News

In a bid to resolve the worsening power crisis in the State, the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has chosen 54 interior villages of Asom including six in Jorhat to be powered by alternative source of energy. In Jorhat district, the Forest Department has began the contract for lighting up six villages

HOTELS and hostels in the Union Territory are saving on LPG by cooking food with bio-gas (Methane) generated from human waste. On an average, eight to 10 LPG commercial cylinders are saved per month, users say . The advantage of bio-gas is that resources required for it are generated locally and the only probable cost is the installation expenses of the plant and the gas stove with modified burners. "The whole process is eco-friendly and there is no odour," says Project Director, Renewable Energy Agency of Pondicherry, D Selvi.

Suzlon Energy, the world's fifth-biggest wind turbine maker, is among six others who have signed an agreement with the US government to help the world's biggest economy generate 20 per cent of its electricty using wind power by 2030. The pact may aid the Pune-based company win more orders for power equipment and improve manufacturing technology.

- A goal to halve planet-warming carbon emissions by 2050, similar to an aim Japan is urging G8 leaders to agree next month, would add $45 trillion to global energy bills, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday. "It's a lot of money," IEA analyst Peter Taylor told a meeting on the fringes of a climate conference in Germany, previewing the agency's Energy Technology Perspectives report to be published in Japan on Friday. "It implies a completely different energy system," he said.

Bosch, the German privately owned conglomerate, on Monday made a

CR Bhattacharjee

In the search for renewable energy, turning low-value materials like switchgrass and corn husks into ethanol to fuel cars is something of a Holy Grail. In theory, these materials would replace corn as the main feedstock for ethanol in North America, reducing the pressure on farmland that has played a role in rising food prices and put drivers into competition with hungry people. But scientists on the front lines of this search are finding that making the process commercially and environmentally viable is proving much harder than some of the hype would suggest.

Waste plastic products should not be treated as threats to our environment. A proper system to recycle these products and efforts at extracting fuel from them may turn these waste products into invaluable assets, said Amarjyoti Kashyap president of the non-Government organisation (NGO) Environ. This is very significant in these days of growing threats of scarcity and rising price of fossil fuel. Besides, there is also the angle of environment pollution, which can be tackled better with the use of plastic fuel and application of a safe technology to extract fuel from plastic.

Eight of Shell's wind projects are in the US. Royal Dutch Shell believes the future of wind power is in North America, where it is redoubling its efforts after pulling out of the large-scale London Array wind farm project in the UK. "The European theatre has been built out,'' Dick Williams, president of Shell Wind Energy, told the Financial Times.

The neglect of India's energy resources and the failure to adopt a scientific approach to maximise their use are unforgivable, and the simultaneous pursuit of exotic treaties is unfortunate.