Desicritics Category: BizTech: Energy

Machiavellian Fire Fighters

thunga — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 00:10:21 EDT

I have been obsessed with this parable since I stumbled upon it a few days ago.

In ancient China, there was a family of healers, one of whom was known throughout the land and employed as a physician to a great lord. The physician was asked which of his family was the most skillful healer. He replied, “I tend to the sick and dying with drastic and dramatic treatments, and on occasion someone is cured and my name gets out among the lords.

“My elder brother cures sickness when it just begins to take root, and his skills are known among the local peasants and neighbors.

“My eldest brother is able to sense the spirit of sickness and eradicate it before it takes form. His name is unknown outside our home.” LINK

The world is so much filled with mediocrity and fighting the mediocrity to create a better world that fire fighters are celebrated more than actual creators and value adders. The person who was most well known in the above parable is the fire fighter.

This behavior is from time immemorial. Every developer who has coded a module will be aware of fire fighting. Every project manager who has handled a slightly complex project will be aware of fire fighting. What is more surprising is that it is not just the complexity of code or project which substantiates the parable but every team consisting of more than four people promotes and celebrates fire fighters.

It is always better to add to problems or blow up the problem to unmanageable proportions and then get recognition for fire fighting than to nip it in the bud. Some beautiful examples were also discussed in Nassim Taleb's book 'Black Swan'. One of the examples quoted by Taleb is about the 9/11 event in the US. If 9/11 event could have been in some way predicted, it would have never got the publicity that it has enjoyed helping the politicians the misuse for their own personal benefits than to help the humanity and the economy.

The winner in today's corporate and social world is the person who can create the loudest noise about solving a problem than a person who can actually add benefit through better processes and care which will nip the problem in the budding stage itself! If you belong to the latter categories of elder brothers, find joy in your inner abilities and strengths and not in worldly recognition.

Have you had some similar experiences?

Markham Ice Shelf Breaks Away In Arctic

Ashish — Tue, 9 Sep 2008 12:34:29 EDT

With our current sea water levels, we maintain an uneasy balance with the seas and oceans in coastal areas. Housing, habitation, and other forms of human existence are almost on the ocean's doorstep, and there are millions of people living on islands that are only a few meters about the surface of the seas. When we get a storm (call it a hurricane/typhoon/cyclone), the wave front pushed up by the storm typically expands inwards towards land and causes damage; the stronger the storm, the more the damage.

We are also getting more and more into the region where we can start seeing the effects of global warming, and as yet, the engines of civilization are still pumping more chemicals into the air that increase the speed of global warming. Worldwide, countries are not able to agree on what to about global warming, since they fear that any such action will cause an economic damage (never mind that 20-30 years later, we will see much more damage to humanity). As per projections, the massive ice shelfs that exist in the Arctic, the Antarctic, and Greenland contains enough water to raise sea water levels by many meters, and thus unprecedented damage. Scientists are slowly observing that they were not paranoid enough, that there are changes happening to the ice shelfs much ahead of projection:

A 19-square-mile (50 kilometers) ice shelf attached to an island in Canada's northern Arctic for thousands of years has broken from land, another sign of the effect of global warming, scientists said. Nearly the size of Manhattan, the 4,500-year-old Markham Ice Shelf separated from Ellesmere Island in early August and is now floating in the Arctic Ocean, said Luke Copeland, director of the Laboratory for Cryospheric Research at the University of Ottawa.

In January, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said net loss of ice mass in Antarctica increased to 196 billion metric tons in 2006 from 112 metric tons a decade earlier. To have a chance of containing the average worldwide increase in temperature to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) would require cutting global greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 85 percent by 2050, according to the UN panel. Ice shelves, which attach to land and float on the ocean's surface, form through the accumulation of snow and freezing water.

Movement towards preserving the continued economic growth and future of humanity is conditioned upon being able to forestall events that can cause harm to humanity, and this dithering over responsibility and fear of current economic harm if trying to implement caps on emissions is slowly destroying our future.

Navadarshanam: An Experiment in Alternative Living

Anuradha Goyal — Thu, 4 Sep 2008 09:08:25 EDT

Navadarshanam is a 120 acre self sustained settlement, 50 km south of Bangalore. It is an experiment in alternative living, living in a way that does not disturb the balance of the nature around you, unlike what most city dwellers end up doing intentionally or unintentionally.

The Navadarshanam (ND) campus is something that probably many of us would wish to be in, but may not have the necessary courage to create something like this. In its 120 acres, it has few cottages made with eco-friendly construction methods, a small space to process, manufacture and sell health foods, a common kitchen that cooks on health food principles, a gobar (cow dung) gas plant that supplies cooking gas to the kitchen, a wind mill and a few solar panels that generate the electricity for the campus, a cow shed that houses a few cows, some fruit trees and tons of self generated greenery. Anathu, founder member and permanent resident of ND, explains how the barren land regenerated itself, and lakhs of trees germinated out of nowhere, including thousands of sandalwood trees. There are interesting exercising devices that generate electricity and water plants as you exercise. The periphery of the campus is a cool 4km walking track, ideal for a morning and evening walk. You can buy health foods from their simple store, these foods are also available through select Namdhari outlets and a couple of other outlets in Bangalore.

