbai, is expected to dominate the skyline of India's main financial district. At 300m, it is a giant by Indian skyscraper standards. But when it is ready in 2010, the Burj Dubai is expected to dominate the global building height stakes at about double that height. So what is the main claim to fame for the India Tower?

The USP(s)

It might well be the tallest building in the world in its class of green-rated buildings. Designed by New York-based FXFOWLE architects, it will be a LEED-Gold certified project. Here are some of the features planned to improve its energy-efficiency:

* A solar chimney to generate electricity (Solar chimney's need to be very tall - so incorporating one into the design of a skyscraper is really cool.)

* On-site waste water reclamation (ease the load on public facilities, plus build more reliable ones)

* Daylighting - a process to ensure maximum usage of sunlight for lighting within the building

* Solar shading, natural ventilation and rainwater harvesting

The rotating form apparently comes from functional requirements (whatever those are - but it certainly looks kewl).

Mapping The Trend

This is a building for the very rich - with "a custom-designed residential-style Park Hyatt hotel and serviced apartments, and long-lease and duplex penthouse condominium apartments", in addition to luxury-brand retail and hospitality. (We the poor might benefit if they open up a sky-walk for the public though - imagine the view!)

But most new trends start with targeting the rich. The premium they pay helps fund research into making them more common place and affordable.

If India's tallest building is going to be one of its greenest, then that is a solid commitment we as a society are making towards sustainability.

Sources:
SkyScraperPage.com
WorldArchitectureNews.com
AIArchitect
CanadaFreePress.com

Related Posts:
Indian World's Tallest Building Aspirants
India's tallest building in the World

Signet Solar - Big Plans In The Indian PV space

2007-06-28T08:59:00.000-05:00

Signet Solar is the latest in a series of companies planning to manufacture solar photo-voltaic modules in India. Similar to Solar Semiconductor, Signet Solar is a Silicon Valley based company, founded by NRI's, all industry veterans. Their model suggests that the business office will be centered in the US, while R&D (and some manufacturing) will happen in Germany, while the high-scale manufacturing will be in India. The fabs will be supplied by Applied Materials, in a model similar to that adopted by most other companies manufacturing in India.

The company was launched in May, 2007, and in June, 2007 they announced that India would be the main manufacturing base. The plan is to initially set up a 60 MW manufacturing plant, with a targeted total capacity of 1,000 MW in 10 years with a total investment of $2 bn.

Here is a quick introduction to Signet Solar's proposed business model and an assessment of its chances in a "booming but crowded" solar PV market, which also has a link to Navigant Consulting's report on the solar industry Solar Outlook (Apr 12, 2007).

The Vertical Farm Project

2007-06-27T18:09:00.000-05:00

In The Sustainability Challenge I made a case for future where humans lived almost entirely within self-sustained and ecologically isolated cities. The idea was that nature and humans could no longer survive together as humanity achieves a dominance beyond what nature can afford to bestow upon a single species. Isolating ourselves from nature will reduce our contribution to a mass extinction in nature, as well as insulate ourselves from being made extinct too.

A big step in this direction is cities striving for self-sustenance in their need for resources. Of all resources that a city uses, food is probably the most expensive.

The food for a city is usually grown in areas much bigger than the city itself. It is then brought to a city by land, sea and even air from across a huge hinterland which could span the globe.

Now consider a greenhouse - it makes very efficient use of existing resources like water, sunlight and nutrients. Now what if we could cram greenhouses in a city? The food is grown with minimal use of resources, and transportation costs are cut to negligible levels. Win win?

But how should a greenhouse that will feed an entire city be structured? Why, as a skyscraper of course.

Scientists are Columbia University are suggesting just such an approach, via The Vertical Farm Project:

"The idea is simple enough. Imagine a 30-storey building with glass walls, topped off with a huge solar panel. On each floor there would be giant planting beds, indoor fields in effect. There would be a sophisticated irrigation system. And so crops of all kinds and small livestock could all be grown in a controlled environment in the most urban of settings."

Some of the other advantages include:
"* Year round crop production in a controlled environment
* All produce would be organic as there would be no exposure to wild parasites and bugs
* Elimination of environmentally damaging agricultural runoff
* Food being produced locally to where it is consumed"

Links:
The Vertical Farm Project
Vertical farming in the big Apple

Hydrogen Roadmap for India

2007-06-04T08:40:00.000-05:00

The renewable energy ministry of India has announced a Rs 25,000 crore (US$6 bn) roadmap to promote the use of hydrogen in India by 2020. Link

The roadmap envisages one million vehicles running on hydrogen and at least one power plant generating 1000 MW of power, all running on hydrogen gas.

Indian Oil Corporation is likely to be the leading light in this effort, which will also involve SIAM (Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers) and leading universities. Below is an extract from the report on TOI.

"As part of the new initiative, a demonstration project for setting up a hydrogen dispensing set-up at a petrol pump in Delhi has been sanctioned as a joint venture with IndianOil Corporation. The project would enable dispensing of neat hydrogen and CNG blended with hydrogen as fuel for vehicles. The station will have a hydrogen generation capacity using an electrolyser system and facilities for storing and dispensing neat hydrogen as well as blended with CNG in varying ratios. The H-CNG blends will be used in the modified CNG vehicles and are expected to further reduce emissions from such vehicles as compared to when burning only CNG. The project would also generate operational experience in handling hydrogen as an automotive fuel.

Another project for the introduction of H-CNG blends on a trial basis in existing CNG vehicles has been planned to be undertaken by the ministry jointly with Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM). The project will be for two years and will be the first public-private partnership project in this area. The project aims at introduction of H-CNG blend as a fuel on trial basis in buses, cars and three-wheelers, involving five leading Indian automobile manufacturers.

IndianOil Corporation is also participating in this project and the existing hydrogen dispensing facility set up at its R&D Centre at Faridabad would be used for refuelling vehicles. Under this project, the engines of the existing CNG vehicles and fuel injection systems would be modified. The project aims at optimising the H-CNG blend ratio for optimal vehicle performance and minimal emissions.

Several new research projects in the area of hydrogen energy and fuel cell technology have also been sanctioned to universities, IITs and research organisations. A few more are in the pipeline. A National Centre for Hydrogen Energy and Fuel Cell Technology is also being set up at the ministry's Solar Energy Centre campus at Gurgaon in Haryana."

Indian Ashden Award Finalists

2007-05-25T07:23:00.000-05:00

After the Energy Globe awards, it is not time for the Ashden Awards for sustainable energy projects, and two Indian organizations are in the running.

Regardless of whether they actually win the awards or not, it is certainly worth looking at what they are doing. Interestingly both organizations work in the area of producing bio-gas.

Biotech, Kerala

Biotech operates in Kerala and works on generating bio-gas from a variety of organic waste. They have working plants that produce gas from toilet waste, household and restaurant waste food, abattoirs, and fish markets. They target middle-class households, as well as unorganized small establishments. The efforts help in a model of sustainability that treats waste at source, promotes hygiene, is environmentally friendly and is economically viable.

"To date BIOTECH has built and installed 12,000 domestic plants, 220 institutional plants and 17 municipal plants that uses waste from the municipal fish markets to produce biogas which is then used in a 3kW engine to generate electricity for lighting the market.

"Households with a biogas plant replace about 30% of LPG or about 44 kg per year, saving Rs1,200 per year. This means that the family can pay back their contribution to the cost of the plant in about three years, and even more quickly if they collect extra food waste from shops to increase their biogas production. The effluent or residue in the biogas plant also makes good fertiliser which results in higher food production."

SKG Sangha, Karnataka

SKG Sangha, operates among rural households in Karnataka selling 'Deenbandhu', a standard model of a cow-dung based biogas plant, working with banks to help finance the plants for their generally poor customers. They have over 43,000 installations so far, which probably compares with the best in the world. That itself is a decent achievement because each plant probably saves 4 tonnes of CO2 a year. More importantly it saves 3.5 tonnes of fuel wood a year. (I know the second number looks huge... does the average rural household really use that much fuel wood?) Anyway, the fuelwood saving results in health and time savings for the rural users, as well as precious breathers for the forests.

However, the benefits to the farmers goes beyond that.

"SKGS has devised an innovative way of using the slurry produced by the biogas plant as an effective fertiliser that has the added benefit of earning rural women a good income... SKGS's vermi-composting system involves mixing the slurry with solid waste (straw, green and dried leaves) and then leaving it to compost for 25 days. The mix is then placed in a container with earthworms, which produces a high quality fertiliser for which people will pay Rs90 (£1) for a 30kg bag. The fertiliser increases grain crop (rice and ragi) yields by 20% and increases the resistance of crops to pests and diseases."

All the finalists

Biotech and SKGS are just two of the finalists, and the entire list is here. Please do click on the link and check out all 10 finalists - they all make for interesting reading.

The Awards Ceremony

Representatives from all finalists will travel to London for the awards ceremony on June 21. Al Gore (who obviously needs no introduction here) will give out the prizes.

Related post:
Energy Globe 2006 - The Winners From India

Reva Hits Major Roadblock In The UK

2007-05-11T07:14:00.000-05:00

The Reva's flagship electric car has run into big problems in its most promising market, the UK. Marketed as the G-Wiz by GoinGreen, it was attaining celebrity status in the green-conscious circles. With very low running costs, exemptions from congestion tax and parking fees, it was all set to make big inroads into London. Reva Electric Car Company (RECC) hoped to use London as a launchpad for equally eco-conscious cities in the rest of Europe. Now it looks like disaster might have struck.

Safety Concerns

Apparently the G-Wiz was initially categorized as a quadricycle. According to the UK's Department of Transport, a quadricycle is classified as a, “four-wheeled vehicle whose unladen mass is not more than 400kg (excluding batteries if electric-powered) and whose maximum rated power does not exceed 15kW”. This worked well for the G-Wiz initially, but of late the car was being marketed more as a car (naturally since the brand value of a car is much higher than that of a quadricycle). this prompted the government to subject the car to crash tests for a "normal" car.

The results were disastrous. This has prompted the government to immediately move to ban the car. But GoinGreen disagrees.

Argument versus counter-argument

"According to the Department for Transport (DfT), in the test replicating the official crash for ‘normal’ vehicles, the driver of the G-Wiz was trapped in the wreckage and suffered “significant head and lower extremities injuries ” while the passenger suffered “lesser, but severe lower extremity injuries”.

"Defending the G-Wiz, GoinGreen boss Keith Johnston said the real-world safety record of the car spoke for itself: “Our customers have driven 20 million miles and have 4000 years of ownership with no reported serious injuries.” >> Autocar

The move to ban the G-Wiz has come in for at least some opposition in the British media.

Our Opinion

Essentially the G-Wiz was RECC's first model and I am not sure why they are still persisting with it. Here are some of the major complaints against the car, which RECC should look to overcome.

"Comical" Looks: But RECC does have relatively sleek looking models including this one designed by Dilip Chabria. What are they waiting for?
Security: No airbags. Is it that difficult and expensive to add airbags? Their argument that air bags only help in high speed crashes will not hold much water.
Sturdiness: When sharing roadspace with SUVs and trucks, the car does feel relatively... flimsy? This might need some re-engineering to overcome including a further lowering of the center of gravity. No short-term solution.
Speed: RECC has long had models in its stable which can do better than the G-Wiz's 42 mph. Then again, faster cars need better safety equipment, even going by the (lame?) argument against them for slower cars.
Range: This cannot be helped with the current generation of car batteries. But RECC can promise its customers that when better batteries hit the market, they will be made available as standard upgrades.

India Wind Power Update

2007-05-10T09:00:00.000-05:00

After Reliance's proposed 150 MW wind farm in Maharashtra, now the Tata's are building a 100 MW wind power plant. The Tata plant will be financed by the Asia Development Bank which is promoting wind power in India. Reliance Energy and Tata Power are the biggest private electricity suppliers in Maharashtra (mainly Mumbai).

Meanwhile Suzlon who is building the wind farm for Reliance has just signed its single biggest contract to supply wind turbine capacity. The contract is to supply 400MW of turbine capacity to PPM Energy of Portland, Oregon, USA.

In Suzlon's high-profile battle for German wind turbine maker REpower, Areva has not yet topped Suzlon's latest bid. Suzlon is now fairly confident of getting 40% of REpower from the market, which along with the 25% owned by its bidding partner Martifier should take the total stake above51%.

India is trying to encourage inter-state trading in clean energy by industry. "India is contemplating a system of trading green certificates to enable industries located in one state to tap the renewable energy potential of other states", according to a senior government official speaking at an interactive session between Indian and US energy experts organized by CII in Chennai.

Delhi is making moves in this direction already. In its plans to have a Green Games, it wants to buy wind power from Rajasthan which is a regional superpower of sorts in wind power. Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra lead the nation in wind power capacity, but they are too far away from Delhi.

Essar-REpower Venture Delayed

2007-04-28T10:32:00.000-05:00

The proposed Essar-REpower joint venture to produce wind-turbines near Hazira in Gujarat seems to have become a victim of the Suzlon-Areva bidding war to acquire REpower.

Essar and REpower entered into a license agreement last year to build the plant that would make 1.5 to 2 MW wind turbines for the South and South East Asian market. This plant was to be ready in 2007. But according to "a senior official at Essar Power who asked not to be identified. 'We acquired land near Hazira (in the western state of Gujarat) and have also hired people for the venture, but now things have come to a standstill,' he added. He said the company had even hired a managing director for the joint venture."

“Repower, however, claimed there was no delay in the project. 'There is no delay in the second step—to form the joint venture—planned for 2007. First, we wanted to get to know the Indian market better, said Hanna Scherger, team assistant public relations, investor relations and legal affairs for Repower in an emailed response.”

More On NIOT's Desalination Plant

2007-04-28T07:53:00.000-05:00

Some clarifications on the new desalination plant unveiled by the National Institute of Ocean Technology.

Sagar Shakti, NIOT's recently unveiled barge-mounted desalination plant, produces one million liters a day at about 6 paise per liter. This however is just an experimental plant. To go commercial NIOT will partner with a private company. Director S. Kathiroli estimates that a plant with 25 million liters per day capacity should be able to produce water at just 3 paise per liter (which is on par with international costs on much bigger plants).

Kathiroli also goes on to explain how this technology has high sustainability standards.

The process is a controlled recreation of water cycle that brings about rain. It involves flash evaporation of warm surface seawater and condensation of the vapours with cold deep-sea water.

The method is environment- friendly, and simple enough not requiring too much skilled manpower.

"There is no brine or anything formed. Secondly, we bring deep sea cold water, which is rich in nutrients. So wherever the plant is, at least 10- 20 kilometres around, you will see that Mari culture will grow quite a lot," Kathiroli said. >> Link

Solar Roof Programs - I

2007-04-25T19:39:00.000-05:00

Introduction

Mass-production drives down per-unit costs. This is true even with energy, so driving an electric car running on power mass-produced at a huge power plant is more efficient that running your IC-engine car where the power is produced by a relatively tiny 2 liter engine.

However one form of energy that does not gain from mass-production is solar photo-voltaic power. Thats because a given solar cell will produce the same amount of power whether it is placed in isolation or with a million other such cells.

This presents some unique opportunities for those working to popularize solar power. Since mass-production offers no advantages it makes sense to promote individual installations in homes for a variety of reasons.

#1 - Production at point of Consumption

The power is produced right where it is needed, eliminating transmission and distribution (T&D) losses. So if 1 kW of power is generated, most of it is used.

#2 - Reduced Infrastructure Costs

The expensive and elaborate T&D infrastructure is not used. This reduces load on the infrastructure where it exists, and obviates the need for it where it does not. Thus remote regions can get powered without the need to set up and maintain expensive transmission lines. The fact that they are remote usually makes the set-up even more expensive.

#3 - Serve the niche market without affecting the mass market

Solar PV is still rather expensive from a capital cost perspective, so that restricts the commercial viability of a large plant. Thats because a commercial plant has to sell power to the rich alt-e enthusiasts and the poor at the same rates.

This however does not stop very small scale installations like in residences. The extra cost is made up for in part by the government via subsidies, and in part by the people installing it themselves. Thus the market for solar PV power, usually relatively wealthy solar power enthusiasts, is satisfied without taxing the relatively poor.

So the obvious answer is...

The third point is probably the most significant, and is driving "solar roof" installations in developed countries. A solar roof usually means installing solar panels (or solar shingles or solar tiles, or any other type of solar PV roofing material) on the roof of an individual house or residential system. The average solar roof should have a rating of 3 kW to source the power requirements of the residential unit.

* The earliest solar roof program was launched by Japan back in 1994. It was a 70,000 roof program which reached 144,000 roofs in 2002.
* In 1997, President Clinton launched a national Million Solar Roof Initiative in the US, which without any formal budget still reached 229,000 installations by 2003.
* Germany has had great success with its Solar Roof efforts ramping up from an initial 1000 solar roof program to a 100,000 solar roof program, in 1998. This program met its target in 2003 with 3 years to spare.
* Probably the most ambitious of all current programs is the California Million Solar Roofs Plan (CMSRP). With this California alone aims to create 3000 MW of solar power capacity in 10 years. To put that in perspective Governor Schwarzenegger wants California to achieve in 10 years in one state, what President Clinton aimed to achieve in 50 states in 13 years.

Despite the ambitious nature of the CMSRP, it would seem to have a much better chance of success than the Clinton initiative. There are two reasons:
1. The economic and political costs of oil have sky-rocketed, ensuring a very wide range of support for alternate energy.
2. The costs of alternate energy have fallen. Solar modules cost $5 per watt in 1998. The cheapest thin-film module retails for $3 per watt today.

Neither of these look like they will change in the near future. The CMSRP does face serious challenges, but the lessons learnt will encourage more states in the US to launch similar programs. In the near future, as solar power gets cheap enough developing countries will have their own such programs, and before long we will see the advent of commercial solar power stations that are cost competitive with coal. Towards that goal does the promise of solar power lead us.

NIOT's OTEC-based Desalination Plant

2007-04-21T08:09:00.000-05:00

Chennai-based National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) has achieved a world's first in sustainable technology by building a floating water desalination plant. But what's so great about putting a desalination plant on a barge? The uniqueness is in the detail of the technology used.

The Technology

"The plant is mounted on a 65-metre-long by 16-metre-thick barge. The ocean's surface water is boiled inside a vacuum container. The vapour created in the flash boil process is condensed through a refrigeration process with the help of deep-sea water collected from nearly 600 metres below the surface of the sea." >>Link

Thus this plant benefits from NIOT's cutting edge research and plans on OTEC, a fledgling clean energy technology which has huge potential. OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion) is a method to use the energy difference between the surface of the ocean, which is exposed to the sun, and the water at lower levels, which not being exposed to the sun is much cooler.

The temperature of the water 600m below the surface was one third of the temperature at the surface, but bringing it to the surface presented the biggest challenge of the project. The water was brought up using one meter thick HDPE pipes, which come in 12m lengths, and when assembled the 600m stretch weighed 100 tonnes. Further the salinity of the seawater would make the pipes float, necessitating the attachment of heavy weights. The salinity however is useful in another way - the clean water is filled into water bags each capable of holding 200,000 liters, which were then easily towed to the shore since clean water floats on saline water.

Cost Effective Technology?

The water is essentially distilled which is the best way to clean water, though normally not the most cost efficient. Thus, "The total dissolvable solid proportion in this water is only 10 particles per million (PPM) as against a national standard of 2,000 PPM". But the production cost works out to about 6 paise (0.14 cents) per liter. This might look reasonable when considering the price of bottled water, but not if it is to be considered a reliable supply for industrial and municipal supply. Reverse osmosis plants in other parts of the world provide water at just half of that cost.

Looking ahead

Firstly this is a very small plant by international standards. For example the world's biggest desalination plant at Jebel Ali in the UAE produces over 800 million liters a day, whereas the NIOT plant produces just 1 million. As they work on increasing capacity, the cost of production should decrease too.

Secondly, NIOT has proposed a tie-up with the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board to explore a rather unique application for its Low Temperature Thermal Desalination - by using the heat from onshore thermal power plants. If this works, the cost of production would work out to between 3-4 paise.

Water from TNEB's thermal power plants has to be cooled down before it can be released into the sea. NIOT thinks that the already warm water would be a good starting point for it to continue into the desalination process. That would be a double punch for sustainable technologies - a cost-efficient way to handle thermal pollution and produce clean water.

If NIOT can polish off this technology soon, then apart from current and upcoming thermal power plants, it could see big application in the soon to come nuclear power plants too.

Small Wave Power Plant in Maharashtra

2007-04-17T05:57:00.000-05:00

The Maharashtra Govt is setting up a small tidal power plant in 2 coastal villages in Ratnagiri district. A pilot of sorts it will produce between 15 to 20 kW of power when it goes operational this May. The project costs about Rs 4.5 million ($100,000), and similar projects are underway in 15 other villages. The hope is that the success of this project could lead to a similar project with a capacity of 250 kW.

Of course this project is not going to help Maharashtra or India tide over any power crises soon, but it is a good attempt to move forward on a technology that is at least as promising as wind power is.

The Indian Wave Energy Program

The Indian Wave Energy Program started in 1983 at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. Early research led to the conclusion that the Oscillating Water Column (OWC) type of device was most suitable for Indian conditions and a 150 kW pilot plant was actually built and commissioned in October 1991 in the breakwater of the Vizinjham Fisheries Harbor near Trivandrum in Kerala.

In 1993 the National Institute of Ocean Technology was established within the IIT-M campus and it took over the wave energy program. NIOT continues research on wave energy as part of its overall mandate to exploit India's ocean resources. While an improved model was again installed at Vizinjham in April 1996, we dont see details of much progress beyond that.

So the Maharashtra effort, though small should help revive efforts in this fledgling technology.

Links:
WEC Survey of Energy Resources 2001
From the Moon via the Tides
Big Californian Push for Wave Power
Wave Power gets Smarter

Energy Globe 2006 - The Winners From India

2007-04-13T12:34:00.000-05:00

The Energy Globe awards for 2006 are out, and programs in India have won two awards. The International Awards are given in 5 categories (Earth, Fire, Water, Air and Youth) , plus a National Honorary Award.

