TRUTH ABOUT INDIAN GOVERNMENT

Today the truth and efficacy of Indian government,s quick fix / patchwork solutions to the economic problems being faced by the Indian economy was laid bare when the GDP growth figures for the year 2012-13 were announced and came to a dismal sub 5%, at a ten year low. Indian planners, economists and financial experts are failing to understand that the fundamental principles of economics and banking alone cannot end the miseries of the nation. In fact this reminds me about the end results witnessed by a mathematics enthusiast as is told to school students down the generations from times immemorial. A mathematician was to cross a rivulet near his village along with his family. After finding out the averages of both the water  depth and height of members of the family, he ordered the family to march ahead. To his surprise none of the members could reach the other end of the stream. He checked and rechecked both the averages a number of times and when no anomaly came to light he simply remarked with astonishment. " The maths is absolutely right but how come the family got drowned???".

The same seems to be dilemma of Indian rulers. They are simply ignoring the crucial fact that all theories work under suitable conditions. In fact the sooner they realize the importance of economics, governance and inflation in India, the better it will be for the country. We have seen the negative effects of trying to reign in inflation through monetary policies alone and have ended up with massive slow down of economy. For managing current account deficit no worthwhile effort has been made and if India is a little better placed today it is because of international prices of crude and gold have come down temporarily. God bless the country once the uptrend in the prices resumes!!!!!

The so called reforms undertaken by the government are supposed to make better atmosphere for more investments by the foreign investors but it could attract only FII money  and hardly anything has come through FDI route which could have been a real force multiplier. This would happen only when the Indian government could convince the world about its intentions of providing good corruption free governance and a will to do something that is good for Indian growth at higher rates around 9-10%. 

The fiscal deficit control through reducing oil subsidy only to give government leverage to go ahead with food security bill and by divestment by selling country's jewels are again negative means and will do more harm than any good to the economy. These improvisations may win a battle for UPA in the next election but India will definitely lose the war for becoming prosperous and global economic super power. 

INDIAN DREAMS Vs REALITY: NUCLEAR POWER - THE FUTURE FOR INDIA ????: Recently the Russian ambassador, Alexander Kadakin made a statement that Nuclear power is the future for India and contended that even if ...

The Biggest Battery You Haven’t Seen

Lauren Sommer, KQED Science | May 24, 2013 | 

PG&E’s Dave Fribush shows the interior of their 4 MW battery storage project in San Jose. (Photo: PG&E)

You probably wouldn’t notice it if you drove right past it — but this week PG&E unveiled California’s largest battery, now storing electrons in San Jose. The project is a pilot for energy storage technology, as electric utilities look for ways to balance increasing amounts of solar and wind energy on the grid.

The 4-megawatt sodium-sulfur array can power about 2,400 homes for up to seven hours. That takes a mighty big battery. “If you pulled a semi-truck up next to it, it would be about the same length and a little bit taller,” says Jon Eric Thalman of PG&E.

Storing electricity is not something utilities have traditionally done. “On the grid, we generate the amount of power that is needed, minute-by-minute,” Thalman says. “We don’t store it and have it at the ready.”

But the electric grid is rapidly changing in California. When the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, solar and wind farms produce electricity much like traditional power plants do. But if clouds pass over a solar project, “the change in power can be 80 percent of its output, easily,” says Thalman. “Something has to make up that drop and it happens in seconds.”

The battery holds seven hours of electricity for 2,400 homes. (Photo: PG&E)

That’s where PG&E’s battery project comes in. While this project is small, PG&E says it’s a pilot for energy storage projects down the road. “It is one of the main ways to think about storing energy because it’s so flexible, but there are challenges as have to solve,” says Venkat Srinivasan, of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.

“They are more expensive than we want them to be, but I think it’s a start,” he says. “It’s showing the proof of principal. I think we need more of these before we figure out if these are viable technologies that we can use on a big scale.” PG&E’s $18 million project was funded in part by a $3 million grant from the California Energy Commission.

Fluctuations in renewable energy are currently balanced by natural gas power plants. PG&E also has a “pumped hydro” project where water is pumped uphill when there’s excess electricity and then generates power through a dam when demand peaks.

“There’s a lot things that batteries can do that traditional resources can’t,” says Thalman. “The question for utilities and the operators is: do we want to value that? Batteries and energy storage can respond a lot faster than traditional sources. That’s not something we value right now with a market.”

Renewable energy, a land guzzler | Business Line

SHILPI KAPUR BAKSHI

  

No coal is all very well, but solar power should not take away productive land.