There is an interesting story behind the origin of ND, how some people who were all very highly educated, lived across geographies and were a part of a study circle, came together to create ND. As you listen about this story from Ananthu, you see the elements of destiny, some good intentions and most importantly the intent of actually doing something that people usually keep talking about. And the fact that an external agent in the form of a Swamiji came and put the action into what was being studied, was being spoken about, discussed and written about. Swamiji in a way threw a challenge at this brilliant young team to actually create a space that lived by these principals that this team was inclined to explore. The story of the initial years, of being cheated for the land price and dealing with working on an absolutely new concept in an absolutely ambiguous situation. After all what do you do with so much of barren land, and nothing as your support system. I would like to sit with Ananthu again and explore their journey, because their ND journey is documented, but I want to know about the personal journeys that they have to tread, to create such a concept.

Team at ND is working primarily in five key areas:

1. Eco-restoration: Allowing the earth to create a cover for itself, with a belief that earth is alive just like us and has the power to regenerate for itself.
2. Natural farming: Farming without using any artificial chemicals and without destroying the ecosystem of the surroundings.
3. Health & Food: Research and production of foods that do not disturb the ecology of the body, by way of undigested food.
4. Energy: Generation of energy using wind power, solar energy, animal waste and Honge seeds, all of which are available in abundance.
5. Eco-housing: Construction of houses using the local material and labor, designed in such a way that need for energy is minimal.

ND is a completely Saatvik place, where a conscious effort is made to keep the Rajsik and Tamsik elements away. In that kind of an environment you feel one with nature and one with yourself. This is an environment that makes you question a lot of things that you are doing without questioning. It forces you to think about your purpose of existence. The biggest question that I had in mind was, why we complicate our lives so much, when everything we need is available right there with the nature, why we keep running after all the gadgets and collecting all that we really do not need. I got reminded of my Bhutan visit, where there were no garment stores and people weaved their own clothes, and everyone there was as well dressed as people in any other part of the world.

Though Navadarshanam does not encourage more people visiting it, at least not more than what it can handle, but if this post rings a bell somewhere, it is definitely a place to visit while you are in Bangalore.

Broadband on Batteries

Shantanu Dutta — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 01:35:47 EDT

While booking an air ticket online the other day, there was a power cut just at the point when the gateway was processing the payment from the credit card and the modem shut down. The resulting confusion led to stress as I tried to contact the travel portal, the bank and the airline to get a clear picture regarding ticketing, charging of payment and so on. Online travel portals are not your typical travel agent of old whom you knew by name and had done business with for years. The anonymity of the voice on the other side of the line, the peculiarity of the problem and their obvious inability to understand, let alone help only added to the confusion. This practically undid any advantages that doing transactions online might have provided.

In India, there is a lot of political backing from both the major political formations to increase internet penetration which is among the lowest in the Asia–Pacific region.

“India has the lowest Internet penetration rate at 3 percent in the region, according to a survey by U.S.-based digital research firm comScore Inc. According to the survey

- South Korea boasts of the greatest rate of Internet usage, with 65 percent of its population using the Internet in May.

- China clearly has the largest online population with 91.5 million people. The number of monthly unique Internet users in India is just a quarter of that figure at 22.8 million.”

- South Korea has the most active online population, using the Internet an average of 17.4 days per person in May, and dedicating 31.2 hours to viewing 4,546 pages during the month. Indians on the other hand got onto Cyberspace an average of only 11.4 days per person in May and viewed 1,400 pages over 14.7 hours.

Clearly though, the government is not pushing for internet penetration so that citizens can watch videos on Youtube. Rather the intent is to promote e-commerce and e-governance through the internet platform and thereby increase productivity and efficiency. While all that is a good thing, the commensurate development of an infrastructure backbone is missing.

For instance, look at energy and power generation. After all, my story started with the recounting of a power failure in the middle of a commercial transaction. Even as I write this, electricity in India’s national capital goes on and off several times a day.

Anybody who has ever experienced a power cut in India would know empirically that India simply does not produce enough electricity for its needs and will not do so in the foreseeable future although the national electricity policy envisages power for all by 2012 and per capita availability of power to be increased to more than 1,000 units by 2011-12. With the deadline barely four years away it is impossible that this goal would be ever met.

While industrialization is progressing at a rapid pace, the fact that power generation has not kept up has meant that even relatively less industrialized states like West Bengal which once were power surplus, have power cuts now. In fact, the more industrialized you are, the more is the demand. Maharashtra, for example, faces a deficit of more than 30 per cent In fact, the colloquial term for power cuts “load shedding” has now become part of the country’s rural folk lore.