First Prize in the Fire category

In a previous post, we had mentioned Selco India, a company which sells solar electrification systems to rural Indian households through consumer credit programs. Though the company and its business model is today quite strong, it probably would not have been but for the early level support received from the Indian Solar Loan Program led by the United Nations Environment Program in partnership with the UNEP Riscoe Center, and Indian banking groups including Canara Bank, Syndicate Bank, and their sponsored smaller cooperative banks.

In a just recognition of its great success, this 4-year $7.6 mn program launched in April 2003, receives the First Prize in the Fire category. UNEP has decided not renew the program in India recognizing that the business model is now strong enough to carry on without its support.

"A customer credit financing program for financing solar home systems... the program design involves an interest rate reduction, a direct support system of the market and a provider qualification process. Over the span of three years more than 16,000 Solar Home Systems have been financed through 2,000 bank branches and the interest subsidy has been mostly phased out."

Second Prize in Water Category

The second Energy Globe recipient from India represents a very famous brand - Sulabh International which runs the ubiquitous public toilets in India. Bindheshwar Pathak, wins the award for his Sulabh Sanitation Movement which has developed a simple and efficient method for producing bio-gas from human waste in public toilets. Also, using a simple technology called the Sulabh Effluent Treatment it can treat the waste water rendering it odorless, colorless and pathogen-free before releasing it back into the environment.

Its showcase project is a huge public toilet with bio-gas production facility in Shirdi, Maharashtra. Its the biggest such facility in the world and thirty thousand people can use the public toilets per day. Apart from creating sustainable and renewable energy it contributes big time to keeping the environment hygienic.

All The Winners

The list of all the International winners is here. It presents a list of interesting projects from around the globe, which I cannot do true justice to in this post. They range from solar driers to sustainable building to bio-gas projects. Please take time to go through the link to get an idea of how different peoples and cultures do their bit to get to a more sustainable existence.

Greenpeace's India 2050 Energy Scenario

2007-04-10T11:49:00.000-05:00

Greenpeace has launched its report, 'Energy (R)evolution: A sustainable Energy Outlook for India' in New Delhi yesterday, which has some pretty sensible solutions for India to cut the pollution and keep the growth into the year 2050.

The report outlines the path and policy for India to take to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 4% by 2050, instead of a nearly 400% increase going by current standards. This makes more sense seen in the context that the report on India is a part of the Global Energy Outlook report which aims at a global reduction of CO2 emissions by 50% by 2050.

The report suggests a two-pronged approach to tackle pollution. On the one hand it stresses on increasing the contribution of renewables in the production of electricity, "from the current 4% to 10% by 2010, 20% by 2020 and 65% by 2050". The other focus area is energy efficiency, which should restrict primary energy demand increase from 27,000 Pita Joules in 2003 to just 37,000 PJ/a in 2050, instead of 72,000 PJ/a which would be the demand if no action was taken.

Total electricity production will rise from the current 120GW to 88GW. Of the total mix 25% will be produced from solar PV, 20% from wind, 11% hydro and 6% from biomass. On hydro, the stress is on small, mini and micro hydroelectric projects, which are environmentally friendly and will make up 60% of the hydro-electricity produced. Similarly biomass should not affect food produce and should be produced only from waste.

Random Updates On Solar Power

2007-04-07T15:21:00.000-05:00

DIY Solar Cooker
We recently had a post on the Gadhia solar cooker (based on the German Scheffler cooker) which has made significant inroads into the Indian rural hinterland. Here is how you can build your own solar power cooker at a much lower cost.

Solar Drier for Chillies
In Coimbatore, researchers at the Post-Harvest Technology Centre of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University have developed and installed a Poly House Solar Tunnel Drier to dry agricultural products like chillies. The drier cuts down the post-harvest loss of 35% to 40%, and also reduces the time to dry chillies to 4% moisture content from 7-10 days to just 2-3 days. The drier was installed at a village with financial support from Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), through DHAN Foundation, Madurai.

Solar Cell Prices falling
The cost of solar cells is falling. Despite the recent run-up in prices because of German demand, a multicrystalline solar module is available for as little as $4.31 per Watt peak (Wp) from a US retailer, while the minimum price for a thin film module is $3.00/Wp.

Update: via The Oil Drum, by 2010 power from the cheapest solar power will be cost competitive with power from a new coal-powered plant. Another research report on what is needed to get there, and beyond.

Renewable Energy Potential in Kerala

2007-04-05T12:35:00.000-05:00

Kerala is one South Indian state that has not taken up renewable energy in a big way. While neighboring Tamil Nadu has a wind power generation capacity of 3000 MW, Kerala has nothing despite tremendous potential especially in the hilly regions.

G.M. Pillai, Director General of World Institute of Sustainable Energy (WISE), Pune, laments that a draft policy on wind power has been gathering dust in the state without implementation. The wind power potential in the state is estimated at 1000 MW, whereas the total power capacity in the state is currently 3000 MW. Moreover with a gestation period of just 3 months from start of construction to go-live, wind power is truly fast-track.

However despite the absence of state support, there seems to be some entrepreneurial success on the solar power front. Georgekutty Karianapally, an entrepreneur based in Kochi has developed some solar products that include a solar incubator and a solar milking machine. The solar incubator has interested the IIT to take up a project on it.

"He has also developed a 2 watt LED (light emitting diode) light that can replace a 15 watt bulb. The `zero watt bulbs' available at most of the outlets are 15 watt bulbs, according to him. About 8 lakh bulbs in this category are sold in the State every year, he says. If so, the power saved by replacing them with the LED lights would be equivalent to the power generated by a mini power generation plant, he observes." >Link

Nanotechnology Breakthrough For Solar Cells in NZ

2007-04-05T04:35:00.000-05:00

A significant breakthrough by researchers in New Zealand might help bring down the cost of solar cells to just one tenth of the current cost.

"Dr Wayne Campbell and researchers in the (Massey University’s Nanomaterials Research) centre have developed a range of coloured dyes for use in dye-sensitised solar cells. The synthetic dyes are made from simple organic compounds closely related to those found in nature." - Link (via) The porphyrin dye they have developed is apparently the most efficient dye in the world.

The main reason for the lower cost would be a production process that uses titanium dioxide, a plentiful, renewable and non-toxic mineral. Silicon is also plentiful but the refining of pure silicon is a very energy hungry process.

Also unlike silicon-based cells that need direct sunlight, cells from this process will work in low-light conditions which makes them ideal for cloudy climates - and cloudy days in sunny climates.

The center will now work with commercial companies to incorporate the dyes into roofing materials or wall panels, and they already have several expressions of interest.

Big Biomass Initiatives In Haryana

2007-04-03T05:40:00.000-05:00

Over the last two months, Haryana has been in the thick of action on renewable energy in India.

686 MW Power From Biomass

In Feb, Haryana signed MoUs with 7 independent power producers (IPPs) to set up 21 biomass-based power stations that would generate a total of 686 MW of power at a total set-up cost of $745 mn.

One of the IPPs is a consortium of Gammon Infrastructure Projects Pvt Ltd and Barmaco Energy Systems Ltd which will generate a total of 154 MW of power. The plants would be set up in 8 different locations to ensure proximity with the sources. The plants would use inputs like rice husk, wheat husk and sugarcane straw which would be bought from local farmers presumably within a radius of 15-20 kms around the plant. This, in my opinion, would not just contribute to the local economy but also reduce the need for middlemen between the farmers and the power producers.

Govt Policy

At a recent business meet for, "Promotion of Biomass Gasifiers for Thermal and Electrical Applications", the Haryana Ministry of New and Renewable Energy highlighted its 35-point program of subsidies and fiscal incentives for promoting biomass gasification.

Haryana's Dept of Renewable Energy (HAREDA) has identified a potential of 1400 MW from biomass and this looks like a strong initiative towards reaching that potential. Still it makes a tiny fraction of the 40,000 MW Haryana needs/expects to ramp up over the next 3 years.

High-level Initiatives

Haryana also signed two more significant MoU's last month. The first was signed between GE and the Haryana Technological Park at the India launch of GE's Ecomagination, and is for the launch of a green building project in the state. This was followed up with an MoU with the state of Maryland, US. This agreement had the explicit objective of improving trade in clean and renewable energy sources, but was pretty wide-ranging otherwise.

Village-level Initiatives

At the village level Haryana increased the money in awards for panchayats that promote new and renewable energy sources by 50%. The awards would be given to panchayats that achieve maximum new solar power for unelectrified houses, maximum installation of biogas plants by houses that had potential, maximum usage of energy efficient chullahs (stoves) and bulbs, maximum adoption of solar cookers and maximum number of solar energy conservation devices.

Related link: Biopact has an excellent post on Haryana's biomass initiatives.

Indian World's Tallest Building Aspirants

2007-04-01T09:36:00.000-05:00

A rash of new developments promises to change India's traditionally low FSI structure and throw up a bunch of potential claimants to the title of the World's Tallest Building.

Introduction

India has traditionally been a low Floor Space Index country, which has resulted in relatively few skyscrapers (buildings over 24m in height) outside of downtown Bombay. Even in the financial capital the towering structures top out at just under 160 m , with the Shreepati Arcade and the MVRDC World Trade Centre. Some structures under construction like the SD Towers would actually breach the 200m mark. 160m or even 200m is tiny by world standards where the Empire State Building set a 449 m record way back in 1931. In fact India has fallen so far down in the global tall building stakes that Qingdao a small city in China, has more high rise buildings than the whole of India and more than twice as tall buildings.

In 1998, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi announced plans to build a giant 678 m building near Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh to house his "World Capital". At that height it would not only have dwarfed the then world's tallest Petronas Towers, or the current Taipei 101, but would have made them seem rather small in volume too. Few people took this claim seriously, and today mentions are largely confined to email forwards.

The more serious and purely commercial proposals would not come until the turn of the millennium.

The Noida Tower

The next big blow in the World's Tallest Building (WTB) stakes in India came almost 7 years later was from Hafeez Contractor when he proposed the Noida Tower. At 710m it would tower over all except the Burj Dubai which would top out at 800m. The proposed design is either pretty cool, or monstrously ugly, depending on who you ask - though to the credit of the designer it never fails to evoke a response. "The building is to look like the peaks of Himalayas, and is scheduled to be open for business by 2013. The building will contain a 50-floor five-star hotel, a 40-story glass atrium and 370,000 sq meters of shopping space." (Link) It will be part of the Noida City Center built over 140 hectares.

Gurgaon's Sector 29

Last year another Delhi satellite town, Gurgaon, jumped into the fray. Gurgaon intends to build 4 towers of 140 floors each as part of its Golden Triangle City Center in Sector 29. While the Noida Tower seems to be caught up in the city bureaucracy, the Gurgaon proposal comes from the Haryana govt. Also unlike in Noida, Gurgaon has elaborate plans to tackle the parking and transportation problems that are inherent when such huge structures come up. These include multi-level parking structures, and both monorail and metro connectivity to ease traffic congestion.

Manhattans of Delhi and Mumbai

This year the results of opening the "floodgates for FDI" in real estate are finally showing. The first quarter of this year alone saw major FDI (and local) investment commitments into 4 mega-construction projects, which if successful should bring 4 new mini-cities onto the map of India. The "mini" prefix might be redundant though because two of those being built by DLF and the Al Nakheel group from Dubai on a 50:50 basis are each being planned to be "three times the size of Manhattan". These would be one each outside Delhi and Mumbai, on 20,000 acres each. Now the comparison to Manhattan one hopes will extend to the height of the buildings in these cities. And if that happens, we should go someway towards an Indian presence in the tallest buildings in the world list. Better still, we might see serious competition between Indian cities and construction companies to build the tallest building in India.

All said and done, the skylines of Indian cities are likely to see some serious alterations.

Orb Energy - A Focus On The Solar Scene

2007-03-31T06:30:00.000-05:00

Orb Energy is a firm in Bangalore which seems to have a clear focus on building up the Indian solar retail market.

Business Model

Orb Energy is a newly established solar energy company (as a spin-off from Shell Renewables), based in Singapore. Last August they tied up with a clutch of cleantech investors including CleanTech Europe, Renewable Capital and the Singh Family (founders of New Look, a UK-based ladies fashion retailer). In October, they announced a $2.5 m investment in a plant in Bangalore to assemble and market solar systems for power backup and heating. The business plan was to set up 25 service branches within the state and have sales to 100,000 residential and commercial customers in five years.

Differentiator

The company seems to have a well-focussed approach to the Indian market. Dozens of players in India already offer what Orb is offering. However the difference seems to be in the approach, where there is a focus on branding and an effort to tailor the solutions for specific needs, whether in the residential sector or in variety of commercial requirements, from IT to hospitality to the manufacturing industry. The company also provides financing via its tie-up with Karnataka Bank. Considering the spread of its branches in Karnataka there seems to be a strong emphasis on reaching out to the rural customers.

Moser Baer Ties Up Supplies Via Investment

2007-03-30T20:15:00.000-05:00

Moser Baer has bought a 40% stake in Slovenian company, SolarValue AG. SolarValue has a plant that manufactures solar grade silicon and is targeting a plant capacity of 4400 tonnes. The investment from Moser Baer helps it in that direction.

For Moser Baer it helps tie up silicon supplies for Moser Baer Photo Voltaics' planned ramp-up in capacity to 80 MW of solar cells by this year. MBPV recently inaugurated 40 MW of solar PV cell manufacturing capacity, for which it has tied up for supplies with a Solar World group company. The tie-up with SolarValue will ensure MBPV has enough supplies for the additional 40 MW which is scheduled to come on line by the end of this year.

Danish company buys 50% in Indian Solar firm

2007-03-28T17:37:00.000-05:00

Danish solar products company SolarCap has bought a 50% stake in Emmvee Solar Systems, a Bangalore-based manufacturer of solar water heaters and photovoltaic modules.

Emmvee produces the "Solarizer" brand of solar heaters. Following the infusion of cash from the stake sale the company is looking to expand its capacity from the current 500,000 sq m to 2 million sq m within the next 6 months. It also gives Emmvee the access to technology from SolarCap as well as a range of solar thermal products which can be launched in the Indian and global markets.

In addition to getting cash to expand, the Indian company here also gets a strategic global partner and the capability to overhaul its range of solar thermal products to global standards, thus giving it a competitive edge in the global economy. This should be seen as another important way for Indian companies to move up the ladder towards ensuring their survival in an increasingly global market.

Emmvee also operates a fully automated manufacturing facility for solar photovoltaic modules, which was installed by Spire Corporation last year. The plant has equipment for "solar cell stringing and lay-up, lamination and module testing as per IEC standards", and a capacity of 15MW. Production is mainly for export.

Khandelwal Solar's big plans in the PV space

2007-03-27T10:10:00.000-05:00

While the general trend seems to be companies manufacturing solar photovoltaics in India to sell abroad, Khandelwal Solar plans to import solar photovoltaic modules and cells from a Chinese company to sell in India. Noida-based Khandelwal Solar Power Ltd has signed an MoU with Shanghai-based Solar EnerTech Corp to import and market the latter's products in India. But in keeping with the trend, they have big manufacturing plans too.

Marketing Agreement

"The MOU agreement establishes the framework towards the formation of a strategic partnership aimed at developing product sales in India as well as opening additional markets throughout Asia. The agreement outlines a six-year plan whereby KSPL would be supplied solar materials and products alongside technical training and consultative expertise on the design and manufacture of customized solar applications.

"The framework further elaborates that within fiscal 2007, Khandelwal will purchase 2Mw of solar cells and modules, representing an approximate $7.5 million in revenue for Solar EnerTech. Furthermore, KSPL agrees to purchase an additional 20Mw of solar modules and 10Mw of solar cells in 2008, and from 2009 to 2012, Khandelwal will annually purchase 20Mw of solar modules and 20Mw of solar cells in order to supply projected market demands within India."

Manufacturing Plans

Interestingly the company is also very bullish on manufacturing in India. Their website speaks of a project to manufacture solar photovoltaics in India, projecting a 3 phase capacity increase to 100 MW, also indicating that they have production orders to take care of 5 years worth of production.

I contacted Khandelwal Solar on this seeming discord in priorities and they clarified that the manufacturing project is still very much on, and the first solar modules and cells should start rolling out from the plant by June 2008. Currently the company is seeking private placement investments into the project, largely from NRI's. The marketing deal with Solar EnerTech Corp is an attempt to start penetrating the market right away.

Manufacture of solar PV products would mark a big jump for the Khandelwal group who have been manufacturing small semi-conductor components in India in technological coordination with Siemens.

The Indic View would wish them luck in both endeavors.

Essar and REpower to build wind turbines in India

2007-03-25T08:21:00.000-05:00

REpower shot to fame in India because of Suzlon's battle with French nuclear power giant Areva to acquire it. Regardless of the outcome of that battle though, REpower seems set to come to India.

REpower is teaming up with the Essar group, under a license agreement signed last year, to start design and construction of 1.5 MW to 2 MW wind turbines in India, and to market them in South East Asia. There is the likelihood of a future JV to build or import 3MW to 5MW turbines. This JV would also have access to other technological developments at REpower, and the market could also be expanded beyond South East Asia. REpower has entered the Chinese market separately through a JV with Chinese companies, North Heavy Industry Corp and Honiton Energy Ltd.

"Essar had plans to set up the manufacturing plant in a port-based location with initial investments of Rs 50 crore." >>FE

Update of the Suzlon-Areva battle for REpower

The REpower supervisory and management boards have recommended that shareholders accept Areva's last bid (140 euros per share) over Suzlon's (126 euros). However in an interesting twist REpower also suggested that it would prefer to be acquired via a joint bid by both companies. The rationale seems to be that while either of the two companies could help REpower in its growth plans, a combination of the two would offer far more.

Exploring Synergy of Clean Energy Sources

2007-03-25T07:29:00.000-05:00

"Available 24/7" is obviously not a phrase that solar or wind power plants swear by. For obvious reasons - these are forces of nature that we can only harness when they are available. The sun does not shine at night, and the wind only blows at peak capacity about 30% of times in the best of locations. So that means that they will always stand at a serious disadvantage versus fossil fuel based solutions where the power source can be easily stockpiled and used as and when required.

Power grids therefore have had to balance off the addition of any solar or wind power with equivalent power from a conventional power plant. Of course this leads to inefficiencies as the conventional power plant does not get to operate at full capacity, thus increasing the cost of its output.

Denmark uses hydro-electricity from neighboring Germany, so it tends to draw more and less power depending on how the wind is performing. This works well because the flow of water that generates the hydro-power can always be controlled. Of course this is not an ideal scenario but it does present an interesting case study on how a combination of renewable power sources can help overcome the disadvantages of each.

In India, small solar-wind hybrid systems are slowly getting popular, aided by huge govt subsidies. On a much larger scale California is building two 50 MW solar thermal power plants, which will use biogas from cow dung as a backup fuel source.

If this experiment is successful, Indian policy planners should take note. India has the largest bovine population in the world, and the second largest human population. The sun is also especially generous with India. Energy independence thus seems only a matter of infrastructure.

German Firm to make Biogas from Bagasse in India

2007-03-24T17:18:00.000-05:00

The Indian biogas space is attracting international attention - and investments. While FuelCell Energy is looking at generating power (at least in part) from biogas in an "ultra-clean" way, Biogas Nord has set its eyes on the huge potential to generate biogas in India.

Via Biopact: German company, Biogas Nord is one of the world's biggest biogas companies. It takes its first step into India's rapidly growing biogas market with a contract for the construction of a large biogas plant for a sugar factory in Maharashtra. The Shree Tatyasaheb Kore Warana, is a sugar factory that produces 40,000 tons of bagasse a year. The biogas plants not just produce biogas, but also leave behind high-quality fertilizer. A big plus for the environment is that it prevents the emission of the greenhouse gas methane from the bagasse.

"The highly efficient biogas plants installed by Biogas Nord AG are based on a flow-storage process. This involves the operation of several tanks (fermenters) with biomass substrate continuously flowing through them".

The contract was worth 1.8 million euros, and Biogas Nord would well be setting its sights on the 165 sugar factories in Maharashtra, which is about half the number in India.

e.Volution - the Air Car in a previous Avatar

2007-03-24T06:09:00.000-05:00

Even as the Tata-MDI deal to build the air car in India is creating waves, there is a feeling of "been-there-done-that" already. For it was back in 2000 that the MDI technology first made a splash as the e.Volution at the Auto Expo Africa 2000 in Johannesburg.

The e.Volution made waves back in 2000. Zero Pollution Motors was to manufacture the car in South Africa. "There are currently two factories in France, with the first models expected on the streets later this year. There are five factories planned for Mexico and Spain, with three in Australia. But South Africa will be the second country after France to open a factory and begin production." (BBC)

The e.Volution also won an entry on the popular tech site howstuffworks.com.

Interestingly the car again made a splash 2 years later. By this time, going by the original schedule it should already have been on the streets of Mexico City where the govt had already placed an order for 40,000 air cars, while about 10 factories in 6 countries were churning out thousands of air cars. This time the splash it was at the Paris motor show in 2002, in the country where it was developed in the first place. The only change was that a refuel was to cost 1.5 Euros as against just 30 cents in the case of the e.Volution.

It does not look like any of the plans have materialized. Despite the best efforts of MDI, the car does not seem to have become commercial yet. The website for Zero Pollution Motors shows a site under construction, though I did find this listing for an office in New York City (which also mentions the same under-construction website).

So what could be different with the new deal?

It seems to me that the Tata's might just be the first group with serious experience in the automobile sector that is tying up with MDI. Notice too that the Tata's have not made any big noise about the deal, indicating probably that they are very cautious (and likely serious) about it too.

Also MDI seems to have made some progress since 2000 and 2002. They now have 4 models against just the van that was displayed in SA. The car touts an amazing array of electronic gadgets. Interestingly the price seems to have come down from the $10,000 mentioned in 2000 to just about $7,000 that media reports suggest now. Prius, Tesla and Volt have also made alternate energy vehicles very cool in a world serious about fighting the oil addiction.

All these factors could on the one hand indicate that the time for the air car has finally come. On the other, it might just reinforce its status as vaporware.

