Energy plays a vital role in one’s life. A country’s prosperity is attributed to the standard of living of its people and the quantum of energy consumed. Often, per capita energy consumption is taken as an yard stick to measure the progress of a country. Although, energy is available in various forms, there is growing demand for clean, cheap and reliable energy, which is mainly attributed to the electrical energy because of its versatility.
Therefore, it is the bounden duty of every nation to ensure availability of energy to its people as well as for its development. The energy sources are broadly classified as conventional energy sources and non-conventional energy sources. Electrical energy mainly produced by using conventional energy sources such as coal, oil, natural gas, hydro power etc. However, because of the increasing demand for electrical power, the fossil fuel deposits are getting depleted at an alarming rate and eventually one has to look for other sources of energy for producing electricity. The ever increasing demand for energy and the highly fluctuating fast depleting oil prices, have compelled the governments of the developing nations to resort for austerity measures – such as demand side management and supply side management for sustaining continuity in energy production. Soaring oil prices has a toll on the environment. It is imperative to find and develop alternative energy sources with appropriate technologies for meeting the demand.
Even though electricity is pollution free its generation is associated with negative environmental effects. Thermal power plants are major contributors for the pollution. Particulate matters are emitted into the atmosphere by these plants. The coal combustions also results in emissioning of volumes of carbon dioxide CO2 and significant quantity of SOX and NOX, resulting in green house effect. The moister present in the atmosphere reacts chemically with the NOX and SOX – culminating in bringing acid rains, which can damage crops and trees.
FIG 1: CO2 produced by different sources…
The increasing amount of CO2 has already caused global warming – and its after effects are being felt by way of rise in global temperature, change in weather patterns and increase in sea levels. Figure 1 shows the CO2 emission caused due to production of electricity from different sources. It is observed that for generating 1kWh of electrical energy, the CO2 emissions in different types of fuels vary as given below:
- Fossil fuel: 443 to1050 grams
- Nuclear : 66 grams
- Renewable: 9.5 to 38 grams
It is found that nuclear power plants are 7 to 38 times better than fossil fuels, whereas renewable energy plants are 2 to 7 times as more efficient than nuclear power plants as far as carbon foot prints are concerned. Scientists relate extreme weather events – such as typhoons, cyclones flash floods, forest fires and draughts to green house gas emissions.
The inter governmental panel in its draft agreement for climate change at PERUvian capital Lima titled “LIMA CALL FOR CLIMATE ACTION”, has warned that 2014 is the hottest year on record. The global temperature has already risen by 0.8oC since the beginning of the industrial revolution. According to U.N. reports, global temperature is expected to rise by 4.8oC by the year 2100, which is sufficient to melt the ice bergs and increase in sea levels. The U.N. scientists in their report have also warned of the ‘irreversible global damage’ if the fossil fuel usage is continued at its present rate.
In case of developing countries, the rapid industrialisation policy of the governments to better the standard of living in urban and rural areas – has resulted in highly increased demand for power. The high rates of carbon emission and to work within the constraints of the climate change agreed within the U.N. framework for climate change – coupled with fluctuating oil prices and the quest for making the country one among the developed nations have put developing nations under tremendous pressure.
Renewables installed capacity in India…
There is a wide difference of opinion in the perception for reducing the green house gas emission between the developed and the developing nations. The developing nations want to improve their economy and eradicate poverty, for which electrical power is to be supplied at an affordable cost at a faster pace. This is possible only through the technology adopted by using fossil fuel, which are cheap as compared to harvesting power from renewable energy sources.
The developing nations insist that developed nations must provide much needed resources, which is priced at $100 billion dollars per year for technology transfer to curtail CO2 emission. The developed countries on the other hand insist that all nations world over should equally contribute to reduce carbon emission, and every country have to specify their specific CO2 reduction targets. Developing countries like India, Brazil could not agree to cap their CO2 emission level target on the plea that they have not met the growth target. It is worthwhile to recall the U.N. summit 2010 on climate change where the participating counties had agreed to curtail global temp levels by 2oC above pre industrialisation level.
However, for the first time US has agreed to cap their CO2 emission by 26 to 28% of 2005 level by the year 2025, and China has also agreed to cap its CO2 emission level by 2030.
Under the present circumstances it is extremely difficult to achieve the reduction in global temperature by 2oC for which complete stoppage of CO2 emission for electricity production is required. Developing countries like India are endowed with rich renewable energy sources – such as solar, wind, biomass, geothermal etc.
Contribution from various renewable energy sources…
(Source: Ministry of Power, Government of India)
By now, it is clear that with the limitations and constraints for building conventional power stations based on fossil fuels is quite expensive. Therefore, it is inevitable to effectively adopt appropriate renewable energy technologies – for bridging the gap between the supply and demand. Renewable energy mainly comes from the sun and manifest itself into various other forms such as wind, biomass, bio fuel, oceanic energy etc. The electricity produced by renewable energy may not be a substitute for conventional power, because of lack the appropriate technologies for effectively harnessing the energy. But, it can be made cheaper and quite competitive by the govt policies and support.
Renewable energy is the most economical and suitable for distributed generation integration to the grid and rural electrification, coupled with many advantages over conventional electric power. To have reliable secure power solutions, hybrid systems with renewable energy are preferred. It is inevitable that the developing nations world over have to look for tapping of the abundantly freely available renewable energy for sustainable growth and that is the only way for survival.