As I complete typing this piece on a laptop and upload it from a speedy GPRS modem, I remind myself that having a increasingly high tale density of phones and laying strategies to wire up the country to the customer’s doorstep and using Wi Max to connect up the whole country won’t work if we don’t have a proper infra structural backbone. You can’t run a broadband service operating on batteries ! It just does not work !

Nuclear Power - The Seduction of Mephistopheles

C R Sridhar — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:32:24 EDT

‘MEPHISTOPHELES, in the Faust legend, the name of the evil spirit in return for whose assistance Faust signs away his soul.’- Classic Encyclopaedia.

The trope of Nuclear Energy as Mephistopheles is rooted in history. The dropping of the Atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 by the Americans exposed to the world the destructive power of the Atom. The belief that nuclear energy was a benign genie in service of humankind received a rude jolt when accidents occurred in nuclear plants, one of which was the accident at Chernobyl in 1986 in Ukraine when Unit Four of the plant exploded spewing radioactive fission products into the environment. The fallout of radioactivity from Chernobyl had horrific medical and ecological consequences. It is estimated that nearly 10000 persons of 6,50,000 involved in the clean up operation died prematurely. The long radioactive tail reached large areas of the breadbaskets of the Ukraine and Byelorussia contaminating the soil. The fallout also affected other countries such as Austria, Germany, France, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Italy, Baltic states and other countries in the Northern Hemisphere. The incidence of cancer increased significantly among the population living in areas close to the nuclear plant.

The long radioactive tail of Mephistopheles

Before the Chernobyl accident, there was another accident that rocked the complacency of nuclear Industry who said that the chances of a meltdown happening were the same as a bolt of lightening striking a person dead in a parking lot. On March 28, 1979, a nuclear power plant at the Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania had a meltdown on account of a mechanical failure causing the core reactor to overheat. Soon large amounts of radioactivity escaped into the atmosphere. Radioactive water was also released into Susquehanna River, which drains into Chesapeake Bay, a major fishing location. Hundreds of people reported nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, bleeding from the nose, hair loss and skin rash. There were also reported deaths of farm animals and there were fears that the cows were radiated contaminating the milk supply. Official studies on the impact of radiation on health and the increased incidence of cancer among people living near the plant were not conducted raising the suspicion that the government friendly to the nuclear lobby were hushing up the bad news about the radiation and its effects.1

It would be short sighted on our part to view Chernobyl and Three Mile Island as isolated incidents not warranting a caveat on the use of nuclear energy. There were other incidents such as the accident at the Davis-Besse reactor (Ohio), which occurred in 2002. The inspectors found a cavity in the reactor pressure vessel. The stainless steel liner had not ruptured and a major tragedy was averted. The risks of such accidents would increase as the reactors are aging with the bulk of the reactors moving into the old age cycle. The near misses would dangerously increase as the years go by.

The bad news about nuclear safety does not go away. As recently as last month there were radioactive leaks in France. The Guardian (UK) reported ‘Last month an accident at the treatment centre during a draining operation saw liquid containing untreated uranium overflow out of a faulty tank. About 75kg of uranium seeped into the ground and into the Gaffiere and Lauzon rivers which flow into the Rhône.’ This is not the end of the story. As the Guardian again reports ‘But in recent days there have been other, lesser incidents at nuclear sites. In Romans-sur-Isère, north of Tricastin, at another site run by an Areva subsidiary, officials discovered a burst underground pipe which had been broken for years and did not meet safety standards.’ The environment minister, Jean-Louis Borloo, said there were 86 level-one nuclear incidents in France last year and 114 in 2006. More than 80% of France's electricity is generated by the country's 58 nuclear reactors - the world's highest ratio.2

Nuclear Renaissance

In spite of dangers associated with the use of nuclear energy, the seduction of Mephistopheles remains as potent as ever. With Bush – Cheney in US and Sarkozy in France pushing for nuclear energy as an alternative to oil, there appears to be a sort of nuclear renaissance emerging in the wake of oil crisis. The prospects for the nuclear industry seem bright after languishing in doldrums throughout the end of the Twentieth Century as result of environmental movements and protests.

The Nuclear Energy Institute - a propaganda wing of the Nuclear Industry - has spent millions of dollars in spreading highly misleading messages that Nuclear Energy is cheap, clean and green. The ads that reinforce the image of nuclear as a benign force show children gambolling in green grass. The caption at the top of the ad reads - Nuclear Electricity & Clean Air Today & Tomorrow.

Blunting the PR blitz

The propaganda of the Nuclear Industry has not gone unchallenged. In her book Nuclear Power is not the Answer, Dr. Helen Caldicott, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and a leading spokesperson for the anti-nuclear movement, subjects the ‘clean and green’ argument of nuclear energy to withering criticism. She accused the Nuclear Industry of hiding significant facts from the public and peddling nuclear energy with the same ethical disregard to truth as a snake oil salesman.