Credit: Riot for pointing to the e.Volution, via his insightful comment on the original post.

FuelCell Energy coming to India

2007-03-24T05:41:00.000-05:00

In another sign of cutting-edge alternate energy technology coming into India, US-based FuelCell Energy plans to invest $100 mn in setting up infrastructure for fuel cell power plants, in a plan that will later involve R&D and manufacturing.

The Plans for India

FuelCell plans to set up its first unit in Gujarat. The company does not want to go the subsidiary route and is in talks with Reliance, L&T and Kirloskar for possible tie-ups. The company also claimed that the investment could go as high as $500 mn to $1 bn.

Speaking about the plans, Pinakin Patel, Director Special Systems and Research, FuelCell Energy, had some interesting comments to make. He claimed that the production cost of power would be $1000 per kw, as against $3000 in the US, because of lower cost of components. I presume he means capital cost. '"Moreover, the power generated there (USA) is around 1,000 mw while given the market conditions in India and the huge demand we are looking for an initial power generation of 10,000 mw,” said Patel, adding that the company would, however, begin at a lower level of power generation at 10 MW capacity to 100 MW capacity to avoid risks.' Though initially the company will import fuel cells from its US plants, eventually it hopes to manufacture them in India.

"Fuel Cell Energy will be operating in India in phases beginning by the end of 2007 or early 2008".

What this means for the power scene in India

FuelCell Energy represents cutting-edge technology in ultra-clean electric power generation from renewable sources like bio-gas, or from "cleaner" sources like natural gas. The company recently installed a 1 MW power plant that will run on gas generated from 30 millions gallons of waste water everyday. Among other initiatives the company has also tied up with Air Products to build a Hydrogen Power Station by combining their Direct FuelCell power plants with Air Products' advanced gas separation technologies.

Though India is not big on hydrogen, there is a big stress on power from municipal waste and biomass where the waste is converted into biogas and then run through combustion-based generators to produce electricity. Fuel cells do this in a much cleaner and efficient way. Also at $1000 per KW, the capital cost is very competitive with more traditional power plants. Even if natural gas is used instead of biogas, the plant will still pollute far less than a traditional natural gas plant, which itself is much cleaner than a coal plant.

Update: FuelCell also has a 10 year agreement with Korean power producer POSCO Power to sell and develop fuel cell generation plants in South Korea.

E-Bikes - Revolution in the Making

2007-03-22T17:22:00.000-05:00

From California to China, e-bikes are rapidly becoming popular. India is no exception, though it is just taking off, and the segment they cater to in India might be totally different.

In many countries around the world, e-bikes are essentially electric-motorized bicycles. So they are popular among bicyclists who want to "move up". In India on the contrary, they are being positioned as low-cost, low-maintenance and "cool" replacements for motorcycles and scooters.

From Bangalore-based Ekovehicle's Eco-Cosmic I in 2005 to a wide range of manufacturers today, the electric bike segment in India is crowded and also set to explode. From next to nothing two years ago, companies sold 50,000 electric bikes in India last year. Electrotherm, a company traditionally into furnaces and metal melting, is one of the big new entrants into the space, having launched its bikes branded 'No Petrol' YObykes in a number of states like Gujarat, Orissa, West Bengal and Maharashtra. Probably the biggest promise however is held out by the Hero group's joint venture with British company Ultratech. The joint venture company called Ultra Motors should give a big boost to the e-bike industry bringing in Hero Motors' vaunted distribution, marketing and after-sales network.

The power of most bikes is equivalent to their 25 cc petrol counterparts, with a max speed ranging from 25 to 40 kmph. The lower power also means no registration or taxes or even a license. But they cost less than 10 paise ($0.002) per km, and get totally charged in a few hours. Moreover the speed does lie within the average speed range of traffic in most Indian cities.

The Outlook

Apart from the players mentioned above the market also has players like Avon Cycles, KEV India, Kaiser Auto Moto, Standard Group, Atlas Cycles and Ace Motors. Electrotherm alone plans to sell 150,000 vehicles a year by next year, while Ultra Motors also has a similar target.

Tata-BP Solar to invest $300mn to reach 300 MW

2007-03-22T06:57:00.000-05:00

Tata-BP Solar is the grand-daddy of solar photovoltaics manufacturing in India. In a major ramp-up strategy announced yesterday, Tata-BP outlined plans to retain their pole position in the solar space in India.

Set-up in 1991, as a 51-49 JV between BP Solar and Tata Power, their Bangalore solar cell plant currently has a capacity of 52 MW. The initial phase of the ramp-up will see an investment of $100mn in proportion of the stake in the JV by BP Solar and Tata Power. This investment will see an increase in plant capacity to 128 MW in the next 20 months. A subsequent investment will increase the capacity to 300 MW by 2010.

We have seen a spate of investments in PV manufacturing in India including Moser Baer PV's 250 MW thin film plant and Solar Semiconductor's 50 MW plant (with a potential to ramp up to 100MW). Tata-BP seemed to be spurred by these developments going by this statement from BP Solar president and CEO Lee Edwards: "This investment (USD 100 million) is part of the roadmap laid out to ensure that the firm retains its number one position in the Indian subcontinent". In the longer-term the company expects to export about 60% of the produced modules.

So how does the Tata-BP ambition compare with MBPV and Solar Semiconductor?

Tata Power is backed by one of the oldest, biggest and most dynamic corporate groups in India. BP Solar is backed by one of the top 5 global petroleum firms, and BP has loudly declared its strategy in the energy space by changing its tag line to "Beyond Petroleum". In terms of size and "lineage" therefore Tata-BP is a giant against up-starts in its space. But dont count the new kids out yet.

One potential stumbling block for Tata-BP is BP Solar's adamant loyalty to silicon-based PV, while more and more PV gurus are increasingly putting their weight behind thin-film. Both points have their merits, but currently more experts are in favor of thin-film. The new companies would be equally adept in both technologies - thin-film and silicon crystalline.

A great leveller would be the increasingly important role played by financial institutions today, as demonstrated in Tata Steel's takeover of Corus, a company many times it own size. What this means is that if the smaller companies can convince financial institutions that they have a great product/idea/plan, the financial edge of their giant competitors would be rather blunted.

One thing is for sure though: there are exciting times ahead in the solar space in India.

Tatas bringing the Air Car to India

2007-03-20T10:07:00.000-05:00

Imagine a car that is as green as an electric car, has more than twice the range, and re-charges in half the time. That is the promise of the air car, and the Tatas hope to manufacture and launch such a car in India soon.

Last month Tata Motors signed a deal with Moteur Developpment International (MDI), a small family owned firm based in France, for application of MDI's compressed air engines technology to cars for the market in India. Gizmag has exciting details including on the Tatas' plans to manufacture and launch these cars in India - though not a timeline yet.

What's New?

The MDI-Tata car will run on compressed air. The technology has been around for a while, though their application in automobiles is relatively new (no such car is commercially available yet). Since electricity would be used to compress the air, the cars essentially run on electricity - so they are almost as clean as electric cars. Where they score above electric cars are that the energy is not stored in batteries but in a rather simple tank, hence they are cheaper and have a greater range.

The Engine
The core of the compressed air engine would be a single-piston engine powered by the expansion of compressed air. MDI's single fuel engines will run purely on compressed air and cars with these engines will top out at 50 kph . The dual fuel engine cars will have the capability to switch to a combustible fuel at speeds above 50 kph, and when on this mode the compressed air tank gets refueled too.

Fuel and Efficiency
The compressed air can be refilled at special facilities at petrol stations in quick time (2-3 minutes), or in 3-4 fours plugging in the car's electric compressor to the mains. So the car will essentially run on electric power converted into compressed air. Once filled up, the car should run for 200 to 300 kms. Each commercial refill should cost about $3 (or Rs 135). Recharging from the mains at home however should cost far less.

Body and Advanced Features
"The MiniC.A.T is a simple, light urban car, with a tubular chassis that is glued not welded and a body of fibreglass. The heart of the electronic and communication system on the car is a computer offering an array of information reports that extends well beyond the speed of the vehicle, and is built to integrate with external systems and almost anything you could dream of, starting with voice recognition, internet connectivity, GSM telephone connectivity, a GPS guidance system, fleet management systems, emergency systems, and of course every form of digital entertainment. The engine is fascinating, as is and the revolutionary electrical system that uses just one cable and so is the vehicle’s wireless control system. Microcontrollers are used in every device in the car, so one tiny radio transmitter sends instructions to the lights, indicators etc

"There are no keys – just an access card which can be read by the car from your pocket." >>link

The Tata angle

Tata Motors is expected to support further development and refinement of the technology, especially for the Indian market. Tata might setup a plant in India to manufacture 3000 cars initially. In a 3 shift operation that number could go up to 9000 cars annually. The plant might manufacture one or more of the four current MDI models - car, taxi (5 passengers), pick-up and van.

The Outlook

The Gizmag article is generating a lot of interest. At the time of posting it is approaching a 1000 diggs which is huge, though skepticism remains, as in slashdot categorizing it as potential vaporware.

But the scenario seems optimum - the car should cost under Rs 300,000, and with the great mileage and advanced electronic features to boot it should give tough competition to the Reva to hold on to the title of India's #1 clean car. May all the clean cars win!

OPEC changing its spots?

2007-03-18T06:35:00.000-05:00

You know that renewable energy is here to stay when the biggest beneficiaries of the current carbon-addiction start chanting the renewable mantra.

While the big daddy of oil, Saudi Arabia was going the Jatropha route is old news, more and more members of the OPEC cartel are going in for renewable technologies.

On the biofuel front, while UAE is looking to the jojoba, a small desert plant to make biodiesel for domestic consumption, Saudi intends to export its jatropha-based biodiesel. Venezuela is joining the ethanol rush in South America, while Indonesia hopes indigenous ethanol will restore it to the status of a petroleum exporter.

On the solar power front, the Abu Dhabi has big plans in the UAE. To start with, it is setting up a 100 MW solar power plant for $350 mn, which will come on line by 2009, and power 10,000 homes. This will be the first solar power plant in the Gulf. Beyond this one plant though, Abu Dhabi intends to put big money into the development and commercialization of clean energy technologies, starting with the setting up of a bachelor-level research center in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and also a special economic zone for the clean energy industry.

Why are the oil cartel members going the renewable route?

With countries like Venezuela and Indonesia at least the strategy seems to be to use either locally produced or imported biofuels, while maintaining their status as oil exporters. This might reflect a strategy among the oil cartel members to use their ill-gotten oil wealth to go renewable themselves while selling oil to the rest of the world for as long as they can. For this might also mean that the rumors that oil production in these countries has peaked have some truth in them, or at least that the figures of uninterrupted supply for several decades is not correct. Or it could just mean that as renewables are getting more and more competitive, they are becoming an option whose time has come, for whoever can afford them.

At the very least, this represents an admittance by the oil cartel that it may never again be able to price oil to undercut renewable energy options. And that sure is a positive thought.

Geo-Engineering Gaining Traction as an Option

2007-03-17T08:18:00.000-05:00

Clean, green, renewable energy powering an overall eco-friendly existence for the human race is generally the over-riding message of sustainability. However, even if we stop burning carbon and cutting the forests at this exact minute, we still have the accumulated effects of centuries of the industrial revolution. Sustainable practices at best prescribe preventing further destruction of the natural balance, and they at best achieve only a slowing down of the rate at which we destroy it. So while we look at decelerating the earth's loss of health, we will have to at some time start looking at restoring the health too.

The biggest aspect of the earth's health affecting us today is Global Warming - the earth is getting hotter. Geo-engineering looks at ways to alter the earth's atmosphere to fight the green-house effect, either by reducing the gases causing the greenhouse effect, or creating an environment that reflects more and more sunlight back off the earth - either off the surface of the earth, or even before it reaches the surface.

In many ways we have been practicing geo-engineering for a long time - and not just by contributing to the greenhouse effect. One theory even says that 40,000 dams along certain mid-latitudes has increased the earth's spin. But whatever we have done so far has largely been inadvertent side effects of some other action. We did not deliberately engineer global warming. So does that justify geo-engineering counter-actions?

Just as we did not intend or even accurately foresee that the industrial revolution would bring macro-climate change (though there were scientists' warnings even then), there is little assurance that deliberate efforts will not have unintended and unfortunate side effects, in addition to the anticipated ones.

And yet we could reach a stage where the climate change has reached such drastic limits that we may not have any option but to take drastic measures. In that context it is important to research geo-engineering technologies. A fair amount of research is being done in this field and it seems to be the preferred plan of action for a Bush administration that pulled out of the Kyoto treaty. Keep watching this space - there is definitely going to be more action in this arena.

GE launches Ecomagination in India

2007-03-16T05:21:00.000-05:00

GE finally launched its Ecomagination initiative in India last month, nearly two years after the company first announced that it was hitching its future to the growth of clean energy, clean water, and other clean technologies through a commitment to what it called 'ecomagination.'

"The ecomagination initiative was launched in New Delhi by John Rice, GE vice chairman and president & CEO, GE Infrastructure as well as Lorraine Bolsinger, vice president, ecomagination in the presence of Kapil Sibal, minister for science and technology, Government of India."

A range of new and existing initiatives were showcased at the function.

Green Buildings and Aircraft Engines
An MoU was signed between GE and Haryana Technology Park to launch a green building project in the state, under which the two will, "collaborate in a number of initiatives to create a truly green building project of world standards specifically in the areas of utility services like power generation and distribution, lighting, water treatment, security, sensing equipment and other environmentally friendly solutions."

At the function GE announced the sale of aircraft engines from its ecomagination portfolio to Air India for the aircraft it has ordered, in a deal valued at over $2.2 bn. In addition, GE will help Air India in its initiative to become an environmentally sustainable airline with sound environmental programs and practices including green buildings.

Revenue and Investment
While targeting $1 bn annually from its ecomagination products by 2010, GE also said they would invest $150 mn into R&D on eco-friendly technologies at its technology center in Bangalore.

Existing products
Despite the late launch of the initiative, some GE Ecomagination products are already installed and running in India.

Rural Electrification: "Through the GE rural electrification program, GE Energy is providing Malavalli Power Plant Private Limited (MPPL) with 30 Jenbacher JMS320 engines, which will be used to generate combined heat and power to meet electrical, refrigeration and heating needs within rural communities. The Jenbacher engines operate on a variety of alternative or specialty fuels including biogas, crop residue, municipal solid waste, landfill, coal mine methane and industrial waste gases."

Water Purification: "GE has also developed a solar-powered fresh water purification system, which combines solar technology with salt and particulate-reducing water purification systems."

Wood Replacement in Railway Coaches: "For the interiors of railway coaches, the Indian Railways have chosen GE's Lexan 953R, pre-coloured Blue, because of its re-cyclability, aesthetics, high strength and conformance to the flame retardant, low smoke emission standards."

India Wind Power Update

2007-03-16T05:05:00.000-05:00

A quick update on the wind power scene in India.

New Installations

Suzlon Energy is setting up a 150 MW wind power project in Sangli district of Maharashtra for Reliance Energy, which is part of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. The project will be completed in two phases, and when complete will supply 380 million units per year, all of which REL will use for its distribution business in Bombay. In the next 2-3 years REL will set up 500 MW of wind power in various states, further boosting the domestic wind power scene. NTPC is also expected to give due importance to wind power in its, "plans to generate 1,000 megawatts of power through renewable energy sources by 2017".

New Manufacturing

In another move that is likely to benefit Indian wind power equipment manufacturers, Belgium-based Hansen Transmissions will set up a greenfield plant to manufacture gearboxes for wind turbines in the megawatt range, near Coimbatore. The plant will be operational in late 2008, and will reach full capacity of 1500 to 2000 gearboxes by 2010, at which time it will

Inorganic Growth

Meanwhile Suzlon's battle with Areva, the world's biggest manufacturer of nuclear power stations, to buy German wind-turbine maker REpower Systems goes on. Last month Suzlon topped the French Areva's offer of 105-euros per share with an offer of 126-euros per share. Areva responded yesterday with an offer of 140-euros per share. Areva already owns 30% of REpower, while Suzlon is partnering with Portuguese company Martifier, which owns 25% of REpower, and a consortium of banks led by ABM Amro, on the bid. In response to the new bid, Suzlon apparently is considering an offer of 160-euros per share.

Battery Warriors

2007-03-15T17:49:00.000-05:00

While the future of the EEStor battery is clouded with uncertainty, there are a bunch of companies that are working on some less startling but significantly important improvements to battery technology - and their newest ally is nanotechnology.

More Recharge Cycles

One such company is Altair Nanotechnologies. "Lithium-ion batteries, commonly used in laptops and cellphones, have a relatively short life span because they use graphite, which wears out quickly in normal usage. The Altair team substituted a nanomaterial called lithium titanate that lasts much longer. The change lengthened the life of a lithium-ion battery from 750 recharges to between 10,000 and 15,000 recharges."

Safer Recharging

High profile A123 Systems used a different approach and a different nano-material. "Most safety issues in batteries occur during charging, and nanophosphate is much less prone to such problems. So A123 replaced the cobalt oxide in lithium-ion cells with nanophosphate." In addition to making the battery safer, it also ensured delivery of very high power. In fact an electric motorcycle based on such a battery achieved 0 to 60 mph in just 1.4 seconds. Based on its batteries, A123 has also developed a conversion kit that can convert regular hybrids into plug-in hybrids, though the kit is yet to hit the market.

Increased Shelf-life

mPhase addressed a different problem faced by the industry, and created a battery with indefinite shelf life. "Using nanomaterials and basic physics principles, mPhase kept the chemicals inside the battery from mixing – the cause of gradual power leakage – until it was used. Such batteries could be used for emergency lighting systems, for example, that might not be used for 10 years, but would require full power when needed."

The Future

There is some amazing research going on at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"Prof. Angela Belcher, a biomolecular materials chemist at MIT, is trying to use biological methods, such as viruses, to assemble batteries", while, 'Professor Chiang, who also researches self- assembling batteries, imagines an ink-like substance that would allow one to "paint" a battery onto a device.'

If these techniques could revolutionize manufacturing of batteries, wireless charging will elevate battery applications to an entirely new level.

Despite all the naysayers, MIT researchers are gung-ho about the potential for ultracapacitors as batteries. This is similar to what EEStor plans to do, alternate technologies to achieve the same means would be good for the industry.

EEStor - A Revolution in the Making?

2007-03-14T19:11:00.000-05:00

When Business 2.0 published this list of 11 disruptors, or companies that, "will change everything", one company clearly stood out in that list, for if it could indeed deliver what was being claimed it would become the biggest disruptor of them all. Here was a product which could kill companies, industries and potentially entire economies - that was the scale of its disruptive potential. That company was EEStor, and the product, a battery.

The Promise

The buzz was that EEStor, Inc, a secretive Texas-based company, could deliver a battery based on ultra-capacitor technology that in out-performing any battery that existed today would present electricity storage solutions that would in one stroke make a variety of alternate energy solutions suddenly very viable - an ultra efficient and long-lasting battery would make wind and solar power plants very viable, as the vagaries of production would be ironed out - even at the level of individual homes. You would see electric cars able to compete with IC-engine cars favorably in terms of range and recharge times. We would at once see a big churn in two of the biggest industries of our time - oil and automobiles. The possibilities of course are endless.

So what exactly is the claim? Sample this, "EEStor’s products, to be known as Electrical Energy Storage Units [EESU], will start coming off a production line this year. The first EESU will be a 45 kg unit that gives a car a 350 km range and can be recharged in under ten minutes. In comparison with petrofuels, a EESU cars’s running cost will be 80% cheaper." And this, "The company boldly claims that its system, a kind of battery-ultracapacitor hybrid based on barium-titanate powders, will dramatically outperform the best lithium-ion batteries on the market in terms of energy density, price, charge time, and safety. Pound for pound, it will also pack 10 times the punch of lead-acid batteries at half the cost and without the need for toxic materials or chemicals, according to the company."

The Technology

Though capacitor-based batteries are not new, they have never been able to hold as much energy as electrochemical batteries of the same size. They would also discharge rather quickly, unable to hold the charge for long. On the plus side, they can store and release most of the energy with minimum losses, which means they are very efficient. They can also be charged very quickly. While this has ensured that they have their set of unique applications, they could never be used, say, to power electric cars.

The Skeptics

Because EEStor is so secretive, most of the latest news on the product has either come via the patent office, or the electric car company which currently has an exclusive deal to use their batteries. And because the company is quiet, there are a lot of unanswered questions out there. Do check out the comments section of this article for instance. Skeptics include a VP from Maxwell Technologies, which has been making ultra-capacitor batteries for a while now, though nothing close to the specs needed to compete with lead acid or lithium ion batteries. On its part, EEStor claims that releasing information would result in giving away a competitive advantage.

The Supporters

On the one hand we have ZENN a Toronto-based electric car-maker, who are planning to release a car based on the EEStor battery as early as this year. That is a vote of confidence from the consumer community. On the other hand we have hotshot venture capitalists Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, who had invested in EEStor back in 2005. Kleiner has a well-known early investment track record in companies like Google and Amazon.

Finally it makes sense to respect the bite of a dog that does not bark much.

Reva - "World's highest selling electric car"

2007-03-12T07:30:00.000-05:00

With 700 of its electric vehicles plying on the roads of London, the Reva seems to have the highest number of electric cars in one city anywhere in the world. This is an achievement, though not quite what I had hoped for when I posted on the Reva's entry in the UK back in 2005.

In December last year, Reva received an investment of $20 million from Draper Fisher Jurveston and Global Environment Fund. This was the first investment for GEF in an electric car company, and it did come at a good time for Reva Electric Car Company (RECC) which was going through a financial crisis. The market needed better marketing and better cars, implying more R&D spend, but the sales pipeline was not generating enough optimism in that direction.

The company also claims to have become the "highest selling on-road electric vehicle globally" last year. Also, "Reva car is currently available on sale in India and is also marketed in UK", and some other European countries. Norway, Spain and Greece are likely to see some focussed marketing in the next few months in part via auto shows.