Ads by Google

Agriculture Land For Sale - Haryana's Trusted Name In Offering Complete Real Estate Solutions.
rkassociateschd.in/Enquire_Now

Unfortunately, renewable energy is being promoted on prime farmland rather than wasteland. A policy solution is needed.

India is blessed with a variety of these clean renewable energy alternatives – biomass, solar energy, wind energy and hydro power. This has encouraged the Government of India to set ambitious targets for renewable energy.

The National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) has set an ambitious goal of a one per cent annual increase in renewable energy generation. The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNSM) has set its own ambitious target of adding 1GW of capacity between 2010 and 2013 and seeks to increase combined solar capacity from 9MW in 2010 to 20GW by 2022. However, India’s interest and efforts in promoting renewable energy may soon create newer sustainability concerns. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy appears to have overlooked the growing conflict between renewable energy and land.

Scarce resource

Land is an already scarce resource in India, with demand from farmers to industrial houses to service institutions and the Government. To this list another claimant has been added; many forms of green energy, especially solar, wind and biomass, rely on huge tracts of land in order to be viable. Setting up renewable energy plants can lead to both direct land transformation that comes with the setting up of the project, and land degradation created by pollutants from fuel and material cycles associated with running these plants.

INDIAN DREAMS Vs REALITY: HARNESSING SOLAR ENERGY FOR ENERGY SECURITY:AN ETE...: All life on our planet, be it human, animal or plant owes its very existence to the solar energy. The food chain, the carbon cycle and the...

INDIAN DREAMS Vs REALITY: CHALLENGES BEFORE INDIA , THE POTENTIAL ECONOMIC S...: Twenty first century belongs to Asia and India is potentially one of strongest contender for emerging as an economic superpower. This oppo...

FREEING CENTRAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (CBI) FROM GOVERNMENT'S STRANGLEHOLD

Freeing central bureau of investigation, the premier investigation agency of government of India from the government's stranglehold has drawn a lot of attention during the last couple of decades. The issue was a major bone of contention between the government and majority of Indian polity  and Anna Hazare and civil society activists during the discussions on the Lok Pal issue. Now that the apex court of the country has come heavily on the government regarding the meddling into the CBI's investigations by one and all mighty and powerful of the government. The court had called CBI, a caged parrot speaking master's voice and that it had too many masters. The government has been compelled into setting up a committee of 'Group of Ministers' (GoM) after sacrificing its Law Minister over the issue.

How sincere is the government's effort is anybody's guess? One thing is absolutely clear. The establishment will fight tooth and nail to retain control over its strongest political ally i.e. CBI, which has been used in political emergencies from time to time by simply tightening or loosening the noose around the neck of its adversaries at appropriate timings, if not for something more deleterious to the national interest. It is not for nothing that the country finds strange bed fellows whenever the government is tottering in numbers in the parliament.The effort will perhaps be to provide some semblance of insulation from external influence rather than giving it autonomy. The motto of loyalty to the chair/master/vested self interests rather than loyalty to the national interests will come to fore during all deliberations on the issue.

New technology to instantly convert solar energy into electricity

A Vijayawada-based solar energy equipment manufacturer, Jyothi Solar Power Projects has claimed that by using two new technologies together with the existing photo-voltaic (PV) panel system, 91 per cent of the Sun’s energy could be converted into electrical power.

At a meeting to showcase the technologies here on Saturday, P. Lakshminarayana, Director-Technical of the company said they had applied for patents.

They include ‘Twintin’, a system based on sensors that could synchronise PV panels with the Sun’s movement, thus capturing maximum heat and a Multi-Junctional Device (MJD) with Nano technology that could instantly convert solar energy into electrical power.

Asked about when the product would be available in the market, he said it would be a few more months for the necessary approvals and stamp of recognition to come. “We have already got patent approvals by the Indian Research Association,” he stated. Government of India would get royalty for 20 years for the first international research patent (Space Solar Exploratory Research). In two months, the company’s technical team would prove the technology by generating 40 megawatts of solar power in the presence of scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, USA. A young scientist with Jyothi Solar Power Projects, Prasanna Kumar said the cost would work out to between Rs. 1 and 1.2 lakh per kilowatt of electrical power produced. Currently, he said between 14 and 16 per cent of solar energy was converted into electrical power in India.

Nuclear power is not the answer to our energy needs

11:15 a.m. EDT, May 9, 2013

Dan Ervin's commentary on lifting restrictions on U.S. companies supplying nuclear power equipment abroad is completely misleading ("A nuclear opportunity," May 6).