According to the author, nuclear power ‘is not clean and green’, because large amounts of traditional fossil fuels are required to mine and refine the uranium needed to run nuclear power reactors, to construct the massive concrete reactor buildings, and to transport and store the toxic radioactive waste created by the nuclear process. Moreover, the burning of this fossil fuel emits significant quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2)- the primary greenhouse gas- into the environment. In addition, large amounts of the now banned CFC are emitted during the enrichment of uranium. CFC is more dangerous than CO2 in creating the greenhouse gas and is also a potent destroyer of the ozone layer.

While it is true that nuclear electricity produces one-third of the CO2 emitted from a similar sized conventional gas generator, this is a transitory phase. Soon as the uranium ore declines in grade, more ores are required to be mined by using more fossil fuels. It is estimated that within ten to twenty years nuclear reactors will produce no net energy because of the massive amounts of fossil fuels required to mine and to enrich the poor grades of uranium ores. The tech-fix solution of obtaining large quantities of uranium by reprocessing radioactive spent fuel is not a pragmatic option as it is expensive, extremely hazardous for the workers and releases large amount of radioactive material into the air. In the long run the nuclear plants would emit the same amounts of greenhouse gasses and air pollution as conventional power plants.

Safe running of the nuclear plants do not guarantee they would be emission free. Government regulations allow the nuclear plants to emit thousands of curies of radioactive gasses and material into the air. There is also radioactive waste in accumulating in the cooling pools in the nuclear plants in the world. As the author warns, ‘this waste contains extremely toxic elements that will inevitably pollute the environment and human food chains, a legacy that will lead to epidemics of cancer, leukaemia, and genetic disease in population living near nuclear power plants or radioactive waste facilities for many generations to come.’3

A white elephant

Contrary to the optimistic pronouncement of the Nuclear Industry that nuclear electricity is cheap in as much as it costs only 1.7 cents per kilowatt hour when compared to coal costing 2 cents and gas fired power costing 5.7 cents it is actually exorbitant. The estimates are misleading as they are based on the operational costs of existing plants. Moreover as the author points out ‘ They represent a classic omission of capital costs from a pricing equation.’4 Once realistic construction and running costs are considered, the price of nuclear electricity rises from an estimated 3 pence per kilowatt hour (5 cents in US) to 8.3 pence (14 cents). The capital costs of new plants are very high whereas the costs of running old reactors are not that high. When other costs are added such as subsidies received out of tax payers money, managing pollution, health costs in the event of radiation and its treatment and costs of maintaining nuclear plants secure from terrorist attacks, nuclear energy loses its appeal as a cheap source of electricity.

The road to Perdition

Apart from the disadvantages of high cost and high risk, nuclear energy also opens the Pandora’s box of proliferation of atomic weaponry. Every nuclear power plant has the potential of being an atom bomb factory. A 1000-megawatt nuclear reactor manufactures 500 pounds of plutonium a year; normally ten pounds of plutonium is fuel for an atom bomb. A bomb made from the plutonium could easily devastate a city making the world an unsafe place. Any non-nuclear weapon state could easily acquire a nuclear plant and have the ability to make nuclear bombs.

With technology becoming simpler and information becoming available on the Internet, the technology to make bombs with nuclear material is not an esoteric skill, which is beyond the means of any rogue state.

In the Indian sub-continent both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons. It is estimated that India has 65 nuclear weapons, Pakistan has 30 to 50 weapons and China has 400 weapons. To add to the dangerous scenario, India is being positioned by US to contain China’s rise to super power status. The simmering tension between India and China could worsen in the times to come. The uneasy relationship between India and Pakistan does not augur well for peace in the sub-continent. The prospect of nuclear Armageddon is not science fiction but a case of fiction becoming reality.

A more sustainable energy policy

Electricity is generated when heat boils water converting into steam, which turns turbine-producing electricity. From the energy perspective ‘a nuclear reactor’ - in the words of Helen Caldicott - ‘ is just a very sophisticated and dangerous way to boil water - analogous to cutting a pound of butter with a chain saw.’5

Globally, coal supplies about 64% of the world’s electricity, hydro and nuclear each provide 17%, and renewable energy provide 2%. But recent studies indicate that solar power could supply clean electricity to 100 million people living in the sunny parts of the world by 2025. Tidal and Wind power could provide up to 20% of the UK’s current electricity needs. An integrated energy plan using a mix of wind power, cogeneration, geothermal energy, biomass, and tidal/ wave power combined with energy conservation could displace existing reliance on nuclear power. And with the shift of resources in the form of billions of dollars given as subsidies to the nuclear industry to renewable energy the dream of a clean world environment would be realised.