To put things into perspective, RECC has so far only sold 1800 cars globally. Looks like the company is pretty confident of that changing soon. Apparently it expects to sell another 300 cars in London alone in the next 6 months. And in the next 18 months, RECC intends to ramp-up its production from the current capacity of 6000 units annually, to 35,000 units annually in 18 months. That might help it retain its position as the top manufacturer of electric cars from a Chinese company which will build a plant capable of producing 20,000 units annually by 2007.

World's biggest construction project - an Eco City

2007-03-10T07:04:00.000-05:00

It is a fact that more and more of humanity is getting concentrated in cities, and nowhere is this process proceeding at a pace compared to that in countries that are growing fast - like China and India. I have in the past suggested that sustainability in the longer run should involve maximizing the percentage of humanity in cities, while making the cities themselves eco-friendly to the extent of having a zero environmental footprint.

China is taking a step in this direction, by setting out to construct 11 eco-friendly cities, starting with Dongtan on Chonming island just off Shanghai. When ready in 2030 it would be 75% the size of Manhattan, and have one-third the eco-footprint of Shanghai (and about half the world average). The plans suggest an environmentalist's dream - pristine wetlands beside a metro station from where people cycle back to their solar powered homes. Ideally situated homes will also have windmills to supplement the solar power, as will a central biomass energy station. The automobiles would be electric, and these will include zippy sports cars which the towns residents can use for an evening drive into Shanghai via the 30 km bridge and tunnel link to the center of Shanghai which will then be just a 20 minute drive away. Food (vegetables) for the city will be grown within the city, water will be recycled, as will all municipal industrial waste - thus no landfills.

The Dongtan project has been making waves in the eco-fraternity. It is being seen as an inspiration for cities world-wide. For instance, "Mayor of London Ken Livingstone is reportedly interested in Dongtan as a possible blueprint for development in London".

The skeptic speaks

Setting up eco-cities is no doubt a great effort, but the context somehow reminds one of efforts like in this image, where officials literally painted a mountainside green (click on the image for the link to the story).

Further, even when Dongtan is fully set up in 2030, it will only have a population of half a million. The other ten eco-cities will probably have less. Meanwhile China already has 90 cities with a population of 1 million or more. The capital Beijing counts the number of blue sky days it gets in a year - and that does not take into account the shade of blue. And while the biomass generator of Dongtan is being readied, coal plants will keep keep popping up by the dozens each year. From a propaganda perspective there is no doubt that the eco-cities will be a spectacular achievement for the Chinese leadership.

On the bright side

The bright-side-potential of course is huge. The eco-cities if built will be a giant leap forward for the concept of sustainability. Simple concepts that are tried and tested in the eco-cities can then be quickly replicated in already established cities, while the cities could definitely serve as role models for any new cities, towns or even townships being built.

The SunCube - an Innovative Solar Power solution

2007-03-08T20:04:00.000-05:00

Last month, an Indian company, Square Engineering, signed an agreement with Green and Gold Energy (GGE) "to build a 30-megawatt (MW) facility in India for the manufacture of 100,000 SunCubes per year".

Green and Gold Energy were working on the SunBall rooftop solar concentrator systems back in 2005. As solar concentrator systems went, it was a very simple and elegant solution and even worked well on sloping rooftops. Manufacturing issues however forced GGE to go back to the drawing board. So they came back with something better - the SunCube, which not only solved the manufacturing problems, but also enabled the company to cut costs. GGE now claims that their product can compete with traditional power without subsidies. Well, a commitment to annually manufacture 100,000 units in India should speak volumes for their confidence.

Solar concentrator systems have been a relatively less hi-tech but highly effective solution for a while now. The Sunflower is a similar system that has been making waves, but apparently will not reach the international market till some time in 2008. Compared to the Sunflower the SunCube is a significantly simple product, though it works on a similar process - solar concentrators focusing the sun's rays onto a small solar cell with a microchip-controlled motors that keep the concentrators pointing to the sun.

Lets check out the commercial prospects of the SunCube in India. The annual output for one SunCube is: 0.3 X 365 X 5 (this is the daily KWhs per sq m - I am taking this as 5, which is just above average for India). That gives us about 550 units of power per year, or about Rs 1100 per year. That is a conservative estimate of course - commercial establishments would save double of that at least.

Now what will the product cost? The company website claims a price of US$1025, or about INR 46,000, including tax in Australia. If manufactured in India, it should cost a little less than that. Plus the central govt gives a subsidy of up to 125,000 per KW. I dont know the KW rating of the SunCube, but working backwards from 500 units, and assuming 6 hours of sunlight per day, I can assume a KW rating of 0.25, which means a govt subsidy of about INR 31,000. This brings down the cost of the SunCube to just INR 15,000, which a home can recover in about 13 years, and a commercial establishment can recover in half that time. Importantly for the rest of the 25 year life of the product, the power will be free. But yes, it does look like it would need govt subsidies to compete in India; and feed-in tariffs. Since both factors see a happy confluence in India, we should see a bright prospect for the SunCube.

Now dont rule the Sunflower out, yet - when it comes out in 2008, it will cost only $450 and will be mass-produced in China. The SunCube does have a headstart though, and maybe manufacturing in India will help it bring down prices substantially. Whatever the result, the competition should be good for solar power as a whole.

A Non-Traditional Push for Green Energy

2007-03-08T08:30:00.000-05:00

Bank of America is showing how an organization traditionally not considered at the forefront of the energy revolution can try to make a big difference for sustainable energy. The Green Wombat reports that BofA is making a big $20 billion push in favor of green energy by encouraging it both with customers and within itself.

"The bank will spend $18 billion on commercial green lending." This includes due consideration for green efforts of a company on a loan application: "a company that makes less carbon-intensive widgets will score higher on a loan application than one whose production process consumes more fossil fuels." Incentives like lower interest rates will also benefit house mortgages where customers meet energy efficiency standards in new homes. An "eco-friendly" credit card will send a percentage of each purchase to environmental organizations.

Separately, "$2 billion will be spent on consumer programs and efforts to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impact of its own operations. The bank itself will spend $1.4 billion to ensure all new offices and bank branches meet green building standards and spend $100 million on energy efficiency measures in older facilities. Earlier this year Bank of America offered $3,000 rebate to any of its 185,000 employees that buy a fuel-efficient hybrid car."

Green Wombat wonders if BofA would finance a range of alternate energy projects that currently fall outside the radar of VCs, or those without access to VCs. This includes capital-intensive projects like factories and 250-MW solar power plants. That, is a tantalizing thought.

Update: Interview with James Mahoney, director of public policy at BofA. The "tantalizing thought" above was confirmed wrong:

"Green Wombat: Will Bank of America be involved in project financing, say for utility-scale solar power plants or wind farms?

"Mahoney: We generally are not involved in project finance. As a general matter, I’d say no."

Gadhia - Solar Cooking System Major

2007-03-06T17:41:00.000-05:00

The current boom in solar technology manufacturing in India is epitomized by companies like Solar Semiconductor - set-up by US-based NRIs, with a base in the US, working with cutting-edge solar PV technologies with an eye as much on the international market as on the Indian one. But India already has a significant solar power culture in the cooking and heating arena, and at the forefront of that revolution were companies like Gadhia.

Gadhia Solar Energy Systems was founded by the Gadhia couple when they returned to India in 1988 from Germany with the German Scheffler cooker. Though the Scheffler cooker was a wonderful application of solar power, the Gadhias felt they had to change the product to better suit the Indian market.

"First there should be local components as far as possible, second, made with local skills and third operate it with people who did not know much about science and physics. So that's why had to modify," Deepak (Gadhia). >>Link

Last year, in a project sponsored by an Austrian NGO Gadhia supplied solar cookers to all 36 families in Bysanivaripalle a village 125 km northwest of Tirupati. As a result, "The village saves 72 tonnes of firewood, or 5,832 kg of LPG, cutting carbon dioxide emissions to the tune of 104 tonnes a year".

The company is now promoting Solar Steam Cooking Systems which they have already installed at the Shirdi and Tirupati temples. "Gadhias are also looking at applications like crematoriums and cooling plants in hospitals and hotels...", as well as, "applications like drinking water from sea water, desalination, food processing, waste water evaporation".

While the oncoming PV boom would be a great sign for India, including for the rural masses, there will always be a market for efficient applications of solar technologies like the Scheffler systems.

MBPV to set up the world's largest Thin Film Solar Fab

2007-03-05T08:50:00.000-05:00

Just days after inaugurating a 40 MW PV cell production facility (which is on target to reach 80 MW this year), Moser Baer Photo Voltaic announced much more ambitious plans for manufacturing thin film solar cells: to build the biggest plant in the world, in technology partnership with Applied Materials.

The technology partnership will enable a synergy between Moser Baer's manufacturing and technology strength, its European R&D lab and Applied Material, Inc.'s process and equipment development expertise. The combined capabilities bring scale economies to this industry by manufacturing thin film modules that are four times larger than current modules, making it a disruptive technology that provides a road map to sub-dollar per watt costs.

The $250m project will start with 40 MW and ramp up to 200 MW by 2009. Since the thin film market demand is estimated to reach 2 GW by 2010, MBPV looks set to capture 10% global market share by then. This would however be less than the proverbial tip of the iceberg. By 2010 thin film will be able to compete with fossil fuel power (without subsidies) and will see exponential growth from that stage.

The company has entered into a technology partnership with US-based Applied Materials to build the unit in its existing SEZ at Greater Noida... The unit for making thin films would be commercially operational by March 2008... Applied Materials CTO Mark Pinto said, "India holds tremendous potential both as a worldwide hub for solar panel production and as an end market for photovoltaic electric power." >>Rediff

Moser Baer PV, currently the hottest solar PV company in India, obviously intends to become the Suzlon of the relatively more hi-tech solar PV industry. A strong PV manufacturing capability will raise the hi-tech profile of Indian industry to that of those on the cutting-edge of semi-conductor and nano-technology manufacturing.

Links: Report on marketwatch.com
MBPV production facility on track

India's 17th Nuclear Reactor Goes Critical

2007-03-04T11:52:00.000-05:00

India's indigenous nuclear reactor, Kaiga 3, achieved criticality earlier this week (10:10 am IST on Feb 26th). The 220 MWe pressurized heavy water reactor in Uttara Kannada district in Karnataka will start supplying electricity to the grid by the end of March. For the scientists and engineers working on the project it was a time for celebration.

At a press conference following a celebratory ceremony, Anil Kakodkar, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, said the construction technique had been perfected: "Five years is the international benchmark for completing nuclear power plants and along with the project completion costs for this unit, there is going to be a new benchmark."

NPCIL claim that the new reactor was constructed domestically for just Rs 984 ($22.33) per installed kW. NPCIL estimate it could do the same job in certain countries for Rs 1200 ($27.24) per kW. Compared to a global average price of new nuclear construction of $1500 per kW, Indian contractors could occupy a unique place in the world reactor market. >> World Nuclear News

The numbers do look too good to be true (feedback on corrections is welcome). However, if they are true, then they represent a huge cost advantage for the Indian nuclear reactor industry. So while the US is looking for huge business opportunities in the domestic Indian nuclear power market, India is looking for opportunities in countries like Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, which have smaller electricity grids where the 220 MW reactors would be ideal.

Of course India will have to break into the NSG first, which despite US enthusiasm might be more difficult than building the breakthrough technology. Well the scientists and engineers have delivered - it is largely up to the politicians and diplomats now.

The Dabhol Return - On Track

2007-03-04T10:07:00.000-05:00

For years we lamented that while Maharashtra was suffering from severe power shortage, the state-of-the-art 2 GW gas-powered Dabhol power plant was rotting. Though the power shortage will remain for now, Dabhol at least is set to make a comeback at optimum capacity - despite problems that still remain.

Maharashtra will likely get some relief from its power woes in the next month or two when Dabhol starts supplying power from its 700 MW first phase which is already complete. The pipeline supplying gas will be ready in April while the second phase is expected to be ready in time for the summer bringing on line another 700 MW. By December the third phase will come on line too which will push the total capacity to 2100 MW. The power being supplied at Rs 3.3 (US$ 0.075) per unit will be considerably lower than the Rs 8.3 it proposed to pay, and almost Rs 9 it ultimately agreed to pay to buy naphtha-powered electricity from AP.

While the State Govt is eagerly waiting for the 2100 MW Dabhol will bring on line by December, Ratnagiri Gas & Power Pvt. Ltd. (RGPPL), the present owners of Dabhol may have other plans than to sell all of that power to the Govt at the contracted rate. The reasons are purely economic.

The deal to sell power to the Govt at Rs 3.3 was struck when gas prices were in the $2-$3 range. Now that price is in the $7-$8 range, "making the plant financially unviable". This in addition to current cost over-runs on the project of around Rs 1,000 crore (~$225m). The financial institutions supporting the project are expected to shell out close to Rs 1,800 crore (~$400m) for a full refurbishment of the plant. To make good the losses, the owners hope to sell the output of phase 3 at Rs 4 per unit after rolling that phase off into a merchant plant. For its part the Maharashtra Govt has offered to fund a Rs 450 crore shortfall in funds for the project.

The decision currently lies with the central govt which has formed an empowered Group of Ministers (eGoM) for the purpose. Though led by Pranab Mukherjee, it has 4 ministers from Maharashtra and that in true triumph of politics-over-economics might well swing the scales in favor of the state. Meanwhile the Central Govt is also considering a proposal to sell the third phase off to a private developer.

Big Californian push for Wave Power

2007-03-03T20:51:00.000-05:00

As pointed out in an earlier post, what we call wave, tidal, ocean or lunar power (though not technically all the same) may not hold the potential that wind or solar has to solve the world's energy problems, but in its own way it has great potential in some locations around the world.

California is probably the leading green-conscious state in the US, and is driving innovation in green technologies like few other regions in the world. To meet state mandated targets the power utility PG&E continues to explore a variety of alternate energy sources. Now it is seriously considering wave power.

From Point Break to Pacific Blue, the waves of California's northern coast are legendary among surfing enthusiasts. PG&E intends a little more productive use of this awesome force of nature.

The Green Wombat reports that PG&E is going ahead with plans to set up two 40 MW wave farms, an effort when completed 3 years from now could make PG&E the biggest wave power generator in the world.

'PG&E is in early discussions with wave energy companies Ocean Power Technologies of New Jersey, the U.K's Ocean Power Delivery and Ireland's Finavera Renewables, utility spokesman Keely Wachs told Green Wombat. Ocean Power Technologies is developing what it calls a PowerBuoy. The device floats on the ocean's surface and as the buoy bobs around on waves, the motion is converted to mechanical energy that drives a generator. Ocean Power Delivery's wave energy generator consists of snake-like, hinged cylindrical sections called a Pelamis (image). As the Pelamis moves on the waves, the motion powers hydraulic motors connected to a generator. Finavera is making what it calls an AquaBuoy that "converts the kinetic energy of the vertical motion of oncoming waves into clean electricity. " '

The projects called WindConnect were recently fast-tracked and PG&E is also partnering with neighboring states to explore the options of getting wind power from British Columbia in Canada which is known to have huge potential.

MBPV production facility on track

2007-03-02T09:36:00.000-05:00

Moser Baer Photo Voltaic is on track to meet its 2007 production targets.

Moser Baer India has said that Moser Baer Photo Voltaic (MBPV) Mar. 02, 2007 announced that it has successfully completed final line integration and trials on its initial 40 MW crystalline photovoltaic cell production facility. The company remains on target to achieve 80 MW of capacity in the second half of 2007.

MBPV plans to clearly straddle multiple future technologies and emerge as an engineering and technology driven company. The company is decisively responding to the rapidly expanding solar PV market, where worldwide demand far outstrips supply. MBPV is moving towards technological leadership in this high growth industry and developing a sustainable competitive edge by investing into disruptive technologies.

The global photovoltaic market is on a high growth curve - sales expected to grow over 6x to USD 40 billion by 2010. This demand is also highly price elastic. A lowering of PV electricity costs to conventional levels could exponentially expand this market as PV starts to penetrate into base load demand of electricity.

Related post: Moser Baer going strong on Solar PV

Solar Semiconductor to manufacture PV modules

2007-03-02T06:23:00.000-05:00

Solar Semiconductor is setting up a solar PV module manufacturing facility in India. For this facility, they recently purchased a module manufacturing line from P. Energy of Italy.

The line has an annual capacity of 50 MW, and is highly automated. It line can handle both standard and custom module designs. The plant has the option of adding a second line within one year of the completion of installation of the current line.

Gabriele Pettenuzzo, the President of P-Energy expressed, "P.Energy is very proud to start with this first venture in India. This module line will be the most automated PV module assembly line in Asia. In this line we'll install 4 robots in different locations in the line- at lay up, trimming and framing stations. It is also the first time that we are providing a tabber and stringer with the capability of providing two or three bus bars." - Link

Apart from crystalline silicon, the plant will also be able to handle amorphous, BIPV and thin film modules. Kewl!

In many ways this announcement shows the way forward for the Indian solar PV industry. Adhering to world class standards this plant represents a growing competency among solar equipment manufacturers and points to a bleeding-edge technological future for the lot. Solar Semiconductor represents a new generation of solar manufacturers. With offices in California and Hyderabad, it is managed by a group of NRI's with a strong business and technology background. And so also VC funds.

Moser Baer going strong on Solar PV

2007-02-28T14:00:00.000-05:00

After establishing its credentials in the world optical storage media market Moser Baer has been expanding its horizons by getting into manufacturing solar photovoltaics.

In late 2005 the company announced that it was getting into the PV business with a $25 million investment into a new wholly-owned subsidiary - Moser Baer Photo Voltaic. With an initial project cost of $58m the target was to reach a capacity of 80MW by 2007.

"Moser Baer is targeting the two segments in the PV value chain that are most attractive from a synergy standpoint, since they also leverage the company’s manufacturing competencies—solar cells and modules. At present, of the multiple technology options, crystalline silicon technology has proven to be the most viable for cell-making, with over 90% of global cell production based on crystalline silicon."

While MBPV seems to be concentrating on crystalline silicon while thin-film is grabbing all the attention, it should be noted that at present both technologies are more or less equal as far as capital costs go. While thin-film has a lot of inherent advantages that should see its cost going down, hetero-structures (as covered briefly here) offer an avenue for big efficiency increases with crystalline solar cells too, and the two technologies might remain neck-to-neck for some time. More importantly crystalline silicon is slightly more of a here-and-now solution.

Even so, MBPV certainly has hedged its bets on the future too. Last year they invested in three companies working on cutting-edge solar PV technologies and have established strategic partnerships with all three. With this they also get their fingers into the solar concentrator PV (Solaria and SelFocus) and nanostructure PV (Stion) pies. The investments are part of an earlier decision to invest $17 m in emerging technologies.

The coup de grace came in earlier this month when Moser Baer acquired Philips' optical technology and R&D subsidiary, OM&T. In many ways this was a dream acquisition for Moser Baer. It will help further consolidate MB in the optical media segment as OM&T is the only company outside of Japan that is shipping Blu-ray discs (MB is already established in the HD DVD-R segment). It also gives MB an entry into new formats like Holographic Storage and leadership position in Test Discs which disk manufacturers use to calibrate their drives. Most importantly the acquisition comes with a pool of highly qualified scientists who will continue to ensure a leadership position for the company in emerging technologies.

MBPV will benefit big time from the acquisition too. "OM&T also possesses world class capabilities in thin film, wet chemical processing, optics & concentration and testing procedures which will enable Moser Baer to take a significant leap forward in R&D efforts in multiple PV technology forays."

In the meantime, MBPV keeps its short-term focus right on track. They seem to have made a significant move to insulate themselves from the (current) world-wide shortage of quality silicon when they announced a partnership with a Solar World group company, Deutsche Solar.

'Commenting on the strategic alliance, Ravi Khanna, CEO, Moser Baer Photo Voltaic Ltd, said, "This arrangement will ensure that we have an assured supply of silicon wafers of top quality at competitive prices. With the agreement, we have secured over 50 per cent of our short- to medium- term requirement of silicon." '

Clearly this is one Indian company which is set for big things in the global solar stakes.

Feed-in Tariffs Promote Renewable Energy

2007-02-27T09:39:00.000-05:00

Via WorldChanging...

Here is a quick primer on the "German model of feed-in tariffs (an obligation for utilities to purchase, at a set price, the electricity generated by any renewable energy resource)" from Canada's Ecology Action center.

The linked pdf argues strongly for a feed-in tariff system that encourages individuals to install alternate energy systems that lets them feed excess power generated back to the grid and get paid for it. The utility gets power without having to spend on new infrastructure. The individual takes the risk in installing the new infrastructure, but has a guaranteed market in the form of the utility which takes the 'risk' in marketing the new power.

Feed-in tariffs have been the force behind the spectacular success of renewables in Germany:

In the 1990s European countries introduced it and it’s now in India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Latvia, Brazil, Indonesia, Nicaragua, China, etc — over 30 countries
Germany is the most famous as it’s premium is the highest and since 2000 has produced a doubling in renewable energy fed into the German grid with a seven x increase in installed PV...
The German law guarantees the supplier with 20 years premium rates and pays more on a sliding scale
The sooner the installation is made from a commencement date the higher the feed in price — to encourage early take up
Germany wants to improve its long-term energy security, increase sustainable energy as a proportion of the total used and now 10.2% of electricity in Germany comes from renewable.

Thin-film Solar - getting there....

2007-02-20T16:06:00.000-05:00

Thin-film Solar is touted as the future of solar photo-voltaic technology. Shell recently got out of the crystalline solar cell business to concentrate exclusively on thin-film solar. Big boy of the thin-film world, Nanosolar, has Google as one of its investors. Konarka touting its "power plastic" has got a fair share of the media spotlight too. Swiss start-up Flisom is another of the company that is very bullish on the thin film technology.

Via TreeHugger, Anil Sethi, the chief executive of Flisom believes that within 5 years solar power will be cheap enough to compete with carbon-based electricity even in Upper Siberia.

The promise that nanotechnology will deliver paper-thin solar panels light and cheap enough to coat on entire buildings, and even people's clothes has been well published. The technology exists in the labs and is only awaiting commercialization. What holds back commercialization? The same that has held back solar power from going mainstream since the 1970's - cost.

