Greewashed in Baku

 

There were four center-page articles on COP29 conference held in BAKU in a major newspaper, pouring into the looming global warming crisis, the need for developed countries to spend more  on aid to help developing nations adopt climate change mitigation technologies,  and how we could be entering an era of NCQG - New Collective Quantified Goals.  One of them talked about India's major role in spending as much as 15000 crore rupees - about 0.06% of its GDP on renewable energy!! 

 

That we were about to breach 1.5 degrees Celsius rise (we are at 1.49 degrees C now) post commencement of the industrial age was mentioned in passing.  And 3.1 degrees Celsius temperature rise could be breached if we continue along this trajectory.  Barely a few months ago we talked about 1.5C rise as a defendable goal if only we went on a full court press.  It is unfortunate that we have an underpinning premise is that we have the answers, if only we had the will to deploy them; but the premise is simply not true.  One more reason to state the obvious.  We have been green washed.   This time from Baku.

 

Let us consider Renewable Energy, which decarbonizes the energy sector.  More than a decade ago, Photovoltaics (PV) reached a cost point where the installation costs per rated MW was on par with or less than new thermal power plants.  Wind energy was not far behind.  In India, investments in renewable energy outpaced conventional power for more than a decade, with approximately 70GW being added in thermal and 120 GW in renewable energy.  Renewable Energy accounts for 46% of installed capacity.  Yet in terms of energy generated thermal power is still a whopping 75% of the energy mix.  Renewable energy is seasonal (especially wind) and not 24x7 - Solar.  The ratio of delivered to installed capacity for renewable energy is about 30%.  Transmission losses are 2to 5% per hundred KM - so to put all solar in the deserts of Rajasthan is not practical.  To deliver 100% Renewable energy leveraging on energy storage while increasing capacity to compensate for the intermittency of renewable energy, one needs to triple the current renewable energy footprint.  We will struggle to find the land for that.  And battery-based solutions come at a prohibitively high cost (will quadruple the energy costs) and comes with its own carbon footprint which may take years to erase.   Pumped storage is often talked about.  It needs two reservoirs at different heights in reasonable proximity, with enough watershed to store the 1000s of MW of energy that needs to be stored.  Indias current hydro capacity is 10% of its total footprint and only a small fraction is amenable to pumped storage.  Pumped storage comes with massive ecological costs in terms of deforestation, and impact on aquatic life.  

 

In-spite of a decade of concerted action we are stuck with 75% of energy on tap coming from thermal power.  This conundrum is not unique to India, USA, China, much of Asia, and portions of Europe share this problem.  The exception is those blessed with 24x7 wind (Netherlands and Denmark) or those with massive legacy nuclear energy (France and Ukraine), that have breached the 50% ceiling of non-fossil energy-based power.  There is only one water-tight solution - that is nuclear energy, which is 24x7, minimal carbon footprint except during construction, and comes with a safety risk which is manageable.  Stray radiation from mining for coal or lithium exceeds that from standard nuclear plants.  Small nuclear reactors (SMR)are even more manageable when it comes to disposal of waste.  If the world is serious about climate change developed and developing nations should be forging a partnership in installing nuclear power plants, including SMRs which can be deployed quickly.  And this should have been one of the main talking points.

 

Moving to transportation, EVs that are not directly tied to solar panels rely on grid power which is now 75% thermal across much of the world.  The batteries come with its own manufacturing carbon footprint which is much higher than conventional vehicles.  The energy storage materials have a 3% extraction efficiency, some are mined at the expense of rainforests using primitive methods.  The total emissions footprint of battery manufacturing is estimated to grow to One Giga ton of CO2 per year - it is estimated that for a 100 KW powered EV (like a tesla) it would take 70000 KM of driving to neutralize manufacturing footprint.  Yet there is a case to be made for EVs if the energy used to charge is 100% renewable.   Two wheelers and three wheelers which take a few hours to charge and readily done in daylight could be 100% emissions free, and pollution free, if they are backed by dedicated solar energy.  For a 70KWh hour car it requires 10 KW of PV or at least two thousand square feet of space and eight to twelve hours of time to charge and finding that space is not easy in urban settings. The easiest answer for India is that it makes sense to electrify the two-wheeler segment and that is part of the policy prescription.  For the rest it is a struggle to electrify.  Increasing the percentage of biofuel, especially from waste, is the best mitigative answer unless one switches to nuclear energy instead of thermal power, which is clearly decades away. 