Nuclear energy is not, as Mr. Ervin says, pollutant free or carbon free. Government regulations allow nuclear power plants to deliberately' and routinely emit hundreds of thousands of curies of radioactive gases and other radioactive elements into the environment every day. Radiation cannot be seen, felt or tasted, so I'm wondering if this is why Mr. Ervin feels he can credibly say that nuclear power is pollution free.

As far as carbon dioxide-free, the energy used to create nuclear energy — to mine the uranium ore, crush, mull and enrich it, then create the concrete and steel container vessel for the reactor and store the hot radioactive nuclear waste — all comes from the consumption of fossil fuels.

Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/readersrespond/bs-ed-nuclear-industry-20130509,0,7641347.story#ixzz2SwQFLNVS

RAILWAY MINISTER RESIGNS AT LAST

At last the railway minister of India, Mr Bansal resigns. The media is happy, the opposition is happy and even the ruling combine is happy, for all of them can beat their drum and further fool around the simpleton masses to carry on with their respective march to glory. The media seeks greater viewership through this success, the opposition seeks some credit for getting more votes in the next elections whereas the Congress party will seek credit for being the only party which has taken action against its own minister in the light of corruption charges against the individual. But the fact is something else. The railway minister has been sacrificed at the altar of the demon of corruption by these wise men only to give themselves a chance of carrying on with the national loot at all fronts. It is a measure that is only to calm down the gullible masses and kill the very seeds of a silent revolution that is brewing up within the citizenry to find an end to the colossus corruption, bribery, loot and even the high handedness of the powerful and mighty of the nation.

Corruption is not confined to a few odd  individuals and actions. It is the whole system, it is the entire gamut of activity of governance, activity of allocating natural resources in the name of national good. The involvement in corruption activity is so large and widespread that even if India devotes half of its human resource in probing, investigating and prosecuting  those involved in the art of corruption, it will take ages to achieve something more than simply touching the tip of the iceberg.

Sisters and brothers of India, whether from villages or cities, from  any religion, caste or creed,rich or poor, don't be taken in by any of the tricks of politicians, for end of corrupt people  and corruption will be the end of your poverty and miseries.Your poverty is a direct result of  corruption  by  those in authority and power.

And unless and until there is a systemic change in the method of finding out the corrupt and guilty, to bring them to book and putting the loot back into the national exchequer, India and its hapless masses will keep on suffering the pangs of hunger and pain. This change will not come through merely begging/asking all those who have tasted the blood of corruption but has to be wrought by forcing them to write their own death warrant of complete removal of corruption, corrupt practices and black money. 

INDIAN DREAMS Vs REALITY: NOW NUCLEAR POWER PLANT THROUGH SUPREME COURT JUDG...: The government of India, a government sans governance and the ruling polity has always been objecting to the judicial activism of the Ind...

COALGATE INVESTIGATIONS FOR PROTECTING NATIONAL INTERESTS OR INTERESTS Of RULING COMBINE

India has witnessed a host of scams during the rule of the present government. It is a pity that no investigation seems to be reaching the desired conclusion of booking the rogues and extracting best value from allocation of national resources. While all the nations which have been endowed with rich mineral resources have managed to become prosperous courtesy rising international commodity prices, the Indian nation seems to be getting poorer and poorer courtesy gross mismanagement and vested interests and hidden agenda of those in power. Much to the chagrin of all well meaning citizens of India, the battle goes on with all professional advocates belonging to the executive including legislative executive defending all the actions with the sole motto of saving the guilty rather than nailing them. It will not be out of place to add here that  all successful professional advocates have never sided with truth and all their brilliance comes into play for sowing the seeds of doubt and inadequacy of proof by intentionally ignoring or side tracking everything that could go against their client. They are definitely partially true to their profession in looking after the interests of their clients/paymasters/masters to the best of their ability but woefully untrue to the profession and humanity when it comes to finding out the truth.

The nadir of values in the Indian rulers is all the more inevitable when you see them sticking to the principle of loyalty to the chair and not the nation. Their allegiance to the party gets strengthened with the fear of not only losing power but also the credibility of their electability in future. After all do people at such high and responsible positions need be reminded that country comes first and the government, party and their colleagues do not matter and can be sacrificed at the altar of the nation if need be for the sake of truth.

Whatever is going on in the matter of affidavit of Central Bureau of Investigation submitted to the apex court of the country is a typical case in point. The contention of the street smart advocates in the ruling elite smacks of their concern for retaining their ill gotten position at all expense rather than working for the interests of the nation. One is left wondering if the coalgate investigations are for protecting national interests or interests of the ruling combine. Is their some agency or organ of the government meant for working whole heartedly in the interest of the nation? Only some true legal luminary can throw some light on this, if at all we have one in the country. To a normal man we only have a bunch of street smart advocates who only know how to twist, mask or shroud truth to uphold their baser instincts and distorted values.