Cost has kept solar power "just around the corner" for decades. Critics claim this as proof that it will always remain so, and the "tipping point" may never be reached. They are wrong. We have come a long way since the late 1970's - the capital cost of solar power has dropped from $100 per watt back then, to best case options of $3 to $4. And that progress was achieved using the cells that are comparable to micro-chips in cost of production, are as delicate as glass and very bulky to transport and install. Thin-film will be much more robust and cheaper. Unlike the pristine fabs that crystalline cells need, the new films will be, "mass produced in cheap rolls like packaging - in any color".

Mr Sethi believes his product will reach $0.8 per watt in 5 years, though a commercial launch is scheduled for late 2009 - presumably it should reach $1 per watt then. But Flisom has company - his counterpart Mike Splinter at Applied Materials believes his company will reach $1 per watt by then too. A safe assumption is that Konarka and Nanosolar should be there too.

But despite all its investments in alternate energy, the chief executive of Shell believes, "that in twenty years time we'll still be using more oil than now". Hmm... There are plenty of legendary visions that went awfully wrong like this one and greens will be fervently hoping that this one joins those. And a big boost to thin-film manufacturing should be the entry of China.

Update: Excellent post on Konarka, Nanosolar and Nanosys.

More on the Solar Power House

2007-02-18T08:11:00.000-05:00

The NEPC Solar effort which was widely covered in the media and the blogosphere actually raises many more questions than it answers.

Is NEPC a pioneer in this field?

There has been the implication that NEPC is a pioneer of sorts in commercializing solar power for home use. That is not true. Plenty of companies have been selling small-scale commercial solar power products ranging from Tata-BP Solar, which concentrates on the agricultural installations aided by heavy government subsidies, to Unitron Energy Systems which sells hybrid solar-wind solutions (again aided by heavy government subsidies).

But no other company has launched its product with the media blitz of NEPC. NEPC might well want to do to the renewable energy market in India what iPod did to the MP3 player market world-wide.

Does the product have a market?

NEPC POWER HOUSE (SOLAR), apparently the official name of the product, comes out in 500W and 1KW versions as of now, and will cost between Rs 100,000 (~$2300) and Rs 300,000 (based on various and slightly contradicting media reports). An entity with a monthly electricity bill of between Rs 4000 (~$90) and Rs 6000 will (as per the company) recover its investment in 4 to 6 years. Relatively few individual households in India have such electricity bills, but that does not mean the market is that restricted. There are plenty of commercial establishments that run up bills like that, and these are even now installing commercial solar products like water heaters like crazy. These companies provide a ready market for NEPC, as also to hybrid solutions providers like Unitron.

State governments from AP to Haryana are making solar water heaters mandatory in a wide variety of new buildings. This is bound to further increase awareness of the potential of solar power, and solar cells from products like the NEPC power house will increasingly compete with solar heaters for roof space.

Questions related to technological details...

Media reports have not been too helpful in this direction. We know that solar photo-voltaic cells are involved. Media reports also mention "cell technology", which from a previous report based on an NEPC press release that they were concentrating on fuel cell technology would lead one to deduce that they are using fuel cell-based batteries. If that is true, then it is indeed a technological leap for Indian companies in this area.

By no means does this seem to be technological marvel by world standards, but the key to success of solar technologies in India would be market penetration. And if by aiming for that NEPC is able to achieve any semblance of success, the market will be flooded with companies bringing in the latest of technological breakthroughs from Sydney to the Silicon Valley.

NOTE: If anyone has any additional details on the NEPC Power House, please feel free to leave some gyan or a link in the comments section... Thanks!

The Solar Reincarnation of NEPC

2007-02-16T13:18:00.000-05:00

"NEPC launches world's first solar power house". After I saw this headline and read the related story and also this one I googled up "Solar NEPC", and guess what I found? This!

Yes thats a post The Indic View carried over a year and a half ago. We spoke about three companies there, among them NEPC and Suzlon. Since then Suzlon has gone public making Tulsi Tanti one of the richest men in India. NEPC on the contrary never could regain the pole position it once enjoyed in the fledgling wind power industry in the country and decided to exit it altogether. Late last year they announced that they were getting into renewables again and were working on a hybrid power system, "using solar cell, windmill, fuel cell technology".

Apparently that is the product they launched today, and it is either called "Power House" or "NEPC Power". The 500W version of the product is priced at Rs 100,000 (~USD 2400) while the 1KW one is priced at Rs 200,000. Over the next 2-3 months the company plans to launch 5 KW and 10KW versions too.

Despite claiming strong export potential they would first like to concentrate on the domestic market primarily, "eyeing power-hungry states like Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana for its solar products". While a patent has been applied for on this product, the company has budgeted Rs 550 million (~USD 13 m) for further research, development and production during 2007.

Lets hope this would be a big boost for commercialization of renewable technologies in India. Wind power is going strong, but it is generally expected to plateau at the 20 GW level from the 6 GW of today. There is no such limit on solar power. Apart from strong marketing NEPC could do well to keep an eye on promising new technologies being developed worldwide, as solar cells get cheaper and more powerful.

Related posts:
India Solar Power Update
Solar Energy a better investment than Fabs
India's Renewable Energy SEZ

The Great Indian SEZ Saga

2007-02-13T21:17:00.000-05:00

The much awaited and much delayed take-off of the new generation of SEZs has run into another road-block - farmers protests. Is there any cause for optimism in this?

Over 3000 SEZs have been setup in different countries in the world (including in India where the first was set up in Kandla 14 years before China), and the SEZs in each country were different - had subtly different objectives - and achieved different levels of success. While in Mauritius their biggest achievement was employment generation (they provide 24% of the total employment within them) in South Korea they helped establish a services industry in an already fairly industrialized nation. Even the US built SEZs, mainly to uplift urban poor.

It would be fair to say however that out of the 3000 SEZs in operation around the world today, none have been as impacting as the 5 SEZs in China which will go down in history as the foundation on which the Chinese manufacturing behemoth was built. And since India has been building and operating SEZs from well before China, it is generally assumed that these 5 SEZs today are the inspiration behind the new SEZ policy in India. In that context, it would be interesting to note some differences.

For China back in the early 1970's the SEZs were essentially an experiment in capitalism and modernization in an otherwise communist and backward country. For India the rationale is similar to an extent. India is a notoriously difficult place to set up a business (by world standards). From land rights to bureaucratic labyrinths they all contribute to uncertainty in setting up a business in India. If the SEZs address that pain point, then that will be a big plus for India in the ease-of-doing-business ratings. And while SEZ Act 2005 does not go all the way in implementing labor reforms (which got dropped from the original draft), the individual states still have the mandate on that. It will take just one state to show the guts on that front and trigger a domino effect. So there is only reason for optimism there.

Secondly comes the question of size. Consider this: "The top three SEZs in China cover 326 square kilometers in Shenzhen, 132 square kilometers in Xiamen and 122 square kilometers in Zhuhai, compared with 119 square kilometers for RIL's project near Mumbai and 98 square kilometers for the Haryana SEZ." While the RIL projects are the biggest, a majority of the remainder of the proposed 200 SEZs in India are relatively minuscule in size. Critics contend that the main advantage of an SEZ is scale-related.

Point granted - but while we are not looking at a Shenzhen, we are looking at sizes that compete with the rest: for a start. No one is pretending that the current frenzy in setting up SEZs is going to be a one-wave-wonder. We will definitely have wave 2 and wave 3 and maybe more. And the developers of this wave of SEZ building will learn from this round (and so will the governments) and should surely do better in the next waves. So if we let a thousand SEZs bloom then the successful ones will be role models for the next wave. Also as it should be clear, this is where the Indian SEZ model distinctly differs from the Chinese model - and who knows? This model might actually work better. We are letting in all types of SEZs in all different sizes - isnt that the strength of a truly open market?

But the problem that has now put the SEZ program in limbo is related to neither of these. It is related to land acquisition. There are a bunch of criticisms claiming anything from the loss of arable land will affect food output to the jobs actually created will be less than those lost, which range largely from baseless to worst case scenarios. But the real problem, and the one that forced the govt to step in relates to rehabilitating the dispossessed. This is where we differ from China.

China contrary to public opinion does take pain to rehabilitate dispossessed people - but when it cannot, it does not let that stop it. India does not have that luxury - which is a good thing. It is very important to ensure that the people losing land and livelihoods are taken care of, and do not head into destitution. This makes even more sense from an economic perspective.

Essentially, when you are creating value at the scale at which the SEZs are promising, there is surely enough to go around to share with the poor people in the area. Call it CSR at the micro-level if you will, but at the macro-level you are just building up your market, and your hinterland (plus keeping the political peace). So while it may or may not benefit the SEZ developers in the short-run, it is good for the economy as a whole. This is something like the route SemIndia is taking for its fab city project - adopting villages that get affected - effectively rehabilitating them. On the other hand is the route that Reliance is taking for its MahaMumbai SEZ - they are simply buying the land directly from the farmers by paying hefty premiums. While this might seem fair on the face of it, the average poor villager does usually display the financial intelligence to manage economic windfalls of this nature and ends up splurging it away. (To put things into perspective, Reliance has a much bigger project than SemIndia in terms of land and dispossessed families.)

The Reliance approach is just a more advanced form of the approach that most of the governments took leading to the current miasma of farmers' protests. Effective rehabilitation should involve a more holistic solution that leads to the farmers getting established with new livelihoods. Though a challenge this is also an opportunity for the govt to lift some of its citizens from a mere near-subsistence level to living and working in a clean environment with all basic amenities.

More effective rehabilitation of the displaced farmers is a win-win solution for all parties concerned - the politicians get a satisfied electorate, the farmers get a new and better life with much increased economic prospects, and the companies themselves get CSR bragging rights in the short-term, and contribute to building up markets for themselves in the longer term.

In short the govt deciding to re-think the land acquisition procedures is good. This is not to say that I expect the govt will decide to toe my near-utopian line, but something is wrong and whatever they decide I do hope that wrong will be righted a little.

Update (February 20, 2007): HP and CA drop IT SEZ plans in Bangalore and Hyderabad respectively owing to a change in norms. List of approved projects drops to 235.

From the Moon via the Tides

2007-02-13T04:04:00.000-05:00

"If you take a square meter on the ground, with solar, you have around 100 watts of energy. A square meter in the air, with wind you may have a thousand watts. But off the coasts of Europe and North-America, you have energy densities of 20,000 to 70,000 watts per square meter of ocean" - Max Carcas of Ocean Power Delivery

Ocean power or tidal power is essentially a form of lunar-cum-solar power. The potential is not really as great as that claimed for wind or solar. The total usable tidal power of the world's oceans is equal to that of all the nuclear or hydroelectric power plants in the world, whereas, "Wind power could generate enough electricity to support the world's energy needs several times over" according to the famous Stanford University study. Solar power? As the Russians showed back in 1992, a 25 yard wide reflector in space could light up a 2 mile wide stretch on earth. Also according to a more detailed study of the tidal power potential world-wide released by the Wind Energy Council, the annual plant load factor rarely approaches 30% (wind does better than that sometimes.)

However ocean power continues to reflect an important interim step towards global power nirvana. Solar and wind power farms are sprawling structures, but in certain regions ocean power generating structures can be much more compact and face a bright economic future. There have been some studies in this direction in India with potential sites identified in Gujarat and West Bengal:

"The identified economic tidal power potential in India is of the order of 8000-9000 MW with about 7000 MW in the Gulf of Cambay about 1200 MW in the Gulf of Kachchh and less than 100 MW in Sundarbans. The Kachchh Tidal Power Project with an installed capacity of about 900 MW is estimated to cost about Rs. 1460/- crore generating lectricity at about 90 paise per unit. The techno-economic feasibility report is now being examined."

Freezing Energy - an innovative solution

2007-02-12T15:48:00.000-05:00

Some real cool out-of-the-box thinking on solving a very pertinent problem! The linked Treehugger post suggests simply operating all refrigerator warehouses to operate at one degree of temperature higher during the day (thus using less power), and correspondingly set themselves to one degree lower during the night (compensating for the power lost during the day). In the end it will make no difference to the products stored in the refrigerator as the temperature will average out.

The problem of sporadic supply is the bane of renewable sources like wind and solar - how can we make a windy day compensate for a non-windy day? Or even a windy-hour compensate for a non-windy hour?

Solar power is the closest that we have to an inexhaustible supply of energy in the long-run, and I have in the past suggested that the solution lies in putting those solar panels into space. Long-term there is nothing better than that. But in the interim we have to do whatever we can to fight the carbon-addiction, and save what we can of our ecosystem. That being the case smoothening the spikes in power generating capacity seems of paramount importance if wind and/or solar are to ever go mainstream. Right now you need conventional power generation systems as a back-up for every mega-watt of wind- and solar-based power capacity that goes online.

Obviously the solution is in storage - store the power when you have excess and use that excess when you are short. And the best way to do that is to use a battery - OK, an ultra-capacitor-based "battery". And batteries are too inefficient and expensive right now. Will a cheap and ultra-efficient battery be Nirvana for the renewable energy world?

Maybe yes and maybe no, but a cheap and efficient means to store energy (effectively electricity) will revolutionize the world even if we did not consider the potential effect of renewables. Consider the electric car: everyone agrees that battery technology is the only thing that holds the electric car from killing the IC-engine. More importantly consider the power generation scene today - everyday there is a period of off-peak demand, when the power stations have to keep generating power at near-peak capacity. What if the power stations could store this power during off-peak hours, and release it during peak hours? I dont have the statistics but it would be safe to say that this would double power availability with no increase in generating capacity.

Going back to the icy-solution mentioned above, I would think that the easiest way to implement it is for the electricity companies to announce separate peak and off-peak rates. The refrigerators will automatically follow suit!

Maharashtra's power woes

2007-02-11T20:44:00.000-05:00

As widely reported in the media, Maharashtra faces a severe power crisis.

Andhra Pradesh has spare producing power but no fuel (read natural gas). So is a potential solution, the usage of expensive naphtha instead of gas? The Maharastra state electricity distribution company, Mahavitaran, is suggesting just such a solution, though it would have to pay a whopping Rs 8.30 per unit causing it to bear an additional burden of Rs 300-500 crore per month.

Though MahaVitaran, in its previous avatar as the Maharashtra State Electricity Board, has paid more for power in the past, a record Rs 35 per unit in June 2000 because of a global rocketting in naphtha prices, it might still reach a situation where it will not be able to pay employees.

The only bright side is that the Maharashtra govt understands and has made strong efforts to tackle this problem in the longer term - and yes, some of them involve using renewable energy! More on that in a later post, but regardless of the alt-e efforts, the govt will bring onboard 17 GW by 2012 - all via carbon-based sources.

India Solar Power Update

2007-02-09T08:29:00.000-05:00

Monthly update on the solar power scene in India...

To start with, India moved to joint second position in the E&Y Country Attractiveness Indices, which rank countries according to their desirability as locations for investing in renewable energies such as wind and solar power, even as the US reinforced its position atop the list.

On a related note, the list of energy companies in the World Economic Forum's 2007 Tech Pioneer Awards makes interesting reading. Not that there is any Indian company in that list (though there is one each in the biotech and IT lists). The list is dominated by US companies (9 out of 15), which might be considered a surprise since Europe and Japan are seen as far more environment conscious.

India has been invited to join the European Union's Seventh Research Framework Program (FP7). "The programme will fund research and development activities by companies, Government organisations and universities across diverse sectors like IT, biotechnology, energy and environment." Kapil Sibal, the Indian Minister for S&T said energy was the key sector specifically mentioning, "clean-coal energy, solar energy and hybrid fuels for automobiles".

Russian Physicist and 2000 Nobel laureate Zhores I. Alferov was in India recently and while speaking at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc) stressed on solar power as the way forward for India. Thats a vote of confidence for solar power from the scientific community in addition to the solid vote from the business analyst community. Alferov won the Nobel for his work on semiconductor hetero-structures, and he believes that hetero-structures are the way forward to build PV cells in solar concentrators that would be cost-competitive against oil and atomic energy.

Financial Times has a story on Harish Hande of Selco India, who has built a successful business out of selling solar-powered home lighting systems to the rural poor. Based in Bangalore, his products currently serve 75,000 rural households, schools and seminaries. Since a lot of his customers are so poor, he has had to work hard to get banks to finance his products for them - but with the business such a success banks are rather eager to lend right now. This year he expects a big hit in business because of a shortage of solar panels due to huge demand from Europe, but expects production to catch up with his requirements next year.

Update: Link to the E&Y Country Attractiveness Index (pdf - restricted circulation)

India Bio-diesel Update

2007-02-08T09:30:00.000-05:00

Monthly update on the bio-diesel scene in India

Mahindra and Mahindra, one of the giants of automobile manufacturing in India, has unveiled 100% bio-diesel versions of its Scorpio and Bolero SUVs for "real world usage trials". They also unveiled a 5% bio-diesel tractor.

Unlike with gasoline/ethanol, there is no concept of flex-fuel cars in the diesel/bio-diesel landscape. So automobiles will move gradually from 100:0 (bio-diesel:diesel) to 98:2 to 95:5 and so on. The Indian Railways currently runs some trains at 95:5, and has big plans for bio-diesel, including involving farmers to grow Jatropha on 40,000 hectares of wasteland.

Idea Cellular wants to use bio-diesel to power it base stations in villages that are outside of the electricity grid. Most likely this will be for villages that that erratic grid supply, rather than no grid supply at all (otherwise there might be no market if people cannot charge their cell phones in the first place.) But this would likely put Idea in a strong position to sell their cellular services in villages that will get electricity as part of the Rajiv Gandhi Gramin Vidyutikaran Yojana of the Rural Electrification Corporation. A lot of these villages will get power from a combination of different sources like biomass gasifiers, bio-gas-based generators and solar panels. Importantly these may remain cut-off from the grid. The very fact that Idea is looking at these customers as a potential market goes to show the confidence it has in the Government programs.

Solar Energy a better investment than Fabs

2007-02-06T18:28:00.000-05:00

"...if the government wants to provide incentive for a new industry to come, then those should go towards solar energy rather than towards semiconductor Fab manufacturing. " - Bhavin Shah of JP Morgan speaking on the sidelines of the JP Morgan IT Conference.

Semiconductor manufacturing represents the pinnacle of manufacturing capability for a country. Nations rush to get investments in this sector from the handful of companies that have this technology. The glory though is not always accompanied by financial riches. Margins for manufacturers are thinner than the silicon wafers they make. And now JP Morgan in a recent report state that it does not do much for the economy either, though chip design firms like this one are more than welcome.

The interesting thing though is that the solar energy industry is being suggested as an alternative.

"There are still many opportunities for innovation for solar energy industry. Currently, the solar cells are based on semiconductor technology, but there are opportunities to change the materials that could generate much lower cost and bring down the cost of solar energy. Also, with lot of rural demand for energy, solar energy is ideally suited.

"While this industry will be competitive, the growth opportunity is very strong given Indian energy dependence and requirements; we feel it is ideally suited for India. So if the government wants to provide incentive for a new industry to come, then those should go towards solar energy rather than towards semiconductor Fab manufacturing"

India's Renewable Energy SEZ

2007-02-04T17:33:00.000-05:00

In what could be the single biggest boost for Renewable Energy in India, the Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources has been working on setting up an SEZ for manufacture of renewable energy equipment. A brief history...

After a meeting with Minister of New and Renewable Energy Vilas Muttemwar, back in June 2006, the German Minister for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety Sigmar Gabriel told a press conference,"A German business delegation will soon visit India, and explore with the Indian industry and the government, the possibilities of investments in the SEZ for renewables."

More details emerged one month later at the inaugural function of `Green Power 2006', a national conference and exposition on renewable energy organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). A Special Purpose Vehicle called Future Energy Zone India Ltd (FEZ) was being promoted by Malavalli Power Plant (Bangalore) and European investors.

"The SEZ will house industrial R&D units, laboratories such as CPRI, testing units, educational and vocational training centres. Besides, an area for vendors will also come up. Later, industrial parks, convention centres and a logistics and transportation zone will be considered.."

The SEZ is to come up on 1000 acres of land and will generate 600 MW using renewable energy for captive purposes.

In infrastructure costs the SEZ will need, "about US $ 2 billion... just for setting up manufacturing units of poly silicon modules, cells, panels for solar energy, besides units for making turbines for wind energy, hydro and equipment for generating bio mass energy. "

Meanwhile, Parliament was told in October that the ministry had received investment proposals worth US $ 2.1 billion from US and German companies.

Among potential locations that the respective states have offered are Chennai, Vishakhapatnam and the Mangalore-Udupi region. Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh are also in the race to bag the SEZ.

India energy renewable energy

The Sustainability Challenge - II

2007-02-03T06:46:00.000-05:00

Here is a quick follow-up on some of the ideas discussed in the last post.

Global Warming:

It took us a while to accept that global warming was a reality. It is taking some of us even longer to accept our role in it. While it is true that the earth has been warming up since the end of the last ice age, it seems pretty certain at this point that we have indeed accelerated the process. Then again, the weather patterns on earth since the beginning of human civilization are certainly not indicative of long-term patterns - for example the world was largely covered in ice just 10,000 years ago. But we could take our responsibility for this acceleration seriously and try and mitigate effects for the short-term. Severe political problems prevent a united and effective global front against reduction of global warming pollutants today - so the solution just might lie in altering weather patterns in our favor as a temporary move. Here is one of the more cost-effective ideas.

Ecological footprint:

Apparently the glitz of a rising nation like the UAE already gives them the biggest ecological footprint in the world. On towards reducing it now.

As I have mentioned before it sure looks like the future of humanity lies in the city - our biggest and most impacting invention. Sarah Rich has this excellent post over at WorldChanging on self-sufficient cities. The bulk of the ideas relate to cities growing their own food. This has several inherent advantages: more greenery within the city leads to a cleaner and more pleasant environment. Plus the absence of far-flung supply chains leading into the city further reduce costs - both financial and environmental.