 

If the challenges are that stark, and immediately implementable solutions are that difficult, then the question is how societies can strive to mitigate climate change.  

 

Rooftop Energy.  This could include solar panels on rooftop or sunshades in every home, biowaste to energy in rural areas using small gensets, backed by tax breaks or subsidy from the government.   The goal should be that at least 40% of domestic energy needs in rural and urban areas is met by locally generated renewable energy.  This certainly would pose challenges to grid stability and thermal power plant reliability, but this can be managed.

 

Energy Efficiency:  The lowest hanging fruit has been plucked - much of urban lighting comes from LEDs which consume 10% of the energy of incandescent lamps.  Appliances are more efficient today than a decade ago, even in India.  However construction industry is locked into bricks and concrete even for non-load bearing structures - industrial waste to walls is a significant opportunity which needs to be tapped.

When it comes to thermal power, India is struggling to unlock itself from technologies which are inherently less efficient.  Existing coal fired Rankine cycle engines have 50% higher emissions as compared to combined cycle natural gas fired power plants.  However, India is a nett importer of natural gas.  Coal gasification, and coal to natural gas technologies need to be tapped and deployed with alacrity to reduce emissions from the energy sector.  Such a move would help India migrate from the less efficient Rankine cycle to the more efficient combined cycle which combines Brayton and Rankine cycles.

 

Optimizing India's farming:  Farming from existing irrigated lands or those areas blessed with abundant rainfall needs to be maximized and made scientific to maximize yields.  India has already closed the gap in wheat and is catching up in paddy.   Fifty percent of India's farmlands are not irrigated by rivers.  Large scale dependence on ground water is not sustainable or energy efficient.  India needs to switch to a combination of drip irrigation with millets, horticulture and agro forestry in such areas to maximize rural income reduce energy footprints in agriculture.  In a prevailing democracy such as India, such rules cannot be imposed from top, but there needs to be incentives from the government and markets. About 20% of horticultural produce is lost because of lack of cold storage.  The use of renewable energy (evaporative cooling) can be a game changer and needs to be developed for small farmers.  Finally agro-waste to ethanol needs to be developed so that Biofuels are sourced not just from water guzzling crops like sugar cane but actual agro-waste.  The farmer apart from being part of the food supply chain can become part of the energy supply chain with the right incentives for rooftop / pump head solar, and waste to energy or fuel plants.  By focusing on yields that reduce the area that needs to be farmed along with agroforestry, rural land banks could be coopted into nature-based climate change solutions with transparent policies that directly reward the farmer.  

 

Responsible Consumption:  India is a developing country - poverty is a lived reality.  When poverty exists in combination with caste and class divide, the loss of human dignity is morally unacceptable.  One needs to recognize that urban and rural consumption generates jobs in all sectors.  But there is a case to be made for responsible consumption.  This includes the shift away from larger fuel guzzling cars, frequent upgrades of electronic gadgets which have large manufacturing and transportation carbon footprints, investment in property which carries its own construction related emissions, and flying to destinations where surface transportation was possible to name a few.  About 10% of India's households now have first world lifestyles, and this is driving emissions.

 

It is said that if all of India lived in urban settlements such as New Delhi, then the entire population could be bottled into a small state such as Telengana.  Of course the country needs its farms and factories.  Therefore, while balancing technologies used for production of engineering goods and apparel, or food grains and horticultural products, one needs to ensure that land usage is kept to a minimum.  If we make substantial changes towards that end we may see more if India becoming a forest and contributing to mitigating climate change through nature-based solutions.

 

Until we do all the above Greenwashing will continue.