Are gas-run cities desirable ?
A news report in Economic Times today goes like this: "The government has set the target: half of the country’s urban population and 60% of our effective vehicular traffic must have an easy and affordable access to clean fuel through city gas pipelines. As per an industry estimate, 86.7 lakh domestic consumers and 25,000 commercial consumers are expected to switch over to natural gas.
"The timeline is 2009 and identified cities include Agra, Kanpur, Lucknow, Faridabad, Pune, Patna, Varanasi, Ahmedabad, Sholapur, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Bareilly, Rajahmundry, Vijaywada, Vadodara, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Gurgaon, Noida, Allahabad, Jhansi, Mathura, Gwalior, Indore, Ujjain, Rajkot, Surendranagar, Kota and Kochi," says the Economic Times report.
At a time when there are clarion calls from knowledgeable sources to reduce the dependency of fossil fuels because of various reasons like fast depletion of such finite sources, the economical, social and environmental degradation etc. is the govt. move for facilitation of burning more gas desirable? What happens when we run out of such sources, which are not entirely indigenous? Is there not an issue of energy security in the medium to long term? Shall we not earnestly look at other viable options like distributed energy sources based on wind, solar, bio-mass or bio-fuel etc.?
"The timeline is 2009 and identified cities include Agra, Kanpur, Lucknow, Faridabad, Pune, Patna, Varanasi, Ahmedabad, Sholapur, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Bareilly, Rajahmundry, Vijaywada, Vadodara, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Gurgaon, Noida, Allahabad, Jhansi, Mathura, Gwalior, Indore, Ujjain, Rajkot, Surendranagar, Kota and Kochi," says the Economic Times report.
At a time when there are clarion calls from knowledgeable sources to reduce the dependency of fossil fuels because of various reasons like fast depletion of such finite sources, the economical, social and environmental degradation etc. is the govt. move for facilitation of burning more gas desirable? What happens when we run out of such sources, which are not entirely indigenous? Is there not an issue of energy security in the medium to long term? Shall we not earnestly look at other viable options like distributed energy sources based on wind, solar, bio-mass or bio-fuel etc.?
posted by Shankar Sharma at
12:08 AM
3 Comments:
There are two factors to be considered here at least to begin with. There are many more.
We do have basic minimum need of energy for cooking, lighting, transportation and goods for day to day living. What is this minimum energy need and how to meet it? By any standard average per capita energy consumption in India may be slightly above the bare minimum. But there is a great variation in this average. Our rich class consumes far above the average and may equal of their counterpart in developed country. At the other extreme our poor may not use that much energy. But efficiency of their use is so bad, their final energy use is dismal.
Today cities are depedent on LPG supplied at a great cost with minium human productivity. Replacement of that expensive energy source by natural gas is the right policy which should have been done long time back.
Yes we need to look for solar, bio fuel (we have been looking for bio gas with no appreciable success because of wrong pricing policy). What we need is an integarted energy policy implementation. Planning commsiion has come with an integarted energy policy which may not be optimum. But it is a good road map. Our political class has adopted that policy. But they do not want to implement pricing componenent of that policy and take up only those which benefits them. That is where our fundamental problem lies. This is what we energy economists should point out and emphasize. We have technology. We have managerial competence. What we lack is political will. In the name of helping the poor, we are exploiting the poor to enrich the corrupt political class
Bhamy V Shenoy
By
Anonymous, at 3:59 AM
I am a PhD student in Environmental and Energy Policy and am writing to share some thoughts and seek some suggestions from all of you.
By and large, responses to the environmental impacts of the energy system assume a technological form, either via improved efficiencies at various stages of the system, further penetration of renewable technologies and so forth. These options, which we can classify as 'technical', are indeed very important. But the question, I want to ask is are they sufficient for the task at hand? For instance, a sense of the scale of the challenge is found in the GHG emission reductions that are required to avert catastrophic climate change. While the Kyoto protocol calls for GHG reductions in the range of 5-10% below 1990 levels for participating developed countries by around 2012, estimates (such as those by Worldwatch, IPCC and the UK's Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution) recommends emissions cuts in the range of 50 - 70% in order to avoid catastrophic climate change. There appears to be a significant mismatch between what is required and what's on the table.
In discussions about how to respond to the energy-environmental crisis much hope is placed on the role of energy efficiency. True efficiency is definitely better than no efficiency. But, for instance, it has been seen that gains from efficiency improvements can be surpassed by the 'rebound effect'; essentially, an increase in consumption of a service (e.g. driving) given the lower unit prices accruing from more efficient technologies. In countries like India, research suggests that the rebound effect is likely to be huge, given the vast and allegedly, historically 'unmet demand' for commodities and services. And also, i think, the flair for consumerism that is being further heightened by the media and popular culture.