Individuals need not be mere pawns in the game that big energy corporations play for their own ends. They could play an important role in measures promoting energy conservation – simple acts as not driving fuel guzzling SUV’s, not leaving lights burning all over the house, relying less on air conditioners and heaters by allowing the sweat glands to work more or wearing heavy sweaters in times of winter. Some lifestyle changes are painful but necessary. But self- sacrifice and nobility also motivate human beings. As Helen Caldicott aptly says in the last chapter of her remarkable book, ‘These are the qualities that will lead the world toward sanity and survival.’6

Also hopefully, end the fatal seduction of Mephistopheles once and for all.

--------------------------
1 Nuclear Power is not the Answer- Helen Caldicott- Books for Change- pages 65-74.
2 Accidents tarnish nuclear dream-environment- The Guardian.
3 Nuclear Power is not the Answer- Helen Caldicott- Introduction- page ix.
4 Nuclear Power is not the Answer- page 19.
5 Nuclear Power is not the Answer- page xii.
6 Nuclear Power is not the Answer- page 183.

Poetry: Grains - of Truth, Sand and Biofuel

temporal — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 12:57:17 EDT

Photograph: Charlie Neibergall/AP

in our wakeful moments
we're legends, walking time
but when mother time wins
we'd be grains of sand
on the spacious shoreline
of the sea of history

with six billion plus
demanding more and more
the planet's patience
not inexhaustible
the poor feel the pinch
with increasing pain

oil, non renewable
we look for alternatives
and bio-fuel lures
grains get diverted
making a few relieved
but the plenty
go hungry and riot

unprepared, unable
to solve their leaders
entrench and buy more arms
the hungry millions
up in arms, without
can only whimper, die

the gleeful arms merchants
seeing profits in grain
smile obliviously
less is more, they think

***

biofuel
secret report

Oil Price Hike - The Left and the Right

Suresh Naig — Thu, 5 Jun 2008 08:04:34 EDT

After a fortnight of uncertainty the UPA Government has hiked the price of petroleum products in India. As if the woes of escalated petroleum prices are not sufficient, the Left Front has organized a week long protests against petroleum price hike. Already many flights and trains have been cancelled in and out of Kolkata.

It is easier to sit in the back seat and give directions to the driver, than driving an automobile. If the Left is so convinced that the petroleum price hike is unjustified, despite spiralling international crude prices, they have the clout in Parliament and can withdraw support. Without their support, the UPA Government will fall. Alternatively they can suggest to the petroleum ministry the ways and means to check the retail price of petroleum and still can earn profit.

Instead they have taken the protests to the street, inconveniencing the already harassed public, harassed by high inflation, tumbling share prices, low return on investments etc. The week long bandh and protests are carried out in spite of the courts declaring these as illegal and the parties concerned should compensate for the loss arising out of it. The comments made by Mr.Cho Ramasamy, sometime back about Leftists in India are pertinent.

When the Left has a future in India, India has no future left.

The Law of Unintended Consequences in China

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Fri, 1 Feb 2008 01:00:58 EST

China has a controlled economy. Well, some parts are controlled. Well, it tries to control them. The current situation illustrates the law of unintended consequences flow through.

The basic problem?

Sufficient power is not being generated by the power plants.

Why aren't they generating enough power?

Well, because power prices are controlled.

Why are power prices controlled?

Because in general, prices are going through the roof in China and the Communist controllers do not want inflation to go unchecked. They have to keep the great unwashed herd quiet, and there is nothing like inflation to get people excited. So they control prices.

But whose prices are not controlled?

Coal.

So what is happening to the coal price?

It is going through the roof and becoming very expensive. I quote:

"Global coal prices, in the meantime, have soared in recent months, by 50-60 per cent, with the largest rise occurring in recent weeks because of the Australian floods."

So why is that important?

Well, most of the power generators in China use coal to generate power, and if the final product - power - is price controlled and the inputs are not, then this happens: I quote:

"Against this background, power companies have been refusing to pay the prices they negotiated with the coal companies earlier this year. And the longer the delay in honouring these contracts, the higher the asking price for coal."

So, no coal, no power. Welcome to a controlled economy. What happens to inflation?

Well, that's still going to go through the roof. I quote:

Snow battering central China has dealt an "extremely serious" blow to winter crops, a top agriculture official warned Thursday, raising the likelihood that future shortages would exaggerate already surging food prices.

See here for what happens when food prices are too high. This is becoming a serious world problem.

Technorati Tags: China, Economics

How Green is My Antilla!

arZan — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 01:00:28 EST

In a hard hitting and valid argument Daniel Brook talks about Mukesh Ambani's Antilla being billed as a Green Building by its American architects Perkins+Will.