Another form of self-contained city-building might be in the ocean real estate development that is just catching on. Of course the initial efforts are to just build ultra-exotic and luxurious hotels, but consider this: if you can build a human habitat under the sea, you can just as surely build it anywhere else on earth, or even in space. And since we live at a time when environmental concerns are so high, it is likely that any under sea developers will face strong scrutiny to ensure that they don't pollute their surroundings in any manner. Of course the actual pollution would most likely get transferred elsewhere, but would still be a good start as the sources of pollution get more isolated.

The Sustainability Challenge

2007-02-01T17:48:00.000-05:00

This is a comeback post, after a rather long hiatus. Thus a statement of purpose is probably in order. If the quest for alternate energy is a quest towards sustainability, then what is the Utopia that the quest for sustainability should lead to?

Sustainability is today the biggest challenge facing human civilization. Sustainability essentially means two things - the survival of human civilization, and the continuance of life in Earth's biosphere with a proportionately small or absent human footprint.

The separation of these two goals is rather important. While humanity has been responsible for altering the natural environment, in the slightly longer term these changes are meaningless, in the view of the changes nature itself brings about. Global warming has been going on ever since the ice age started ending and human intervention (in either direction) might not matter much over the span of even a few decades. Events in the past have led to mass global extinctions, at least one of which almost wiped out the human race even before civilization began.

Another reason for the separation is that the human race probably already has a global footprint which which is too big for nature to sustain. Cities are the most unsustainable places from the nature perspective - a city is an organism built and sustained only by human intervention. And as cities grow, and more and more of the human population gets concentrated in them, the more they get isolated from nature. The solution then should be to make that isolation total.

Today cities only "take" from nature in the form of land and mineral resources, fresh air and water. Nature does not really get much in return - pollution perhaps. But what if we isolate cities from nature?

What if the cities could manage with the amount of resources they already had? Resources could be recycled - almost all resources. We are not talking about today - we are talking about Sustainability Utopia. If we had the technology to build a city with some resources, and then run the city with those resources, recycling to the maximum extent possible (including air and water) and where additional resources are required, bring them in from extra-terrestrial bodies, we could make that city a microcosm within the biosphere - one that neither takes from, nor gives to the rest of the biosphere.

This has two advantages. The first and more obvious one is that we give nature a chance to recover from our ravages and become more of itself. The second is probably the more important one - we delink ourselves from the destiny of the rest of the species on the planet - at least the ones in "nature". We thus isolate ourselves from the vagaries of planetary cataclysms like asteroid hits, super-volcanoes, super-storms, and ice-ages. Moreover, such mini-biospheres could be re-created on other planets, or even in space. They would represent the biggest ever triumph for human civilization over the forces of nature.

Apart from a myriad of technologies that would need to be generated to get to this utopia, probably the biggest hurdle from the physical universe would be the huge amounts of energy required to power these mini-biospheres. The biggest source of energy in our part of the galaxy is the sun. The sun presents us an option to hedge our bets against a civilization-threatening event. If we can make solar technology so powerful and easily available that each and every building on earth can generate its own power, and feed into a smart-grid to give and take power as required, we will do to power what the Internet has done to information. But this would essentially be an intermediate step. In the longer run, we should put huge solar panels into space, orbiting the earth, and transmitting power to individual households till the day power becomes virtually free. The only catch is that the power consumers on earth must not pollute - in any manner at all.

Should we then ignore all other forms of energy since the ultimate smart source is solar? No, because the solar utopia is still a few decades away. In the meantime the pursuit of other alternate forms of energy will fuel the drive to reduce the footprint of human civilization on nature. It also has the potential to change global politics presenting a huge potential for conflict reduction, since energy is a major source of human conflict. Not just will we not see wars over oil, but if energy is abundant, we can desalinate sea water, reducing conflicts over water.

ITC breaks "Greening" world record!

2005-09-06T05:49:00.000-05:00

ITC broke a Guiness record, when it coordinated the planting of, "3,00,587 saplings of eucalyptus and subabul in just 20 minutes in 264 acres spread across 17 different locations in and around Bhadrachalam on Monday". The previous record was for 134,000 saplings in one hour and was held by a Canadian agency.

Why did ITC plant all the saplings?

The effort was part of the "Sunfeast Hara Banao" campaign of the ITC foods division, and keeps in with ITC's long-term plan to encourage eucalyptus for the paper industry. In this case, the farmers planted the saplings and will take care of them. ITC will buy wood from them at market rates. Apparently the farmers should get about 2 lakhs an acre in the five years of the trees' growth. The effort cost ITC Rs 5,000,000.

In passing...

Tamil Nadu will build its second largest water desalination plant to overcome the water woes of the people of two municipalities. The proposed plant will supply 2.5 million litres per day, which is the total requirement of the 60,000 Ramanathapuram municipality. The entire supply will be shared between two municipalities however, at it supplements the existing water supply.

I am not sure how economical desalination plants are however, and if they are competitive to other sources, why cant we have more of them?

The El Dorado of the Gas Industry

2005-09-04T03:33:00.000-05:00

Gas Hydrates are a huge potential source of energy for the future. In fact they are so huge that a country having access to just one percent of the gas from hydrates would make all gas-rich countries of today look like ants. The catch is in extracting it, and India is certainly at the forefront of research in this direction.

Quick Introduction

First, what are gas hydrates? Hydrates are essentially a union of water with some other substance, which results in a nuetral body - often solid like certain crystallized salts. So methane gas hydrates are essentially ice with gas trapped in between. The density of methane is so high that they are referred to as frozen methane - in fact one cubic meter of methane hydrate contains 164 cubic meters of the gas.

How much gas do hydrates hold?

Methane gas hydrates worldwide have been estimated to hold some 400 million tcf (trillion cubic feet) of gas. To put that into perpective, the huge GSPC find in the K-G Basin, Deen Dayal, holds between 20-40 tcf. Worldwide all known natural gas reserves total some 5000 tcf. That means hydrates hold 80,000 times as much gas as natural gas reserves.

While the regions under ice cap contain the richest concentrations of hydrates, India is not unblessed either, as hydrates occur in several marine settings around the world. In fact ONGC and Reliance are finding hydrate blocks a hindrance to their drilling activities in the K-G Basin. In fact India is estimated to have gas hydrate reserves of around 1,894 trillion cubic metres (67,000 tcf).

Can methane be extracted from hydrates?
In late 2003 an international research program including India, the US, Japan and Canada demonstrated for the first time that it was technically feasible to extract gas from frozen gas hydrates. The consortium conducted test drilling at a site called Mallik in the Mackenzie Delta in the Canadian Arctic. The site is located in an area known to have one of the highest concentrations of gas hydrates in the world.

Russia is already extracting gas from hydrates but its method is probably not viable enough in most other places of the world.

Where do we go from here?

Hydrates are not quite there, and few expect commercialization before another decade and a half. However research goes on. The recent US Energy Bill supports funding for research in this field. This should boost efforts from BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. who have been interested in gas from the Alaska hydrates.

The Indian Initiative

India has a National Gas Hydrates Programme (under the oil ministry) which helps coordinate the efforts of the various agencies involved in this effort. This includes the public sector gas giants like ONGC and GAIL, as well as government departments like the Department of Ocean Development (DOD) and the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO).

Bouyed by its experience from Mallik, India has plans to drill two deep sea wells for extracting gas from methane hydrates. The sites are yet to be finalized but action is taking place in the right direction.

Chhattisgarh going big on Jatropha

2005-09-01T23:21:00.000-05:00

The Chhattisgarh government has before proved itself among the foremost proponents of the Jatropha revolution in India. The Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh, Raman Singh is already the first head of an Indian state to start using bio-diesel to power his official car, a Tata Safari. That was back in May, when the aim was to run all official vehicles on bio-diesel in three months, and make the state self-reliant in bio-diesel in ten years. (I know the three months are up, but dont know the scores yet)

Doesnt matter. They are doing something better now. They are offering fantastic initiatives to corporates and individuals to cultivate Jatropha in the state. Land disputes? No problem. No capital? No problem. "Under the Government scheme, an individual can lease up to 200 hectares of land at a price of Rs 100 per hectare, per year for the first five years. For subsequent years, these rates could be increased." The government will provide a total of 200,000 hectares of land for this purpose.

Not sure what the incentives for corporates is but companies like Indian Oil Corporation, IFFCO, ONGC and Emami, are making a beeline to the state to get into jatropha farming. As per the government estimates, at Rs 5 per kg of seed, jatropha biodiesel will cost Rs 20 a litre - which is comparable to the price of diesel at $45 per barrel of petroleum. With appropriate duty concession, biodiesel will compete against a $35 barrel too.

Among other figures thrown up were:
"plantation of jatropha in farm bunds; wasteland and fallow land of the State will generate extra income of about Rs 2,000 crore for the villagers by 2010."
"A target of planting eight crore jatropha saplings in State nurseries has already been met this year. We plan to distribute 16 crore saplings next year"

P.S.: Thanks to Sanjay for pointing me to this news item.

Relying on Jatropha

2005-08-31T04:50:00.000-05:00

One of the biggest names in Indian corporate history is throwing its weight behind a Jatropha-based future for India motor fuels. Of course it is not abandoning its highly lucrative oil business yet, but the boost the bio-diesel industry will get from this show of support will be substantial, while the bottom line of the company itself will definitely be better off from the effort.

Recently Saudi Arabia, despite being the biggest oil producer in the world, announced a major bio-diesel initiative. Of course the reason given was "waste water usage" and "greening the desert", and not merely creating fuel.

India's biggest private sector name in the oil industry, Reliance Industries is now launching a major initiative to grow jatropha at Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh. Though the pilot is likely to be on 200 acres of land, it should grow to thousands of acres if all goes well. Going by Reliance's track record in India, it would be a wonder if all does not go well - which is great news for the alternate fuel industry.

The initiative will be spearheaded by Reliance Life Sciences, a subsidiary of RIL, while the Bhavnagar-based Central Salt & Marine Chemicals Research Institute will provide the know-how on crop and fuel extraction technology.

* A jatropha seed contains 31 to 37 per cent extractable oil
* A plantation of 100,000 hectares of jatropha is expected to yield 250,000-300,000 tonnes of crude jatropha oil per annum
* The initial 100,000 hectare jatropha farm may yield revenues of $100 mn a year
- Rediff

Among other things Reliance's interest is seen as a vindication for the profitability of the bio-diesel industry.

Revolutionary Reactor Design by BARC

2005-08-26T05:06:00.000-05:00

Scientists at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Bombay, have designed what they claim is the safest and most economical nuclear reactor in the world. BARC scientists V Jagannathan and Usha Pal revealed the design, which has been in the making for seven years, in their paper presented at the week-long 12th International Conference on Emerging Nuclear Energy Systems (ICENES 2005) in Brussels.

There are some nice and unique things about this reactor. The design presented was for a reactor that can produce, "600 MW of electricity for two years 'with no refuelling and practically no control manoeuvres.'" Most accidents are because of human error. So automation would mean minimal chances of accident - plus reduction in cost. Importantly for India, the reactor does not need uranium, and runs of thorium instead (which India has in plenty). I have doubts about that being an advantage. Though it does not need uranium, it still needs plutonium (800 kg a year), and in comparable quantities to the thorium (1100 kg a year).

The design is called ATBR (A Thorium Breeder Reactor). It uses plutonium as the seed to start the reaction cycle, which then carries on with thorium getting converted to fissionable uranium-233. It is a thorium breeder of sorts (a first with thorium in the world - fast breeding is normally done with plutonium), so it produces as much fissile material as it depletes, extending a single cycle over a period of two years. Thus the minimal human interference required.

World reserves of thorium are about three times that of uranium, and India has 32 per cent of the world's thorium. Thus India is rather anxious to start exploiting this huge resource, which incidentally also cannot be used to create nuclear weapons.

India has a so-called "three-stage nuclear program". In the first stage, plutonium is created in its pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWRs) and extracted by reprocessing. In the second stage, fast breeder reactors (FBRs) use this plutonium in 70-percent MOX-fuel to breed uranium-233 in a thorium blanket around the core. In the final stage, the FBR's use thorium-232 and produce uranium-233 for other reactors.

The first stage has been realized with India's 10 nuclear power plants. The second stage is only realized by a small experimental fast breeder reactor (13 MW), at Kalpakkam.
- Bellona

August 20th - Renewable Energy Day in India

2005-08-23T01:46:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday, India observed the birthday of former PM Rajiv Gandhi as Renewable Energy Day - Rajiv Gandhi Akshay Urja Diwas.

Some celebrations were rather symbolic. In Manipur the main observation was held at the office premises of the Manipur Renewable Energy Development Agency (MANIREDA), where the 2030 deadline on energy independence was stressed again. Others saw a little more than just that.

New Delhi

In New Delhi, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh addressed a function:
- a community biogas plant for every village
- micro-hydel projects in the hills

The Minister of State (Independent charge) for Non-Conventional Energy Sources Vilas Muttemwar
- the biogas initiative would be a major objective of the ministry
- "grid quality electricity to 25,000 remote villages, which cannot be connected with grid, by 2012 through the renewable energy (RE) sources."
- "Renewable Energy Clubs are being formed in 1300 engineering colleges and technical institutions with a grant of Rs 25,000 per annum by the Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources, which would help development of renewable energy technology and present this as a career option."
-"District Advisory Committees (DACs) have been set up in 465 Districts for accelerating use of RE devices and removing obstacles in the way," said Muttemwar

India's Largest Wind Energy Producer honored

MSPL Ltd was awarded the ''Highest Investor Award in the field of Renewable Energy'' for 2004-05 by the Karnataka Renewable Energy Development Limited (KREDL).

"...the company had invested about Rs 460 crore during the financial year 2004-05 for installing wind mills of 105 MW.

An ISO 14001 certified company, MSPL has the unique distinction of being India's largest 'Wind Energy' Producer. They have a total installed capacity of 140 MW of Wind Energy as of date that has been put up at an investment of about Rs 650 crore. MSPL Limited alongwith group companies exports about 385 million units of energy to the Karnataka State grid per annum.

One of the major upcoming projects of MSPL Limited in the field of renewable energy for the current financial year 2005-2006 is the expansion of the existing Wind Farm Projects with an additional capacity of 75 MW."

Integrated Energy Policy - almost there...

2005-08-21T11:20:00.000-05:00

India has been working (for a while now) on an Integrated Energy Policy a draft of which was recently released by the Planning Commission. The draft gives an indication of the direction the policy is likely to take and the areas of concentration.

Firstly it has suggested an overhaul of the current fuel pricing mechanism. More than 50% of the retail selling price of petrol is made up of taxes in India, and taxes mandate that petrol is significantly more expensive than diesel in the country. The policy however aims at interlinking the prices of all fuels in the country.

It points out that the high cost of fuel affects competitiveness of industry, agriculture and commerce, thus negatively affecting the economy. Which is rather true. The high prices would have been justified when we were a more closed economy highly concerned with outflow of foreign exchange. Now if the price of petrol is lowered, we will see an increase in sales. But this increase will have a cascading effect on other areas of the economy. Sales of automobiles will go up. More people will travel more often, leading to an increase in business for the services sectors. The cost of a whole range of commodities for local consumption and export will fall, thus further fueling the growth of the GDP. And yes, we will be that wee bit more competitive with respect to China where petrol costs the equivalent of Rs 18 per litre.

The role of the government as both regulator and principal owner of almost 75 per cent of all fuel resources, came in for mention. Considering the current fuel pricing crisis, this it is especially relevant that the separation of both roles was suggested. "It also says that each regulatory body should be charged with the responsibility of creating enabling environment to foster competitive and transparent markets for energy supplies/services."

The policy could look at some rather "out-of-the-box" thinking. Companies like NTPC could be asked to increase their fuel efficiency (through acquired technology) by 30%. They could also used cleaner ways to use the coal reserves like, recovering coal bed methane, in-situ coal gasification, carbon-capture and sequestration; and integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC).

And now for the best part - the policy stresses on the importance of reinforcing the National Solar Mission, "to promote innovation and acquisition of state-of-the-art technologies aimed at reducing cost of solar photo-voltaic technologies, exploring the use of solar thermal technologies for power generation and enhancing applications aimed at effective recovery of heat energy from available solar insulation."

The automobile industry will be asked, "to seek technology for super batteries and engage in research to develop such batteries in a time-bound manner." Does this indicate a move towards electric and/or hybrid vehicles?

BHEL's Solar Lamps for Jharkhand Schools

2005-08-21T03:24:00.000-05:00

BHEL (Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd) in a joint initiative with the Jharkhand State Tribal Development Corporation, has installed solar lighting systems in tribal schools in various parts of the state. The solar power plants commissioned were in the 2-5 KW range, and each is equipped with solar photovoltaic panels, battery banks and power conditioning units for generating electricity using sunlight.

Jharkhand has one of the biggest backward tribal populations in the country, and the initiative is expected to help students who, "were earlier forced to call it a day at dusk itself". I am rather skeptical regarding schools conducting classes beyond dusk - only evening colleges do that. But classrooms must have enough lighting inside the class even in the day time and so this is good. More than that however, this initiative is likely to help showcase solar power in the tribal areas, and possibly generate interest. The experience should help further the role of solar power in achieving the targets of the Remote Village Electrification Programme.

Bio-diesel - Another Small Step

2005-08-21T03:22:00.000-05:00

Bio-diesel in India came one step closer to consumers, as Indian oil companies, IOC, HPCL and BPCL, have agreed to buy bio-diesel for blending with diesel. In fact, at a price of Rs 23 per liter, they have offered to buy "any quantity". The government however is in favor of a Rs 25 per liter to include an encouragement premium.

The 3 oilcos between them plan to set up 20 depots all over the country to collect bio-diesel. Each will have a laboratory facility to check for the quality of the bio-diesel being supplied. However the program to actually sell diesel mixed with the bio-fuel could take 4-5 years to launch on a commercial scale.

The growth of the bio-diesel industry in India is expected to benefit from the setting up of a Bio-Diesel Credit Bank in New Delhi, by the Petroleum Conservation Research Association (PCRA). The bank will provide, "provide all relevant information - right from people engaged in the cultivation of non-edible oil seeds to those engaged in collection and processing of bio-diesel and the desired quality of bio-diesel."

Pushing The Prius - Faster, Longer, Cheaper

2005-08-17T07:25:00.000-05:00

The hybrid Toyota Prius is the darling of alternate energy enthusiasts in the US. Though there are other hybrids in the US market, I suspect the most endearing factor of the Prius is its super best-selling status which gives hope that there is a lot of interest in the country in moving away from traditional fuels. People pay as much as five thousand dollars to jump a two month waiting list for a Prius. Others buy a Prius only to immediately sell it at a profit.

Essentially all that the Prius does is to improve the efficiency of a petrol car by running an electric motor on energy generated via a flywheel during actions like braking the car. However the introduction of the electric aspect opens up the doors for all sorts of alternate energy. Enthusiasts are converting Prius' into plug-in hybrids, so that their batteries can be charged overnight - just like an electric car. Unlike petrol, electricity can come from a variety of renewable sources, and very little petroleum is used in the US for generating electricity.

Then some take that concept even further to build a photovoltaic hybrid. While a regular Prius can top out at 47 miles per gallon (about 20 km per litre), a photovoltaic hybrid can reach 71 mpg (30 kmpl). Under special conditions folks have managed up to 110 mpg (46 kmpl) over 1400 miles using what is called the Pulse and Glide Technique. Plug-in pybrids however are reported to have returned as much as 250 mpg (106 kmpl). The idea is to put additional batteries in your hybrid, and charge all of them overnight. If you dont travel more than 20-30 miles every day, you may not need any petrol at all. What does it cost to run your car on electricity? "To drive a hybrid car about 1 km, takes about the same electricity as to light a 150 watt bulb for one hour!"

The President on Energy Independence

2005-08-15T10:50:00.000-05:00

President APJ Abdul Kalam had an image as a dreamer even before he became the First Citizen of this country. No wonder then that visions are a usual feature when he addresses the nation. On Republic Day this year he gave us a vision of universal employment via sustainable development. This time he talks about energy independence.

The first half of the speech was dedicated to talking about the recent floods in various parts of the country, including the financial capital of the country. He also mentioned that action was being taken on some of the 8 areas he had mentioned in his Republic Day speech.

Energy is the lifeline of modern societies....As it is said, energy and water demand will soon surely be a defining characteristic of our people's life in the 21st Century.

Energy security rests on two principles. The first, to use the least amount of energy to provide services and cut down energy losses. The second, to secure access to all sources of energy including coal, oil and gas supplies worldwide, till the end of the fossil fuel era, which is fast approaching. Simultaneously, we should access technologies to provide a diverse supply of reliable, affordable and environmentally sustainable energy.

Energy scurity, which means ensuring that our country can supply lifeline energy to all its citizens, at affordable costs at all times... ...energy independence has to be our nation's first and highest priority. We must be determined to achieve this within the next 25 years, therefore by the year 2030. This one major 25-year national mission must be formulated, funds guaranteed, and leadership entrusted without delay as public-private partnerships to our younger generation, now in their 30s, as their lifetime mission in a renewed drive for nation-building.

What are the envisioned energy sources for the future?

Firstly, better using our coal thus: "...a movement towards energy independence would demand accelerated work in operationalising the production of energy from the coal sector through integrated gasification and combined cycle route." In 2030, "the power generated from coal-based power plants would increase from the existing 67,000 MW to 200,000 MW". Simultaneously "fossil fuel imports need to be minimised and secure access to be ensured. Maximum hydro and nuclear power potential should be tapped."

The best part comes after that: "The most significant aspect, however, would be that the power generated through renewable energy technologies may target 20 to 25% against the present 5%. It would be evident that for true energy independence, a major shift in the structure of energy sources from fossil to renewable energy sources is mandated."

"Solar Farms"

"Solar energy in particular requires unique, massive applications in the agricultural sector, where farmers need electricity exclusively in the daytime. This could be the primary demand driver for solar energy. Our farmers demand for electric power today is significantly high to make solar energy economical in large scale.

Shortages of water, both for drinking and farming operations, can be met by large-scale seawater desalination and pumping inland using solar energy, supplemented by bio-fuels wherever necessary.