Looking at renewable technologies. Indeed, huge potential exists and huge gains have been achieved until today. Nevertheless, we still live in a 90% + fossil fuel fired world. A question I have about renewables is about the rate of energy capture. Unlike a mined source, such as say, oil or coal, where the rate of conversion is largely controlled by us, harvested energy (e.g. wind or solar) are intrinsically limited by wind speeds or solar insolation (improvements in technology can harvest more, but how much more?). So, realistically, what is the potential for renewables to meet the present and rapidly growing high rates of energy consumption?
Anyway, given the above, the question that I would like to end with is this. How do we complement the current emphasis on technical approaches to the energy-environmental crisis with the understanding that a sense of sufficiency in energy requirements is also critical. How would we integrate this kind of thinking into the idea of conventional development that holds sway? How can energy policy be more alive to the possibilities of lifestyle change and challenge developmental aspirations which are currently blind to finitude?
By
Anonymous, at 6:38 AM
I do not think there can be simple and straight answers to the questions raised by Manu. We need to ask ourselves what is that we are looking for. Is it sustainable development for decades, if not for centuries, or short term luxuries? Once we are clear about this, I believe, the answer will start revealing itself.
The concept of 'rebound effect' was new to me, but is well appreciated. I do not think that all the savings we achieve from the efficiency gains will get consumed in additional energy spending. That may happen only in affluent countries; even there some benefits will accrue to the system. But again we need clarity in what we want.
Probably this requires a change in mindset through massive educational campaign.
The increasing rate at which we are burning fossil fuels, whether in West or East, North or South, and at the same time the rate at which we are destroying the forests, which could have been effective sinks for the resultant GH Gases, cannot allow us to be complacent in any sense of the term energy security. Each day in such a regime of feverish competition to consume more energy, can only mean hastening the crises of many kinds: global warming, severe health issues, loss of agricultural production, acid rains, severe stress on fresh water, large scale displacement etc.
It is unbelievable that the decision makers around the world are still in a denial mode. In view of the ever growing population in the developing world, higher aspirations of these people to have a better per capita energy consumption than what it is at present, and the intelligent marketing of electric gadgets of innumerable kinds, it is only imminent that the demand for grid quality electricity and/or piped gas will keep increasing exponentially, unless we act urgently in this regard.
To reverse this dangerous run-away situation, one cannot see any other way but to sincerely adopt techno-economically feasible alternatives like effective Demand Side Management, honest energy efficiency & conservation, and maximum deployment of renewable energy sources. There have already been pockets of excellence in each of these areas, and rest of the world should make all out efforts to adopt these measures in individual situations. When the cost of these alternatives, especially the renewable energy sources, has been quoted as a major disincentive we seem to overlook the concept of Life-Cycle Costs, which should be objectively used. The social and environmental costs to the larger society seem to have been ignored in all such comparisions.
An empirical calculation for the situation of the state of Karnataka indicates that with the honest implementation of some of the above mentioned measures, the projected demand for grid quality electricity in the state by year 2016 can be brought down to today's level taking into account the Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 5%. This basically means that the existing electricity generating capacity in the state should be enough to meet the demand for grid quality electricity in year 2016; the rest of the demand for energy (basically electrical energy) for residential, commercial, street light, offices, agricultural consumers coming from small size distributed energy sources like wind, solar, bio-mass, bio-fuel etc. Thus saved electricity demand from these lighter consumers and the electricity from the already committed projects can be diverted to heavy consumers like industries, transportation etc. Such small size distributed energy sources also have other benefits like reduced losses in energy/electricity grid, reduced demand for agricultural/forest lands and fresh water etc. They are also certain to provide impetus to local employment, rural development, and to stop migration of rural population.
There is growing conviction that the small size distributed energy sources like wind, solar, bio-mass, bio-fuel etc. should play a major role in meeting the energy needs of the vast percentage of population, if there are to be any habitable places on this earth by middle of this century. The earlier we take earnest steps in this regard it is better for the human kind, and those countries who are in forefront of these measures will have less to loose in the long run.
Once the issues of sustainability of development, energy security, environmental safety etc. are clear to us the decisions will be easier. Life style change will then may be easier to accept.
But the issues begging attention are of the essential political will.
By
Shankar Sharma, at 10:31 AM
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