When completed, the 24-story Ambani family home will include its own health club, terraced sky-gardens, and 50-seat screening room (the reclusive Ambani is reputed to be a huge Bollywood fan). Antilla also boasts three helipads and a 168-car garage. This may sound like transportation overkill, if not outright eco-terrorism, for a family of six. But despite its 38-to-1 car-to-person ratio, Antilla has been billed by its American architects as a “green building.” And under the leading standards for green architecture, the building will likely qualify.

The LEED rating system at best is a guideline and at worst is riddled with loopholes.

Installing a $395 bike rack is worth the same under the LEED checklist system as installing a $1.3 million environmentally sensitive heating system. Which is the cynical builder going to choose?

This allows for architects like Perkins+Will to claim to design green buildings while in reality it is all a hogwash.

The rating system is designed for US standards and when implemented on Indian conditions and buildings, every project could bag the "green" tag.

Perkins+Will is not the only ones who ride the hype-mobile. Even reputed Indian architects like Karan Grover do the same. By understanding the system and finding the loopholes, Grover has the "distinction" of being the first architect with both a LEED Platinum Building and a LEED Platinum Commercial Interior project.

Even FXFowle who is designing the India towers at Charni Road in Mumbai are billing their project to be

within a sustainable network of green roofs and hanging gardens; creating a singular, extraordinary building that, when completed, will be the tallest and greenest - building in India. [link]

Green has become the buzzword of the latter half of this decade. And it helps to sell everything from food to apartments costing millions (in whatever currency).

And from what I read and see, India seems to be picking up the hype which has somehow started clearing out in the US, as the article above points out .

The Indian Green Building Council has just now woken up to the big difference in standards and the first LEED guidelines are being formalized for India. However it will take a few years for the real effects to trickle down to the individual building level.

People like Mukesh Ambani and Reliance should be leading the way instead of being an example of the moral bankruptcy that Reliance has time and again shown.

Architects in India have an easier job designing in sustainable ways. A lot of our building materials procurement and construction technology are sustainable to start with. Indian architects, developers and designers have a real opportunity to push beyond the "green" envelope and set an example.

Environmentalism, Global Warming, & The Tata Nano

Siddhartha Shome — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 07:26:49 EST

A few days ago, we were witness to a a spectacular event - the unveiling by Tata Motors of the world’s cheapest car ever, the Nano, which has a base price of just Rs. one lakh (Rs.100,000 or US$2,500). When, amidst unprecedented hype and anticipation, the “people’s car” was unveiled, it exceeded all expectations. What we saw was the cutest little car ever, with room for four adults, and with adequate power for Indian city roads.

What the Nano Means for India

The Indian middle class has already fallen in love with the Nano. Some two hundred thousand people thronged the Auto Expo in New Delhi to get their first glimpse of the car (link). And no wonder! According to the rating agency CRISIL, “the new price point translates into a 65% increase in the number of Indian families that can afford a car” (link).

Millions of Indians look to the Nano to fulfil their dreams of car ownership, and most importantly, to provide safe transportation. In Delhi alone about 1,800 people die on on the roads each year - about one-third of them on two-wheelers, while only 5% die in cars (link). In Mumbai more than 3,000 die every year in the city’s dangerously overcrowded commuter rail system alone (link). While unveiling the Nano, the chairman of Tata Motors, Ratan Tata, explained the motivation for developing this car, “I observed families riding on two-wheelers – the father driving the scooter, his young kid standing in front of him, his wife seated behind him holding a little baby. It led me to wonder whether one could conceive of a safe, affordable, all-weather form of transport for such a family.”

The World Takes Note

One of the most remarkable aspects of the Tata Nano has been the very high level of prominence it has received in the world media. This is possibly the first time ever that an Indian product developed by an Indian company has been seen as a worldwide leader in innovation and technology. (see for examples, the New York Times, Businessweek, the Economist, ABC News).

Typical was an article entitled “Can Detroit be Relevant?” in the New York Times, which said,

This week, Rick Wagoner, chief executive of General Motors, was at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas talking about driverless cars and the Cadillac Provoq, a concept vehicle powered by a fuel cell. But bigger news came half a world away, at the New Delhi Auto Expo in India. Tata Motors was unveiling the Nano. Nicknamed the People’s Car, the Nano is a small $2,500 car that is expected to revolutionize the auto industry, in India, at least (link).

An Article in a British newspaper actually speculated on the possibility of the Tata Nano ushering in world peace,

Perhaps the idea of the car industry succeeding in bringing peace and prosperity to parts of the developing world where countless governments and other institutions have failed is just too fanciful, but if it ever happens, just remember that it all started with the little Indian (link).

The Detractors

While the Tata Nano has already become India’s pride and joy, and is seen as a world leader in technology and innovation, it does have its share of detractors.

Land Acquisition for the Manufacturing Plant

When Tata Motors was looking for a site to locate a new manufacturing plant for its small car, the state government of West Bengal government successfully persuaded Tata to choose Singur, near Kolkata, as their site. In order to make space for the plant, the West Bengal government had to acquire land from farmers in Singur - a small part of it forcibly. This land acquisition has now snowballed into a major controversy.