The current high capital costs of solar power stations can be reduced by gridlocked 100 MW sized Very Large Scale Solar Photovoltaic or Solar Thermal Power Stations. In the very near future, breakthroughs in nanotechnologies promise significant increase in solar cell efficiencies from current 15% values to over 50% levels. These would in turn reduce the cost of solar energy production. Our science laboratories should mount an Research & Development Programme for developing high efficiency CNT based Photo Voltaic Cells.

We thus need to embark on a major national programme in solar energy systems and technologies, for both large, centralised applications as well as small, decentralised requirements concurrently, for applications in both rural and urban areas."

Municipal Waste, Energy Efficiency and Bio-diesel

He also spoke of the potential for power generation from municipal waste: "Today, two plants are operational in India, each plant generating 6.5 MW of electric power. Studies indicate that as much as 5800 MW of power can be generated by setting up 900 electric power plants spread over in different parts of the country, which can be fueled by municipal waste."

Transmission losses, which encompass power theft, came in for special mention. The President pointed out that reducing these losses from 30-40% to 15% will save as much power as Rs 70,000 crores (about $15 bn) worth of investment can produce.

He also repeated his Republic Day commitment to bio-fuels, pointing out that India can produce 60 million tonnes of bio-fuels annually. Interestingly again he did not mention ethanol. When he spoke about the full economic cycle, the phases were conspiciously those for the bio-diesel cycle.

Nuclear Power

In the only disappointing aspect for the greens, he also stressed on ramping up on the nuclear power front. His stance however moves away slightly from the US' potential "helping hand". The President stressed the need to build Thorium-based reactors because India has good reserves of the metal.

India Petroleum Update

2005-08-14T02:38:00.000-05:00

The Shale Story

We all know that petroelum is formed when organic matter decays under an appropriate amount of pressure and temperature. Coal is actually formed somewhere along the journey from just-dead organism to petroleum. We saw how conversion of coal to petroleum products is getting hot as a propect with the maturing of technology in that area. Now if coal is good enough, then why not oil shale, which is a little closer to petroleum in the formation process?

Oil Shale is a kind of shale that contains kerogen, which can be processed to get oil. The cost depends on who you ask, but it will definitely be competitive compared to coal. Now comes the interesting part. ET reports that Oil India Ltd geologists claim that India has enough oil shale to meet all our oil requirements (at current levels) for the next 100 years. Swaminomics comments on this here.

Here is a quick look at the statistics. If India has to have the kind of shale reserves being claimed here, it would have to be the world's best kept secret in that department. 140 million tonnes every year for the next 100 years translates to current reserves of 14 billion tonnes - that is proven (or at least estimated) recoverable reserves. According to the world energy council survey 2001, only the US at 60-80 billion tonnes has more recoverable reserves than that. Now since the US is estimated to have over 60% of world reserves, India's share comes up to above 10%. The survey does not mention India at all - and that means that if true this is the world's best kept secret in the field of geology.

Iran-Pak-India-(China?) gas pipeline

While an Indian delegation reaches China today to discuss cooperation in exploring energy resources in third countries, one proposal that will loom large over all discussions would China's participation in the Indo-Iran gas pipeline project. China's participation will mean a big win-win situation for India. For one the transit fees will more than make up for whatever India would be paying Pakistan. Secondly if the same pipeline feeds China too, then Pak will be far more enthusiastic about ensuring the security and sanctity of the gas flow. Thirdly the Chinese angle is likely to make it far easier to tie up an international consortium to build and maintain the pipeline.

So how likely is this? TOI reports that "Officials of the petroleum ministries of India and China are engaged in a serious dialogue about the possibility of Chinese participation in the India-Iran gas pipeline". The US is against such a deal with Iran, and China is smarting under the recent failure of its bid for UNOCAL. Please do the math. To speak the truth, China has not yet officially commented on the proposal.

Domestic Developments

HPCL chairman M.B. Lal told Rueters of plans to set up three new refineries - one on the east coast in Vishkhapatnam to process 300,000 barrels per day, the second in Bhatinda in Punjab to process 180,000 bpd and the third (oil ministry willing) in Rajasthan to process Cairn's crude. Cairn and ONGC have already submitted a proposal for a joint-venture refinery in Rajasthan and the oil ministry will take a final decision on this.

For its part, Indian Oil Corporation has put its own projects on hold citing mounting losses from under-recovery on the petro-product sales. This also being the first quarter ever when all four oil retail PSU's have recorded a loss, the current under-recovery rates mandate that IBP, BPCL, HPCL and IOC will all become sick in sequence from September 2005 to July 2008.

The Eko Cosmic - I

2005-08-10T21:47:00.000-05:00

In January this year, Bangalore-based Ekovehicles launched an electric scooter, which had caught public attention just a month before at the Grahak Utsav-2004 in Bangalore. Here is an interview with Anil Ananthakrishna, Chairman of Ekovehicles, where among other things he announces plans to launch an electric motorcycle sometime next year.

About the electric scooter: Launched on Jan 21, 2005 in Bangalore, it was christened Eko Cosmic-I. Costing Rs 30,000 onroad in Bangalore, it returns 50 km on a single charge that costs Rs 3, thus returning the amazing mileage of just 6 paise per km. The top speed though is just 40 kmph. The good part is it looks as good as the best scooters in India, and considering the low output (500 watts or 10cc), it needs no road tax to be paid or even a driving liscense.

Is this India's first electric scooter? No. The first scooter was Vidyut-24, also launched by Eko Vehicles in Bangalore way back in the 1980s. The product bombed back then. Since then Mr Ananthakrishna, an electric vehicle technologist has worked on several types of battery operated vehicles in Germany, the US and China. (In fact China has sold about 4 million locally manufactured electric two wheelers.)

Is this truly a Made-In-India product?Trick question! Though the Eko Cosmic-I is his own design, the components are almost completely imported (a majority from China), and only assembled in Bangalore. However, talks are on for localization. Crompton Greaves could supply the motors, Roloform the wheel rims and Fiem the headlights and taillights. An 80-85 percent localization is the immediate target, with high-end electronics from Japan and Europe the only imports.

So whats the future? At a rapid battery charging station, the vehicle needs just 10 minutes to charge. Eko is setting up 140 such stations in Bangalore this year. A tie-up with reliance to introduce charging stations at petrol pumps along the highway is on the anvil. A lithium-ion battery can increase the range from 40 to 100 kms, but will cost substantially (Rs 20,000) more.

The Karnataka government is likely to give a sales tax rebate of Rs 3,300 on the Eko Cosmic.

While the company is targeting 100,000 in sales in the next one year (only 400 have been sold so far), they are also planning to launch an electric motorcycle, an electric cycle called the E-bike and sometime next year a 3 or 4 wheeler costing just Rs 80,000.

Y2K, Peak Oil and Cassandra

2005-08-04T20:33:00.000-05:00

Jamais Cascio has a great post on WorldChanging titled "Peak Oil and the Curse of Cassandra".

Just to be safe, here is some background. I guess everyone knows all about the Y2K, but just in case someone has forgotten, here is a primer. We are also well aware with the term Peak Oil, I suppose, but here is a link (via treehugger) anyway. Now Cassandra is probably not as famous except among history/mythology buffs. She was the Trojan seeress who could correctly predict the future, but was cursed to be always ignored. She correctly cried out when Paris brought Helen home, though the city rejoiced. She similarly knew of Achilles and company hiding in the wooden horse, but no one believed her. She was also the sister of Paris and Hector.

Now for the interesting part. Jamais believes that the Peak Oil scare is like Y2K. And no, Y2K was not a hoax. It was a desperate and herculean effort that averted the Y2K crisis, and a similar thing will happen with Peak Oil. Then people will call Peak Oil a hoax. But the scare was vital to mobilizing the resources to beat Y2K, and a similar emotional frenzy will help with Peak Oil too. Beyond this, I would urge you to read the original article..

Ethanol - the Net Energy Debate continues

2005-08-03T22:52:00.000-05:00

The Alternate Energy Blog has this post on how ethanol may actually need more (fossil fuel) energy to produce, than it can give out. The cartoon is telling enough actually.

One reason The Indic View does not wax eloquent on the virtues of ethanol is the uncertainty over its net energy status. Alt-e has some figures here, which apparently depend on who you ask:

"The ethanol lobby claims there's a 30 percent net gain in BTUs from ethanol made from corn. Other boosters, including Woolsey, claim there are huge energy gains (as much as 700 percent) to be had by making ethanol from grass."

However according to, "David Pimentel, a professor of ecology at Cornell University who has been studying grain alcohol for 20 years, and Tad Patzek, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley,...ethanol from corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel itself actually contains." The corresponding figures for soybeans is 27%, switch grass 50%, wood biomass 57% and sunflowers 118%.

On the Indian scene, the government is committed to ethanol-ing retail petrol soon, and a 5% blend has already been made mandatory. However the roll-out is currently not on track because of the unavailability of ethanol (sugar crop was bad last year). With a good crop expected this year (until recently at least), the government and the ethanol groups were confident of supplying enough to get the roll-out on track.

What about the cost? The last time I heard, the sugar mills were going to sell ethanol to the oil companies at something between Rs 19-21 per litre. Yes, the numbers looks rather unrealistic even to me. Does someone have any other numbers though?

India in Six-Nation clean technology pact

2005-07-28T23:09:00.000-05:00

The US joined 5 Asia-Pacific nations, Australia, China, Japan, India and South Korea to build a six-nation grouping that aims at reducing global greenhouse gas emissions through new technology. The member nations account for about half the world's population - and half the greenhouse gas emissions too.

On the Action Agenda

"Technology that enables coal to be burned more efficiently and captures carbon dioxide before it reaches the atmosphere is top of the agenda" - Guardian

"... the six countries might work on developing benign technologies related to bio-energy, geothermal power, liquefied natural gas, methane, non-polluting coal, nuclear power, rural energy, and solar and wind power. Long-term projects could include creating safe energy from nuclear fission and fusion." - Times

So you will cooperate on nuclear power? Isnt this announcement suspiciously close to the US announcing that they will share nuclear power technology with India?

"...[Member] countries will focus on developing low emissions technologies and transferring them from developed to developing countries. Private industry will be given incentives to invest. A fund will also be established by partner members to help develop technology-based solutions." - The Australian

Is this treaty about undermining Kyoto?

Of the six, Japan has committed to a 6% reduction under Kyoto. India and China, as developing countries did not have reduction targets. Australia and the US did not sign up for reductions alleging... whatever.

Further, "Talks on the pact have been going on in secret for 12 months but it was only at the last minute that Japan was approached and decided to join. Suspicion of US motives was fuelled by the fact that the EU and Tony Blair were not informed of the plan, even though climate change was a big item on the agenda of last month's G8 meeting".

This is what The Australian had to say: THE Kyoto Protocol is over. Get over it. It doesn't have a future if the US-inspired Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate gets off the ground. The ballast on the issue of global warming and climate change is shifting to the New World - now including China and India - and away from the punitive system of limits and targets set by Old Europe for 2008-12.

Among others, Rueters called it the "Beyond Kyoto" pact.

Now this new pact has no emission reduction targets - good intentions are all that count. So if it manages to become as big as the Kyoto pact, then its members will not look so bad for not having signed Kyoto, and yet will be under no signed obligation to reduce emissions. It is thus getting called, "Self-Serving".

The Sunflower Solar Concentrator

2005-07-25T22:59:00.000-05:00

I got to this Wired article via Emergic

Bill Gross, a dotcom millionnaire and survivor, is the force behind another potentially revolutionary solar concentrator called the Sunflower. The revolution aspect relates to the fact that this device moves all its concentrator panels to always point to the sun, using a novel method that uses only two motors for all the huge panels. The device is currently undergoing stringent stress testing to ensure it survive 15 years or so.

Some interesting points are made in the article.

Even in sunny places like California, the pre-rebate cost of PV-generated electricity is roughly 21 cents per kilowatt-hour. Coal (from 4.74 cents per kilowatt-hour), natural gas (5.15 cents), nukes (5.92 cents), even windmills (5.15 cents) offer cheaper ways to keep the lights on.

Solar panels are small enough to fit on rooftops...solar has the potential to cut out the middleman...

[so] instead of competing with wholesale power from distant power plants, rooftop solar competes with retail kilowatt-hours delivered by the local electric company, which often are marked up as much as 1,000 percent over their original generating cost.

...retail prices typically peak on hot, sunny summer days...precisely when solar panels are most productive.

"Right now, PV solar has a 20-year payback, but people are still buying it," he [Gross] says. "Our target for California is five. In Phoenix we could do 3.3."

Here is how it works

Coal To Oil - the Next Big Thing?

2005-07-24T22:25:00.000-05:00

India has coal to last us the next few centuries, while the oil reserves will last us only a few more years. But coal is dirtier on the environment and bulkier on the transporters. So what is the solution? Simple - convert coal to oil.

South African SASOL, is the leading coal-to-liquids (CTL) technology and producing company in the world. Since the 1950's the South African government has been promoting the Fischer-Tropsch process that Germany used during WW-II, to get oil from its massive coal reserves. Germany however was facing a global supply blockade, while in SA it was a political decision, though SASOL could never bring its products to within range of commercial oil rates - till oil hit $40 (now its $60).

Four Indian corporate houses are holding talks with SASOL to set up such plants in India. All four are big names in the Indian steel industry - Jindal, Essar, Tata and Bhushan Steel. The talks are at a preliminary stage, but Jindal and Essar are also exploring the Coal-to-Gas technology.

How big can CTL get?

China has huge coal reserves, and SASOL is setting up two plants in China at a total cost of $6bn. Alright $6 bn is a lot of money, but for that kind of money China gets an annual output of 60 million tonnes of oil, which is 60% of the current annual import of 100 mn tonnes. India currently imports roughly the same amount.

Any potential catches?

The process is capital intensive, and scale is important. So China gets an output of 10 mtpa for every billion dollars invested. If the total investment is lower though, the output will be lower still. In India it is doubtful whether state economic muscle will help the four private sector companies. On their part PSU's like ONGC and GAIL are already exploring CTG technologies like Underground Coal Gassification, with Russian and Canadian partners respectively. ONGC however suffered a setback recently when CIL refused to be a part of the project.

Also the fact that all the private sector companies here are steel majors is no coincidence. They hope to use their existing coal licenses/expertise on this. So it maybe unlikely that they would see great synergies from working together on this.

Also CTL needs a certain quality of coal and it is not clear whether such coal is available in the country in huge quantities. Apparently, SASOL "has examined some samples of Indian coal, and found one of them promising."

Renewables in India - A Tale of Two States

2005-07-24T09:07:00.000-05:00

Tamil Nadu, India's southern-most state, hopes to consolidate its position as the number one state as far as using renewable energy sources goes.

At 2,317 MW, 20% of Tamil Nadu's electricity comes from renewable energy sources. The national average is 4.8%. The share of the state in the total renewable energy produced in the country stands at 30%, further validating its leadership position.

The state is actively pursuing a variety of renewable sources including wind, biomass, biofuels and solar power.

In wind power the state already has 61% of the total capacity in the country, owing to inherent advantages resulting from it getting winds from both the south-east as well as the north-east.

In biomass, the Tamil Nadu Energy Development Agency recently recommended 37 bio-mass projects to generate a total of 260 MW, of which 15 projects with a total capacity of 145MW have been approved by the government. Biomass gasifiers were also being promoted for thermal and electrical applications.

The state has mandated the installation of solar water heating systems on certain types of buildings. Another proposal "to make mandatory the installation of solar lighting system in the common area of multi-storied residential apartments", was awaiting State Government approval.

Way up north, the government of Jammu and Kashmir, recently announced a new state hydro power policy, which had an arrangement for Independent Power Producers. Several private sector companies have thus come forward to install hydel projects in the state. The Chief Minister recently laid the foundation stone for the first such project - the Arhabal Power Project which will generate 15 MW of power and cost Rs 105 crores to construct. The cost per megawatt is rather high because of the lack of scale, but that only means that payback will take longer. Still the government hopes to start about 25 mini and micro hydel projects with a cumulative capacity of 2000 megawatts during the current year.

Strictly speaking while hydro-power is renewable, it is often considered environment unfriendly and thus does not qualify for the clean sobriquet.

Indo-Iran pipeline in focus again

2005-07-24T02:01:00.000-05:00

“... I am realistic enough to realise that there are many risks because, considering all the uncertainties of the situation there in Iran, I don’t know if any international consortium of bankers would probably underwrite this. But… we desperately need the supply of gas that Iran has.”

So said Dr Manmohan Singh to The Washington Post. The Acorn sees it as an endrosement of a long-held stand.

Dr Singh might have just been a good host, as I pointed out here. But Oil Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar followed up with this: "The Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline is fraught with terrible risks. It will be extremely difficult to put together an international consortium to finance the project". For good measure he also said, "God willing, we'll succeed".

Now look at the PM's statement for a while. He plainly states that the project is frought with risks. Nothing new. If it was not, the pipeline would have been ready in the last millenium. Aiyar reiterating the difficulty in getting the international guarantees in place is also straight talk. So far so good. What bugs me is something else.

India has consistently maintained that unless all security risks are mitigated, which means we have adequate and economically viable insurance policies against them, India will not go ahead with the project. However, this is probably the first time that the difficulties being faced in this direction are being publicly announced. And that despite the fact that construction start dates, and commercial commencement dates have already been bandied around.

Does this mean that India is preparing to go ahead with the project without adequate guarantees? That would be suicide.

India Petroleum Update

2005-07-22T23:39:00.000-05:00

ONGC joins hands with LN Mittal

The bringing together of India's most profitable company, and the country's richest citizen, to bring some steel into India's quest for energy security, has been correctly called "pathfinding".

It all started in early June, when Oil Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, probably frustrated with India's inability to bag anything of substance in Kazakhstan, called up LN Mittal to ask him if he could use some of his clout in Kazakhstan for the purpose. Rightly so because, "Mittal commands tremendous goodwill in the Kazakh establishment for resuscitating the Temirtau area after taking over and turning around the sick steel complex there in 1995."

Mittal might or might not have had a hand in Kazakhstan offering India a stake in one of two medium sized blocks some time in May, but Mittal showed his business acumen by converting call into a business opportunity.

So sometime this weekend, two MOU's will be signed by Mittal International Sarl, a Luxembourg-based subsidiary of flagship Mittal Steel. The first will be signed with ONGC, and will for setting up a company called ONGC-Mittal Services Ltd. This company will invest in projects for trading and transporting oil and gas. The second will be with ONGC subsidiary, ONGC Videsh Ltd, and will be for setting up a company called ONGC Mittal Energy. This one will invest in overseas oilfields.

ONGC will hold 51% in both companies, and they will be registered in some European tax haven - possibly Luxembourg again?

Incidentally LN Mittal is not the only private infusion of strength for ONGC's forays. While Mittal provides strength to Indian forays in Central Asia, the Khemkas of Russia's Sun Group could be roped in similarly for Russian projects, while a deal between ONGC and Reliance back home, has been in the works for a while.

The Synergy for Energy committee meanwhile has suggested Oil India Videsh Ltd. The committee had also rejected the idea of public sector oil monopolies, here is a small "myth-buster" on the purported evil of monopolies.

Domestic

Despite the recent hike in petrol and diesel prices, international prices have been keeping up the pressure, as result of which oil companies are likely to ask the government for a hike in prices again. Under-realization has reached Rs 3 and Rs 5.30 per litre of petrol and diesel respectively, and the subsidy burden is mounting. Petrol prices in India are already higher than in Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

An informative interview with India's director-general of hydrocarbons (DGH), V K Sibal. He further reinterates that India remains largely unexplored with huge opportunities. True. Tiny Cairn through its finds in India so far stands to make £82bn at current oil prices.

The award of blocks under NELP-V will be done by July 31st, pending a Cabinet clearance.

There is some traction on the policy front. Apart from the possibility of converting the DGH into an upstream regulator, the Prime Minister also set up the Energy Coordination Committee to guide energy policy. Here is why it should not be dsimissed as “yet another committee”.

Pipelines

While India and Myanmar explore a bypass to Bangladesh, that country remains keen to milk India by getting involved.

More Solar Breakthroughs

2005-07-22T21:30:00.000-05:00

Two new potentially revolutionary technologies for generating solar electicity from WorldChanging:

Electrolytic Bacteria: Researchers in Stanford have stumbled upon anaerobic bacteria that electrolyte water releasing hydrogen and oxygen. Since they are anaerobic, the oxygen kills them. So researchers are breeding them for a species that is aerobic.

Novel Solar Concentrator: This one is more of a here-and-now solution. This new solar concentrator from Pyron Solar, is called the Boeing-Spectron-Pyron Solar Generator and uses Spectrolab solar cells that are upto 37% efficient. (Spectrolab is a leading supplier of solar cells for space craft). Their only prototype thus far is 23 feet in diameter, which works out to 7.01 metres. So the total surface area is 38.59 sq m. Now this generates 6.6 kW. 100% efficiency is considered to be 1 kW/sq m - for photovoltaic cells. So that makes this new device 17% efficient as a whole, which is still pretty good.

Importantly concentrators cost significantly less than photovoltaic cells per sq m. Independent estimates of the installation cost puts it as between $2.00 to $3.00 per watt. Even at the higher end that makes it reasonably competitive. These costs are mostly based on informal estimates, and not on actual commercial project costs, so accuracy is not entirely reliable. But Pyron themselves put the cost at just $1.24 per watt for large plants - significantly lower than the cost of fossil fuel-based plants.

It just keeps getting better and better...

Indian Company Powering the Jatropha Revolution

2005-07-21T07:45:00.000-05:00

D1 Oils, a British company, is making news the world over as a leader in Jatropha based bio-diesel production. D1 Oils basically procures Jatropha oil or the trans-esterified version which is bio-diesel. Thus an important strategy for D1 is contract farming.

As part of contract farming, the company gives Jatropha plants to farmers. Now an Indian company could become the global hub for providing Jatropha plants to D1 Oils.

Mysore-based Labland Biotech, which has been in the news for its Jatropha oil procurement JV with D1 Oils, will initially produce 10 million tissue-cultured Jatropha plants, and is in a Rs 60 lakh deal with D1 oils to promote the cloned plants globally. The linked story provides some useful pointers.