France urged to triple solar PV target to 15 GW by 2020 by Tim Tyler

Cleantechnica

A study recently published by the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME) suggests that France’s Solar PV target for 2020 should be 15 GW instead of its current 5.4 GW.

According to ADEME, solar PV has the potential to reach grid parity in France in the coming few years, and therefore is an essential component of sustainable energy policies.

At the end of 2012, France had a cumulative PV capacity of just 4 GW (including capacity installed in Corsica and its overseas territories). Although, France did celebrate adding 1.08 GW of PV capacity in 2012, represented by over 34,500 solar power plants, according to the country’s Ministry of Energy, Ecology and Sustainable Development.

If France expanded its national solar business, there would of course be numerous economic and environmental benefits. One of the key benefits of solar PV is the creation of jobs. According  to ADEME, there are “numerous French companies that are dedicated to the development of technologies of innovative manufacturing (cells, modules and electronics).”

ADEME recommends that France concentrate on installing large rooftop solar PV systems to boost installed capacity and support the domestic solar industry.

The French solar industries association, Enerplan, thinks that 15 GW is still not enough, however. Enerplan’s general secretary, Richard Loyen, has suggested that France set a solar PV target of 20 GW:

The best way to achieve the competitiveness of the French PV industry is to provide it with a secured volume and a sustainable framework.

Last year, France had a broad national discussion on how the country should transform its energy system. President Francois Hollande announced that the percentage of energy generated from nuclear power would decrease to 50%, from its current 75%, by 2025.

Small-scale solar PV booming in the US

By Joshua Hill on 27 July 2012

The large-scale photovoltaic solar projects are often the ones that will gain the most attention, but according to a recently released NPD Solarbuzz report, 40% of solar projects currently in progress in the United States come in under the 500kW size.CleanTechnica

“These smaller projects have a considerable impact on the communities where they are being built, providing much-needed employment and energy cost reduction,” said Christine Beadle, Analyst for NPD Solarbuzz. “They also represent a significant opportunity for downstream balance-of-systems component suppliers and PV systems integrators within the United States.”

The NPD Solarbuzz report, United States Deal Tracker, provides a comprehensive insight into solar pv projects between 50kW and 500kW from across the country. They found that, currently, more than 1,300 projects fall into this category, generating a cumulative amount of 200 MW.

California currents accounts for over a quarter of the total US project pipeline in this category, thanks to the state’s 33 per cent Renewable Portfolio Standard target. The next five states are New Jersey, Massachusetts, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Hawaii.

Solarbuzz make an interesting point with regard to the popularity and ease of these smaller projects:

“Smaller solar PV installations often have a greater impact on communities than larger ones, as they become much more than just a supply of electricity. Smaller projects cost less to install, are easier to gain permit approval, and have fewer barriers for project financing. And these projects are often installed at no cost to the host. Schools, municipal buildings, zoos, hospitals, and even retail stores such as IKEA are typically the host of these smaller installs.”

Selling Solar Power in India's Slums

As more and more Indians get on the grid, the government's pushing solar.

—By Mark Bergen

| Tue Apr. 2, 2013 1:40 PM PDT

Solar plates charging outside a house in eastern India. Prasanta Biswas/ZUMA Press

This story first appeared on the Atlantic Cities website and is reproduced here as part of theClimate Desk collaboration.

It's a little after sundown, and Arun Kumar is hawking his wares in the neighborhood for the first time. He's selling a light, just a small half-circle tied to a three-inch wide solar panel. An older man tests it in his home, a tiny hut of tarp and tin built like the 30 others in this far north side slum settlement. A kerosene lamp flickers inside.

At a second home, Arun wields his 1,600 rupee ($29.48) gizmo for a woman seated with nine children. He points out the small cell phone charger in the light's rear. The woman turns inside, pulling out her phone to consult her husband.

She is one of millions in India and worldwide in a surreal contemporary fix: she owns a cell phone, but her home has no toilet or power line. The country's mobile users mushroomed in a few short years, reaching some 900 million. Cheap phones have not suddenly lifted owners out of poverty. But they have given them access to resources and economic ladders once unreachable.

Pollinate Energy's solar light Mark Bergen

Arun fails to sell any here, yet he will return tomorrow. The hyperactive 20-year-old is a salesman for Pollinate Energy, a social enterprise NGO that has, in the past five months, sold 400 private solar systems to slum dwellers in north Bangalore. Pollinate is one of a growing number of companies betting on "leapfrog" technology designed to help the urban poor in developing nations to skip right over fossil fuels for electricity.