While I realize that the West Bengal government could perhaps have done a better job in dealing with the land acquisition at the local level, I fully support their basic idea of turning Singur into an industrial area. It is clear that compared to agriculture, the auto industry in Singur will generate a much higher volume of economic activity, and will also create many more man-days of gainful employment - employment that is likely to be much better in terms of pay, benefits, etc. I do believe that generous compensation should be provided to those who have lost their land, and help and training should be provided as well, to enable them to adjust to their new lives and take advantage of the new economic opportunities that open up.

The Tata Nano and Oil Prices

Some commentators have criticized the Tata Nano on the grounds that widespread car ownership in India will push up the worldwide price of oil (link). This is really an absurd argument. After all, don’t people in India have the right to buy petroleum products (or in economic terms, “create demand” for oil), just as people in the United States or Europe do? It is like criticizing ordinary middle-class families for buying homes and driving up land prices, thereby making it more difficult for the rich to buy their mansions.

It is true that demand for oil has been rising because of economic growth in China, India, etc. However, it is important to note that this is not the only factor driving up the price of oil. The increase in the price of oil has been disproportionately larger than the growth in demand. Today, the price of oil is far far higher than the economic cost of its extraction. The main reason for this is the monopolization of the crude oil market by a cartel of sellers – the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). It is well known that when monopolies exist, markets cease to function effectively. That is why most countries have anti-monopoly laws. Unfortunately, no such laws exist for sovereign states. As a consequence, OPEC has been able to indulge in the worst kind of price gouging. In order to counter OPEC’s monopoly, I feel that oil importing countries should organize themselves into a buyers’ cartel. The combined buying power of an anti-OPEC buyers’ cartel should be used to bargain effectively with OPEC and drive down the price of oil, much like what Wal-Mart does with its suppliers.

Opposition by Environmentalists

Some environmentalists have severely criticized the Tata Nano, for its perceived negative impact on the environment. One of the most prominent of these is Sunita Narain of the Center for Science and Environment (CSE), who has called for the Tata Nano to be “taxed like crazy”. Another prominent environmentalist, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (which won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, along with Al Gore) remarked that he is “having nightmares” about the Tata Nano.

I think these environmentalists have got it completely wrong.

The Tata Nano and Mass Transit

Some have put forward the argument that instead of small cars, Indians should concentrate on mass transit. I agree that India should indeed invest heavily in mass transit. However, I do not think that this calls for severe curbs (“tax it like crazy”) on the auto industry. This is not a zero-sum game. This is not an “either-or” situation.

Among Indian cities, Delhi has a much more extensive mass transit system than, say, Kolkata. But Delhi also has a higher rate of car ownership than Kolkata. In reality, car ownership is much more closely tied to peoples’ incomes than to the presence or absence of mass transit.

A few months ago I was in France on vacation. I was most impressed with the excellent public transport system there. However, in spite of an impressive mass transit system, car ownership in France is high - almost 500 cars for every 1000 people (India has 7 cars for every 1000 people) (link, link). Car ownership in France is high, not because the mass transit system there is bad, but simply because peoples’ incomes are high.

Had widespread car ownership spelt doom for public transportation (i.e., buses), the introduction of the Tata Nano would surely have been bad news for Indian bus manufacturers. But guess who is India’s largest bus and truck manufacturer? Tata Motors itself! It does not appear that Tata Motors is the slightest bit concerned that sales of the Nano will cannibalize its bus sales, even though Tata’s profit margin on buses is probably larger than it’s going to be on the Nano. Clearly this is not a zero-sum game. The automobile industry in India is not fundamentally opposed to the idea of mass transit. On the contrary, a healthy and growing economy, of which the auto industry forms an important component, is necessary to pay for large mass transit projects.

The Tata Nano and Global Warming

Some environmentalists have denounced the Tata Nano on the grounds that widespread car ownership in India will worsen global warming. While I do recognize the necessity of dealing with global warming, I feel that the environmentalists’ whole approach to dealing with this issue is fundamentally flawed.

Many environmentalists take the view that human civilization and development have been unmitigated disasters for the planet. In this view, human activities such as economic development, industrialization, consumerism, car-ownership, etc., have been guilty of destroying the environment and causing global warming. Supposedly the only way out is to curb these human activities and abandon our vain attempts to achieve progress and “growth”. In this view, an ideal society is one that is based on limited ambition, limited needs and subsistence production.

Based on the core idea that human activities are inherently bad for the planet, the solutions that environmentalists propose generally involve imposition of limits, quotas, punitive taxes, restrictions, etc., with the aim of curbing human activities and human initiative.

