There is an urgent need to organize for solar power & biofuels in India
...We need a comprehensive and integrated, silo-busting, problem-solving approach. This is in contrast with coasting along on a post-feudal-colonial mélange of currents and tides, with the brigandage of opportunistic politics fed by our (the voters’) greed for short-term benefits, resulting in our grotesque populism...
...Our leaders acknowledge repeatedly that infrastructure is India’s great need. Yet, they take no steps to marshal forces to draw up a credible strategy and execution plan. This is what needs doing...
...We have to “engineer” our way ahead, i.e., take active steps to build and develop our solutions, not passively wait for something good to happen...
Recent developments in renewable energy, e.g., cellulosic ethanol and concentrating solar power, underscore the urgency of pulling ourselves together on these fronts.
Cellulosic Ethanol
At the Detroit Auto Show in January, General Motors made a startling announcement: it had invested in a biofuel startup. This startup, Coskata, is one of uber-investor Vinod Khosla’s bets in renewable energy. Coskata claims it can produce ethanol from cellulosic sources at reasonable cost. The feedstock can be woodchips, grass, straw and agricultural waste from crops such as corn and wheat, even plastic and other carbon waste such as old tires. Coskata’s process needs much less water: less than the volume of ethanol, not three to four times as for other methods. Argonne National Laboratory reports that the process generates 7.7 times the energy used, and reduces CO2 emissions by over 80 per cent compared with petrol. However, this is in the laboratory, and Coskata has to prove it can scale up. This is planned by 2011, starting with a pilot plant this year.*
Coskata converts feedstock using heat into synthesis gas or syngas, comprising primarily carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide. This gas is processed by proprietary microorganisms to create ethanol and water. In contrast, other bio-fermentation processes usually create a number of complex alcohols in addition to ethanol. Coskata’s microorganisms reportedly have greater tolerance to impurities in syngas than processes that use chemical conversion. The ethanol and water are separated using a membrane technology that is estimated to cost only half as much as processes such as distillation. Overall, Coskata achieves the highest conversion efficiencies for ethanol.
Solar Power — No Rain In Spain
Southern Spain is known for its sunshine and scarce rain. Capitalising on this “deficiency”, Spain is becoming the leader in the revival of Concentrating Solar Power (CSP), i.e., focusing heat from solar radiation to generate electricity, pioneered in California. In the 1970s, nine solar thermal plants were built at Kramer Junction in the Mojave Desert to produce 354 Mw, then forgotten in the rush for fossil fuels.
Outside Seville in Spain, 600 reflectors focus solar radiation to the top of a concrete tower 40 storeys high. This is Abengoa’s Solúcar project, which converts radiant energy into heat, driving steam turbines that generate about 10 Mw of electricity at an estimated cost equivalent to $50-70 a barrel. The capital costs are high but the fuel is free, and there are no noxious emissions. Photovoltaic generation costs nearly double CSP, but has the advantage of modularity: small units can be used for individual homes, while CSP needs large amounts of capital and land.**
A different CSP design using parabolic troughs is used by Spanish company Acciona in a 64 Mw plant commissioned last summer near Las Vegas in Nevada.**
Relevance for India
These are instances of developments that deserve focused attention in India — another area where we have an urgent need to set about organising ourselves out of our chaotic ways. My aim — fond hope — is to initiate or precipitate action. Ideally, through an agglomeration of our imagination and ability, we will develop a sound process of analysis, goal setting, and then proceed with the follow through to achieve these goals. But we have to apply ourselves for this to happen; these are complex issues, and need informed analysis and decisions.
We need a comprehensive and integrated, silo-busting, problem-solving approach. This is in contrast with coasting along on a post-feudal-colonial mélange of currents and tides, with the brigandage of opportunistic politics fed by our (the voters’) greed for short-term benefits, resulting in our grotesque populism, in lieu of the much greater deferred gratification of pleasing cities and countryside with the appurtenances of proper governance: sidewalks and drains, transport, administration and order, hospitals and schools. We have to “engineer” our way ahead, i.e. take active steps to build and develop our solutions, not passively wait for something good to happen.
This applies across the board in the broadest “spatial planning” sense that integrates housing and land use at all levels with commercial, industrial, cultural and scientific activity, transportation, and all governance and infrastructure: water, sewerage, energy, communications. Infrastructure being the first level of enablement, it is an essential starting point.
Plan Outlays — Necessary But Not Sufficient
Our leaders acknowledge repeatedly that infrastructure is India’s great need. Yet, they take no steps to marshal forces to draw up a credible strategy and execution plan. This is what needs doing. Only money won’t do, because delivery systems and processes have to be developed, i.e. planned, then built from scratch.
Finance is certainly a requirement, but it is not the only one. Equally critical is coordinated implementation. This needs human resources and organisation, with the technology, systems and processes to make it work. All these must mesh in a goal-oriented organisational form in an enabling environment for good outcomes. This requires a combination of the regulatory aspects of government together with the social aspects of human dynamics, including the availability of trained people for production and delivery, and well-developed markets with all the necessary attributes, starting with demand. Therefore, funding is only one critical step.
Creating Institutional Delivery Systems & Processes
Our need is to create the requisite institutional systems and processes. This is probably best done with an open, collaborative approach — if we can pull it off. “Our need” means primarily for the government to act, and secondarily for all of us, given how we are set up. We — in all our spheres: private, corporate and governmental —have to do this ourselves, and stop hoping somebody else will do it for us.
No individual or single-domain point of view can do the job. Just as considerable national effort is directed at expanding India’s access to fossil fuels, there needs to be serious, coordinated effort by people with diverse skills and expertise to aggregate, analyse, present information on developments, and help make decisions in these alternative energy areas. We don’t need more government agencies, but we do need to configure a group to get the job done. The key is to aggregate the domain and process expertise — from existing ministries/departments, agencies and the private sector — focused on the purpose at hand.
** www.technologyreview.com/microsites/spain/solar/
For EU (& MENA), see www.trecers.net/downloads/summary_en.pdf
For EU (& MENA), see www.trecers.net/downloads/summary_en.pdf
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