On their first visit to a slum, the staff never make a sale, explains co-founder Monique Alfris. Residents are understandably skeptical of consumer goods in India. Though the panels pay for themselves in about 6 months, those making three to four dollars a day are reluctant to put down the 400 rupee ($7.47) installment plan payments.

And many are transitory, like the migrant construction laborers Arun visited, nervous of investing on land they could be booted from.

When the Pollinate Energy founders arrived from Sydney, they expected urban communities to prep them for rural markets, where far more people lack power. By some accounts, Bangalore was the second Asian city, after Tokyo, to be electrified. According to estimates, only 20,000 slum dwellers here lack electricity
.

IOC outlet taps solar energy to power diesel pump - The Hindu

Dealer installs 2 kW power unit, comprising eight panels, at a cost of Rs.3.50 lakhEfforts are on to power petrol pump too in due course of time, he says

Showing the way:A view of the IOC outlet at Mangalagiri with the solar power unit in the background.—Photo: T. Vijaya Kumar

The newly opened retail outlet of the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) here is showing the way to other such outlets in tapping solar energy as an alternative to power sourced from conventional generators at high costs.

Its dealer Valluri Koteswara Rao and his son Yugandhar, who is an engineering graduate, were keen on harnessing solar energy from the beginning and wasted no time in giving shape to their idea. They got a 2 kW solar power unit, comprising eight panels of photovoltaic modules, installed at a total cost of Rs. 3.50 lakh and started operating the diesel pump. Plans are afoot to supply solar energy to the petrol pump too in due course of time.

INDIAN DREAMS Vs REALITY: CORRUPTION BLOWING AWAY INDIAN DREAM OF GETTING PR...: 21st century belongs to Asia  , the oft repeated words of Indian prime minister along with a host of other assessors and analysts of world...

Nuclear insanity: playing with fire

Nikhil Desai

Nikhil Desai is an energy economist splitting his time between the US and India.

Article courtesy: Nautilus Institute for Peace and Security

Some sage – not me – is said to have said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.

Nuclear advocates learnt early on that the promise of “forever energy” was so great, so intoxicating and potentially addictive, that to not be seen as insane and indeed to perpetuate an aura of sanity, rationalism, care for the collective good, all they had to do was assure the public, whenever necessary, that “This time it is different.”

 Yes, a different reactor type. A different supplier. A safety upgrade. Or new protections against fires, earthquakes, airliner crash, tsunami, operator error.

This duplicity in service of insanity had three elements.

First, rely on changing reactor and power plant technologies and learn-as-you-go (or protect-the-reputation betting-other-people’s money) designs and regulatory regimesⁱ.

Second, keep people excited enough about reactor safety, even while fighting the industry opponents (in some countries) and claiming absolute safety – or at least, “acceptable risk” of loss-of-coolant probability of x in a million reactor-years, something that lay people would find it difficult to grasp – ignore or hide the risks to workers and general public from the fuel-cycle risks, from uranium mining to waste management to disposal.

Nukes on platter?

And third, of course, titillate people about the glory of nuclear technology, bearing nuclear power as a badge of technological prowess and acquiring nuclear weapons capability as a defense necessity.

Of course, all this required double-speak. Some things could not be said publicly and it was necessary to ensure that some such things were not said at all, even privately.

“What if not nuclear (power or weapons)?” The necessity borne of certainty. If there was no God, at least there was the Atom. One way of playing dice with God’s creation.

After TMI and Chernobyl (27 years ago this past week), the industry found a “forever” problem – climate change – perfectly matching the “forever” of the atom. As Nick Stern said HIV/Aids was not a priority while facing “existential risks” of climate change, nuclear reactor or fuel cycle accidents, or nuclear weapon discharges by accident or design, were not to be bothered with when facing up to the risk of mother of all catastrophies – climate change.

But, just as people had begun to forget that a candle caused the devastating fire at Browr ns Ferry 1 power reactor, they were shown that in repairing Fukushima, just so as to get it ready for permanent retirement, “a rat caused a blackout and subsequent work to prevent a recurrence led to another system failure”.

Solar–Wind Hybrid Power Plants Approximately Twice As Efficient (via Clean Technica)

This article originally appeared on Solar Love. A new study by the Reiner Lemoine Institut and Solarpraxis AG has found that solar and wind power generation complement each other better than previously thought. The study examined the surface area where solar photovoltaic systems and wind turbines…

---