The Problem With the Limits and Quotas Approach

Limits and quotas can certainly lead to some modest incremental reductions in energy consumption. However, to address major environmental problems such as global warming, it is necessary to achieve not just modest reductions, but fundamental paradigm-changing shifts in energy usage. In other words, key breakthroughs in energy technology are needed. It is extremely unlikely that such key breakthroughs can ever be achieved through the limits-and-quotas approach. Consider the following.

None of the key breakthroughs in computer technology can be attributed to the effect of quotas or limits. As authors Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger point out, it is highly unlikely that simply introducing restrictive quotas for typewriters would have instigated critical breakthroughs in computer technology. Rather, public investment in science and technology research played a huge role in ushering in the computer age – by nurturing once fledgling technologies such as the silicon chip, the internet, etc.

One of the greatest achievements of the twentieth century was the Green Revolution, a paradigm-changing transformation of agriculture in countries like India. It dramatically increased food production, thereby avoiding the Malthusian catastrophe of a global “gigantic inevitable famine” caused by population growth outstripping food supply. During the Green Revolution new high yielding varieties (HYV) of seeds were developed, and technologies and infrastructure such as pesticides, fertilizers, and irrigation systems were made available to farmers. Just like the Computer Revolution, it was not primarily the introduction of quotas and limits (say food quotas), but rather, large public investments and human ingenuity that made the Green Revolution possible.

What many environmentalists do not seem to understand is that fundamental environmental problems like global warming cannot be solved simply by imposing limits and restrictions. If problems like global warming are ever to be solved, they will be solved by human ingenuity, by technological innovation, by further human progress. The idea that the environment can be saved by severely curbing human ingenuity and human initiative is, I believe, fundamentally flawed.

At its core, the world-view held by many environmentalists is deeply conservative. They wish to conserve - to preserve - the world as it was before large scale human intervention in nature. Human society too, they argue, should revert back to the way it was before modern development and industrialization. People are urged to preserve traditional hereditary occupations and traditional means of organizing society. In their view, farmers (and farmers’ children too) should forever remain farmers and never seek better paying industrial jobs. Moreover, farmers are urged to shun modern technologies such as genetically modified seeds, irrigation canals, chemical fertilizers, mechanization, etc., in favor of traditional technologies and subsistence agriculture. In this view, the millions of poor in India should always maintain their traditional way of life, and should always be satisfied with whatever standard of living is achievable through their traditional occupations and traditional technologies. They should never even aspire to possess consumer goods like cell phones, cars, etc. As writer and activist Arundhati Roy puts it, “the idea of turning one billion people into consumers is terrifying... are you going to starve to death dreaming of a mobile phone or are you going to have control of the resources that are available to you and have been for generations....?” (link)

I completely reject this conservative environmentalist world-view. My world-view is a progressive one. I believe that while we should seek to mitigate the negative side-effects of development such as environmental over-exploitation and global warming, the emphasis must be on moving forward, on further human progress. Human civilization and development have been wonderful. People today live longer, fuller, lives, with more prosperity, freedom, opportunity, and choice, than ever before. How can this be a bad thing? The world needs more progress and development, not less.

How to Solve Global Warming

The way I see it, the solution to global warming lies not in restricting, but rather, in encouraging human ingenuity and human initiative to develop new innovative clean energy technologies. For example, Tata Motors, the maker of the Tata Nano, is also investing in clean energy technologies such as cars running on compressed air (link) and cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells (link). Unfortunately, while environmentalists are very vocal in criticizing of the Nano, they fall completely silent when it comes to praising Tata Motors for its clean energy efforts.

While it is important that private companies invest in clean energy technologies, these may not be enough. In order to solve the problem of global warming, it is necessary to develop fundamental paradigm-changing new energy technologies. It is not enough to just depend on free market mechanisms and private companies for this. While free markets and private enterprises work well to incrementally refine technology, giving birth to revolutionary new technologies may not be possible without large public investments. In my view, any program to deal with global warming must have, as its central component, large-scale public investment for research into new innovative clean energy technologies.

At its core, our approach to dealing with global warming must articulate a positive vision that people can embrace, not just a nightmare that people need to be scared of. As authors Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger point out, the great American Civil Rights leader, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., is remembered not for his “I have a Nightmare” speech, but for his “I have a Dream” speech.

Imagine if, instead of criticizing the Tata Nano as a “nightmare”, Dr. Pachauri, the eminent environmentalist, had said something like this: “I have a dream that one day every Indian family will be able to afford a car that runs on clean energy. This can never happen by making cars prohibitively expensive through high taxes, but this dream can become a reality if technological innovations make clean energy affordable to all. I call upon the United Nations to fund a massive international effort to develop new affordable clean energy technologies”.

Now, that would have been a vision I’d have loved to embrace. Dreams, Dr. Pachauri, are more powerful than nightmares!

References

Some of the ideas on environmentalism expressed here have been inspired by reading the book “Breakthrough” by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, and attending their talk at Berkeley, California. For more about the book, click here. A recording of the talk is available here.