Jatropha provides about 1000 barrels of diesel per square mile annually. The entire process for producing bio-diesel from Jatropha is pretty low-tech and it thus has the potential to become an important grass-roots movement as a cottage industry. Jatropha is ideal for an estimated 50 to 130 million hectares of wastelands, which for a variety of reasons like salinity are unavailable for agriculture.

Plastic Solar - Threshold of Revolution

2005-07-20T22:17:00.000-05:00

While we were going all ga-ga over nanotech based solar photovoltaics, a major comeback of sorts has been achieved from a less celebrated source - plastic solar cells.

Researchers at a Danish group Risø claimed they have built plastic solar cells that cost less than 2% of silicon cells. So where one square meter of silicon cells would cost $800, plastic solar would cost only $15. Of course the revolution is still not on us, and here is why.

Plastic cells are not new and have been around for a while. But while earlier they only had a life span of a few days, the researchers at Risø claim their cells last two and a half years. So that is still workable. The problem remains the efficiency. While silicon cells manage 12% to 15% efficiency (in labs they have managed 50%), the plastic cells only manage 0.2% to 5%.

But come to think of it, even at ~~0.2%~~ 5% efficiency with a life span of just 2.5 years, at $15 a sq m, it is still close to being competitive. As Jamais Cascio comments on his own post, "Assuming 50 watts power for a pessimistic average of 2 usable hours/day x 200 usable days/year, for 2.5 years and $15, the result is (by my calculations) thirty cents/kilowatt-hour. A place with better sunlight patterns would be close to competitive (e.g., 5 usable hours x 300 days/year, otherwise the same, equals 8 cents/kwh)."

A lot of places in India would fall in the "place with better sunlight patterns" category. 8 cents/kwh translates to about Rs 3.5 per unit. So even if the average efficiency is increased from ~~0.2% (the lower limit) to 0.4% (still very far from the current upper limit)~~ 5% to 10%, we get power at Rs 1.75 per unit, which is less that say the Rs 2.25 that MSEB will pay Dabhol. And Rs 2.25 is almost considered a steal at current world gas prices.

Some years from now, will you remember that you read about it here first (or at least at all!)? :)

A Nanotech-based Photovoltaic Future

2005-07-18T21:30:00.000-05:00

Over at Trends..., Myke has a post on how nano-technology could be the next big boost that could finally get solar energy past "just around the corner" status. Currently solar energy costs $4 - $5 per unit, whereas the market would pay only around $2 - $2.5.

Currently photovoltaic cells are made in facilities almost as expensive and sophisticated as those used to make micro-chips. However, "With nanotechnology, tiny solar cells can be printed onto flexible, very thin light-retaining materials, bypassing the cost of silicon production. The companies also say that the printed rolls of solar cells would be lighter, more resilient and flexible than silicon photovoltaics."

An interesting point is made in this post. Imagine that every structure in the US is linked to the electricity grid. And then photovoltaics are made cheap enough that everyone can afford them. Now if every rooftop in the US is covered with photovoltaics, the total power generated will be 710 GW, slightly less than the current total electricity capacity 950 GW. And built-up area is usually a miniscule fraction of a percentage of the total land area in a country.

Distribution is automatically solved, because every grid connected household can sell excess power back to the grid. And if you dont want to cover your entire roof with photovoltaics because you cannot afford it, someone else could do it for you for a small consideration.

But this is a rather unlikely direction for the future, because if photovoltaics become affordable, you would have huge photovoltaic power plants bringing power to your homes using the very same power lines that now power your homes.

India Petroleum Update

2005-07-17T21:48:00.000-05:00

The roundup this week will concentrate on Indian moves to secure energy supplies through a range of initiatives in various parts of the world.

Kazakhstan
ONGC Videsh Ltd has opened a regional office in the capital city, Astana. This will be followed by ONGC selecting one of two blocks in the luctrative Caspian region - Satpayev and Makhanbet - for exploration.

Also OVL will spearhead Indian initiatives for involvement in oil infrastructure development in that country, especially in two pipelines, one to the Black Sea and the other to China.

Burma

There has been further traction on the idea of excluding Bangladesh in the Indo-Myanmar pipeline proposal.

"New Delhi and Rangoon have formed a techno-commercial committee to examine the possibility of laying a pipeline from Burma to India bypassing Bangladesh.

The joint group will also explore the possibilities of importing gas by ship in its liquefied (LNG) or compressed (CNG) state, Indian Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar said after the talks with his counterpart in New Delhi.

They have also assigned Italian Snam Progetti for a feasibility study for taking gas from Burma to India without using Bangladesh territory, sources in Dhaka said...

... Industry sources said that India is now trying to bypass Bangladesh from the project as New Delhi is not willing to give into Dhaka's conditions for allowing right of way for the cross-border pipeline over the territory of Bangladesh."

Sudan

Sudan could be the oil world's best kept secret, and India could be a major player in the development of the oil industry there. So says an article from the Sudan Tribune. Still the comparisons with Saudi Arabia are almost ridiculous. Sudan has proven reserves of 563 million barrels of oil - Saudi puts its reserves in the 200,000 million barrels range.

Turkey and Romania

On a visit to Turkey last month, Oil Minister Mani Shakar Aiyar, met his turkish counterpart Hilmi Guler, and agreed upon several avenues where the two nations could cooperate.

While Turkey does not have any hydrocarbon reserves to boast about, it is a critical state for accessing Western Caspian Sea and Northern Persian Gulf nations' reserves, due both to its cultural links to these states and also its strategic location that leads to a lot of pipelines from these regions to end up going through Turkey. Some the deals will result in India and Turkey investing in E&P in the other country, and forming joint ventures to invest in third countries. While Turkey would lead the consortia in Central Asia, India would do the same for South East and East Asia, Africa and Latin America. On the issue of cross-investment, while India was invited to invest in pipelines connecting Central Asia to Europe via Turkey, Turkey was invited to invest in Indian EOU-refineries in the coastal regions.

With Romania the cooperation would relate more to development of capabilities in the area of oil and gas equipment, including drilling rigs and refinery equipment. This includes tie-ups between organizations (trade, research and academic) in the two countries.

New World Warrior

GSPC, the latest entrant to the list of Indian corporates with big oil and gas reserves, via particularly its K-G Basin find, will now forage into the world market to get oil/gas equity and/or other cooperation in the field. Apparently it is, "Close to inking deals with companies in Libya, Oman and Qatar".

Jatropha Targets - India on track

2005-07-14T21:50:00.000-05:00

ET reports that the cost of Jatropha-based bio-diesel in India has gone below the cost of regular diesel.

This is great news. In the past Indian Railways would pay as much as Rs 70-80 for a litre of bio-diesel to meet its trial requirements. For a pilot in 2003, BEST and HPCL paid as much as Rs 78 per litre to Lubzoil India Ltd for 20,000 litres. Now with the price of jatropha seeds down to Rs 5 a kilo, from Rs 30 a kilo earlier, bio-diesel cost has come down to just Rs 24 a litre.

Regular diesel vehicles can run on diesel blended with upto 20% of bio-diesel. Vehicles on slightly modified engines can run on 100% bio-diesel too.

Now India uses about 45 million tonnes of diesel every year. So with 20% bio-diesel, which the government will likely mandate as a target under the National Biodiesel Policy in August, about 9 million tonnes of bio-diesel produced within India will mean an India bio-diesel industry as big as Rs 250 billion, or $6 billion. That is only about 7 years away. But is that just another number for the future that is thrown at us?

There are already indications of huge commitments from corporates in India. For example a single Mohan Breweries-D1 Oils JV in Tamil Nadu is into contracting farmers for Jatropha production, and is already working on an immediate aim of 120,000 tonnes of jatropha oil annually. This could go up to 300,000 tonnes based on the plantations targets for this year alone. In Mysore, Labland Biotech is in a deal with D1 Oils to procure upto 50,000 tonnes of jatropha oil a year, from contract manufacturing farmers.

There are other names too. Among the earliest big adopters is likely to be the Indian Railways. Then there are oil PSU's like HPCL and MNC's like Diamler Chrysler.

India Petroleum Update

2005-07-03T10:16:00.000-05:00

Bangladesh to be bypassed for Myanmar gas

India just might call Bangladesh's buff in the Myanmar-India pipeline deal. In addition to a rather high $125 million transit fee, Bangladesh was asking for free access to Nepal and Bhutan, for allowing India to use its territory to get a gas pipeline from Myanmar (where India owns gas equity in some pretty lucrative fields).

If India decides to build the pipeline in its own territory, the length and hence cost increases, but the transit fee saving compensates for that. In addition it will allow gas from the North Eastern states to be sold to the rest of India, proving a boon for those states. Why did anyone think of Bangladesh in the first place? :)

YAOCOC (Yet Another ONGC-Chinese Oilco Confrontation)

Another Canada-based company that ONGC will fight it out with a Chinese company to takeover. This one is called Petrokazakhstan, and as the name suggests it has huge interests in Kazakhstan. This property is expected to be on the agenda when Chinese President Hu Jintao visits Kazakhstan today for talks. China has huge advantages here as it already has some oil equity (unlike India) and is in the process of building an oil pipeline from that country to China. Of course ONGC and the Chinese CNPC are not alone. Among others there is Chevron Corp with which another Chinese company is in battle for Unocal.

Pakistan has meanwhile refused to buy diesel from India. Pak had agreed to consider the proposal, after Aiyar's recent visit to that country. Even though petroleum product prices in India are much higher than in Pakistan, the reasons for refusal on grounds of cost remain flimsy.

India's oil reserves

When India's oil reserves were last assessed almost 10 years ago, the estimate was 30 billion barrels. A re-assessment is being planned and the results should be interesting.

Follow-up on India's Biggest Gas Find

Size Disputes

First the Indian Director General of Hydrocarbons, VK Sibal, and then the Canadian partner in the consortium, GeoGlobal Resources, came out against the size claims on the find. Both said that current data is rather premature to decide the size of a reserve.

Trivia and Implications

Apparently GSPC almost did not get to bid for the K-G Basin block back in 2002, and Gujarat had to increase the net worth of the company by Rs 300 crore within 48 hours at the height of the Akshardham crisis.

Here are some calculations on possible implications on other gas projects in India.

The deal with Iran is to import 5 tonnes of LNG every year. This works out to 13,700 tonnes a day, which is slightly less than 19 million cubic meters per day.

As per current plans, in 2008 (2006?), Reliance will start commercial production of a little over 14 million cubic meters (mcm) of gas per day, from their KG Basin find. Estimates say that this could go up all the way to 40 mcm per day - within months. The ONGC find in the KG basin stands between 4 and 8 tcf (Reliance's is anywhere between 9 and 14 tcf) based on who you ask. So ONGC could produce another 10 mcm. The GSPC find at current estimate stands at a giant 20 tcf. But because it is from older sediment, compared to the Reliance find, the ultimate flow per day would be around 40-50 mcm per day. Cairn also made a 1 tcf find in the KG Basin.

So sometime around 2009, when the pipeline from Iran would start bringing gas to India, the KG Basin will be supplying almost 100 mcm of gas to Indian consumers everyday, at competitive and maybe even lower cost. By then Iran (7.5) and Qatar(10) together could be supplying India almost 17.5 mcm of gas per day in the form of LNG. Piped gas is about 40% cheaper than LNG, and if we include the Iran pipeline, it looks like there will surely be a shortage of demand for LNG in the country by then. Also consider this then.

Follow-up on Friedman's Geo-Green Strategy

2005-06-29T01:34:00.000-05:00

Here is an interesting post from TreeHugger, especially when seen as a follow-up to the post on Friedman's Geo-Green Strategy. In that post we looked at Friedman's analysis stating that all the technologies to make the US independent of oil imports are already here and only need implementing.

Well the TreeHugger post points to paper that was released to influence the US Senate's debate on the Energy Bill - to try and get subsidies for renewables instead of for fossil fuels. The paper reiterates the same points that Friedman makes - promote plug-in hybrids and bio-fuels. In addition to these points the paper also mentions improving the mileage of all new vehicles (which in case of Friedman's analysis came in as part of using hybrids).

What is interesting though it the TreeHugger comment in the end: "Of course, nothing here is a solution to the end of oil; if implemented, these things wouldn't give us a sustainable post-oil society, but things would still be better than with the current situation...". I hope this was a casual statement and not based on solid costing.

Reliance going green?

2005-06-27T22:25:00.000-05:00

In the post titled Reliance's Power Play, which was basically a round-up of Reliance Energy's big ambitions in the power sector in India, I mentioned that given its track record, Realiance was unlikely to go green like Godrej and Ramco for example. Two things happenned after that, that made me reconsider that idea.

The day of the Reliance Split, Anil Ambani was addressing a press conference live on several channels. During what was looking like a great public wooing exercise, he slipped in that REL remains committed to non-conventional sources of energy - and he only mentioned solar and wind. Solar sounds nice, but mentioning wind obviously meant he was serious. Now a lot of Reliance's foray into the energy sector was based on RIL's oil and gas finds. Thus the biggest-of-its-kind gas plant in UP, and a proposal for a bigger one in Maharashtra. The first indication that there was a move away from oil and gas was the proposed Orissa investment in coal. So this made great sense. REL is moving away from RIL, and a future linked closely to oil and gas, which is no longer "in-house" so to say. Thus it was logical to move into wind. (Actually non-conventional sources were also mentioned at the REL AGM slightly earlier in the month too).

Next came the announcement today, that Reliance Energy and GE were setting up India's largest wind power project at 500 MW capacity, by 2007. So does this speak of a new leaf.

Not entirely. As part of the Electricity Act 2003 the government of India mandated that all power distributors ensure that a certain percentage of their power comes from renewable sources, and that just might have forced Reliance's hand. Also, despite the size of the investment relative to others in the industry, it would provide a very small percentage of the total power Reliance plans to produce and/or distribute in the near future.

Anayzing India's Biggest* Gas Discovery

2005-06-26T21:45:00.000-05:00

History

It was a well-contested block, when it was put up for bidding "way back" under NELP-III (third round of National Exploration Licensing Policy). The last date of submission of bids was 28th August 2002, while Reliance announced their find only in November 2002. Going by industry rumour, that find was originally ONGC's. Even discounting that rumour, it is very likely that having already explored the area both Reliance and ONGC knew the area very well. Thus the winning bid was a surprise. For the record, ONGC and Reliance are likely to win all K-G Basin blocks on offer under NELP-V.

Drilling operations started on July 31, 2004. After abandoning the first two wells at depths between 2600 and 2900 m, the third well was spudded on January 17, 2005. The reserve was confirmed at a depth of 5,061 m.

Venture Partners

Joint ventures are usually the norm in the upstream oil sector. So GSPC is actually a part of a consortium and owns 80% of it. The rest is held by GeoGlobal Resources of Canada and Jubilant Enpro of Noida, India. The smaller partners generally bring in expertise and are likely to sell out by the time production is commercialized.

Future Plans

News reports claim that GSPC wants to get the gas onshore by 2007. Reliance plans to start production in August 2006, though they started out over 2 years ago. But then drilling three wells of those depths within 300 days is also a record of sorts. To commercialise production, GSPC needs Rs 1,500 crores and an IPO is planned (expect a stampede soon!). Currently the Gujarat government owns 99% of GSPC, while a British Gas subsidiary Gujarat Gas owns the remaining 1%. The government is likely to divest 20% of the company within 6 months. GSPC had been earmarked for divestment even before this find.

GSPC intends to drill four more wells, and tenders have already been floated for these. Drilling is scheduled to start after the monsoons.

Implications

This find can have likely impact on a range of gas deals for India from the proposed pipelines to LNG import to domestic pricing. Need to do some research (or find a news article with figures I can simply validate!), but I'll be back on this, hopefully, soon.

* While most media reports seem to agree that this is India's biggest find ever, this report from ET states that the Bombay High find (Vasai offshore), way back in 1976 was still bigger at 22-24 tcf. But even ET agrees that it is probably the biggest find in the world in the new millenium.

India Petroleum Update

2005-06-26T11:31:00.000-05:00

India's Biggest Gas Find

The Krishna-Godavari Basin, that threw up the 14 trillion cubic feet (tcf) gas field for Reliance in 2003, has done it again - this time for relatively puny old Gujarat Petroleum. To be honest, GSPC has been attracting a lot of media interest of late, but nothing can beat this $50 billion addition to its asset list. The gas find is worth about 20 tcf, which is two thirds of Bangladesh's proven reserves.

As more details of the reserves pour in, it should be interesting to note the worth of the oil leg in this find, which could be decent too.

The Gujarat CM, Narendra Modi, revelled while announcing this to the press a short while ago, and went on to name the project, "Deen Dayal" or "Saviour of the poor".

Doubts are already being cast on the viability of the scheduled incoming pipelines. Similar doubts were cast after the Reliance find too - even then though the Reliance group itself remained firmly in favour of the pipeline.

Domestic Petro-product Pricing

The other big happenning this week was the price hike of petroleum products. Petrol was made dearer by Rs 2.50, and diesel by Rs 2.00.

As volatile as that decision to increase prices was, petrol pump owners were not impressed. They went on strike demanding higher commissions - which would naturally have to passed on to the consumers.

Gas for Dabhol

With the Dabhol plant all set to resume operations, India is now looking towards Qatar for additional supplies of LNG. This is in addition to the 5 mtpa Qatar is already supplying, and the additional 2.5 mtpa for which negotiations are in progress.

Tailpiece

After Bangladesh, illegal diesel imports are finding their way into India now from Nepal.

Freeing India of Oil Imports

2005-06-24T04:52:00.000-05:00

After the post based on Friedman's article on reducing American dependence on imported petroleum, here is one on reducing Indian dependence on imported oil and gas altogether.

This was written by Arun Firodia, Chairman of the Kinetic Group, and was published last December. The article envisions an energy independent future for India based on methane gas from cow dung (from our 250 million cows), and bio-diesel from massive Jatropha plantations.

Weight-wise methane gas matches the calorific value of petrol, LPG or kerosene, and an average cow in India can produce enough dung to produce 225 litres of methane gas in a year.

Replacing LPG and kerosene

Estimating a per capita annual LPG and kerosene consumption of 15 kg each, for the urban and rural populations, just 75 million cows would produce enough methane (16.8 billion litres) to meet the LPG and kerosene requirements of 1 billion Indians (15 billion litres).

Replacing Petrol

40 million cows can produce enough methane to easily replace the 8 million tonnes of petrol India consumed in the year 2003-2004. Like CNG, methane can easily replace petrol in automobiles.

What about Diesel?

Jatropha! on just 15 million of our 25 million hectares of waste or fallow land, will produce at least as much bio-diesel as India's annual consumption of diesel.

All figures are from the original article. Though the figures seem exhaustive, and the article also gives more insights into the production of methane gas (or gobar gas) there isnt enough dwelling on the costing factors, which at least in the case of bio-diesel is still critical. The point being made is very valid. Imagine the potential for a country like New Zealand which has far more lifestock than human beings!

Update: Indra had posted on this article some time back. Some useful comments are available on his site.

Friedman's Geo-Green Strategy

2005-06-23T03:59:00.000-05:00

Sunil pointed me to this excellent editorial by New York Times Op-Ed columnist, and much celebrated writer, Thomas L. Friedman.

Outlining what he calls geo-green strategy he talks of ridding the American economy of its addiction to and dependence on oil. Most importantly he states that the technology to that utopia is already available, and a lot of it has already been commercialized successfully.

Plug-in hybrids can ensure that 50% of Americans do not use petrol at all for their daily use. Those that do will get a mileage of 100 miles per gallon (210 kmpl). Step two would be using flex-fuel cars that can run on ethanol, petrol or any combination of the two. So a hybrid running on an 80-20 mix of ethanol and gasoline will practically give 500 miles for every gallon of gasoline.

As Friedman puts it, "In short, we don't need to reinvent the wheel or wait for sci-fi hydrogen fuel cells. The technologies we need for a stronger, more energy independent America are already here. The only thing we have a shortage of now are leaders with the imagination and will to move the country onto a geo-green path."

Energy Independence via Swadeshi

2005-06-21T01:19:00.000-05:00

Gandhiji's Swadeshi movement broke the economic back of British Rule in India. The essence of the movement was that everyone invest a little time everyday to make whatever cloth they needed, and hence close the market for British textiles in India. The closure of the giant Indian market led to the shutting down of mills in England, but more importantly the poor Indians felt a little more self-sufficient, self-reliant and a little richer too.

In an excellent post, Gmoke points out that, "this type of practical labor has to be the core of any sustainable ecological action".

Look at it this way. Gandhi used swadeshi, as what we shall call Sustainable Ecological Action, to make cloth, which in some ways was the life blood of the economy then. In the different world that is today, what cloth no longer has that position. So what does? In a lot of ways it has to be energy. Fossil fuels like oil, coal and natural gas, and renewables like solar, hydel, tidal and wind - all of these have only one thing in common - they give energy. And without energy their importance reduces to almost nothingness. So if Gandhiji were to start a Swadeshi today, he would choose to create energy instead of cloth.

Here is what Gmoke suggests:

In this "deregulated environment" with oil used as a weapon and national security identical to energy security, direct ecological and economic action toward renewables and away from the nuclear, gas, coal, and oil that we presently use can be a primary political as well as economic act. A treadle/pedal/crank powered generator with a flywheel can be the solar swadeshi, an ecological and economical electrical charkha.

One humanpower is about one sixth horsepower. A healthy person can put out 100 watts of power for hours on end and 300 watts in a sprint. Let's not be batteries in the Matrix but generators in a net metered ecological Network.

The ultimate goal I envision is to meet all electrical non-space-heating and refrigeration needs within the space of one south-facing window (4-10 square feet of photovoltaics) and a half hour to an hour a day's human power. The realistic goal today is most of the electrical load with the exception of refrigeration and space-heating: lighting, TV, audio, computer, phones...

This isn't Edward G. Robinson in "Soylent Green" pedalling a broken down three speed to light one sickly incandescent bulb. This is more like Lance Armstrong powering his energy efficient Spanish villa with a morning workout on his state of the art Tour de France simulator stationary bike and power generator.