After independence several development efforts in India created a lot of mess with misguided policies. The immediate task in front of us is it to clean up this mess. We have 50 crores of people living in rural areas excluding rich-to do households. These people live in mainly rain-fed areas. The resources are limited for these people. From a population of 100 crores 70% of are poor. Majority of the lands owned by them are categorized as wastelands where yields are about 0.5 to 1 ton of grain per hectare Forests and pastures have been highly degraded, and the top soil has been eroded or deprived of nutrients. Usually one crop per year (with poor yield) is cultivated in these areas due to inadequate irrigation facilities. On the whole, the present natural resource endowment in this region appears quite bleak. Even though we talk about privatization, there is no real investment in agriculture, especially in these rain-fed areas that are outside the much hyped "Green Revolution" areas. That is why the theme of this talk is "turning the present crisis to an opportunity." In fact, by the combination of a scientific and participatory approach to land improvement and micro-watershed management a sufficiently large bio-mass surplus can be achieved in these areas. In fact it is possible to generate bio-mass surplus in the form of wood and process-able material of 2 T/Household/Year.
The basis of industrialization is energy. We need to identify the energy needs based on "end-use." This is the departure from Western calculations of energy needs. The main departure is we must look at energy in the following areas:
In developed countries, energy needs are looked as the availability of "gas and/or gasoline" and electricity.
There can be a major leap in rural infrastructure (villages & small towns), economy and livelihoods if 5T of coal-equivalent energy supply is available per family per year. We currently make available only 0.5-1 ton. However, there is capacity to provide this level of energy with 50% from solar and other 50% from materials such as bamboo, small timber chemical intermediates from plants (such as non-edible oils, phenols, starch, ethanol) etc. So far we have been neglecting solar energy. Currently, from the point of end-use, 40% of energy from coal is in the form of steam (or heat). Steam can also be produced at low-cost by solar-thermal systems.
An overhead of a low-cost, high-performance solar thermal equipment, fabricated at Bhusawal (Maharashtra) was shown.
The 10 square-meter concentrator has a modular design with regular-size flat glass mirrors, supported by a steel truss to give the overall shape of a paraboloid concentrator. The receiver, located at the focus of the concentrator, is an aluminum cage (about the size of a trashcan) with tubes running around it (for transferring heat to the working medium----oil or steam). The entire structure has been designed to withstand very high gusts of winds. The present cost of the system (including the tracking drive) is Rs. 7500 per square meter. The amount of heat delivered by the unit over a period of 8 hours is roughly 1 kg coal-equivalent (about 3500 kcal in the case of high-ash content coal) per square-meter of the concentrator. If the size of the concentrator is increased, engineered wood-bamboo composites can replace the steel frame with a drastic reduction in the cost.
We now have the capability to train an engineering diploma holder to fabricate these units in a small garage with no expensive equipment.
Note: To increase the capacity of process-able materials for energy to 2.5 tons per household, we need to shift the use of glass in Indian situations from conspicuous use to regenerate-able form of energy. Maybe we need to have a policy of taxing the consumptive/conspicuous users.
Bamboo as a material for infrastructure
In Andhra Pradesh a large arched-roof community-hall type structure using engineered bamboo elements was built three years ago taking the local conditions as part of the design (overhead shown with the structure). In fact this structure, while built as a cyclone resistant structure, turned out to be the optimal design after exhaustive CAD studies.
Another example is in the case of village/small-town roads, where bamboo-grid reinforcement of the road base, (along with natural or synthetic fabric under layer for preventing water entry from below & sides) has enabled the construction of very durable roads (overhead shown).
A side note: There are instances in China, where bamboo used for some applications have survived 2000 years. The point is that preservation treatment of bamboo is not a major issue, particularly so with modern techniques. We glorify traditional knowledge only because time tested lessons are the only ones remain for us to glorify from traditions and they deserve to be studied as sources of knowledge.
Using modern knowledge of structural engineering, and the inherently superior properties of bamboo, engineered wood-bamboo composite structural members with innovative joining techniques have been designed which are as strong and durable as reinforced cement columns and beams (overhead shown). Of course, these do need skilled labor. But, then local artisans can be trained in rural areas, leading to rapid increase in livelihood opportunities and the capacity to build excellent rural infrastructure at very low cost.
The main point is that we need to look at the approaches of using traditional resources to meet our energy needs. Fortunately, there is a small but important segment of people who do want to look at eco-friendly resources for alternate energy needs. The question to ask is "if we can not provide something do we have the right to use it?" The science has given us the ability to make otherwise worthless material into valuable products. (e.g. silicon for computer chips, optical cables in stead of copper as medium). After all, all mining activity basically involves converting mud or rocks into materials to which we attach greater value. If we can use modern knowledge properly, half of the energy needs of deprived rural areas and small towns can come from solar-thermal energy, while the other half can come from in the form of high-value materials and chemical intermediates from biomass. But to achieve this we need a different world-view. We need to look at the concept of producers & users (or consumers). These are all part of the same global system. Ultimately, economics is all about value-addition, whether the value-addition is in the form of primary production (agriculture, fishery, forestry), manufacturing, services or the arts. However, "ADDING VALUE WITHOUT A VALUE SYSTEM IS NOT SOCIALLY OR ECOLOGICALLY DESIRABLE"
How do you plan to reform current education system in India with alternate energy emphasis?
We need to have programs such as "education at work place" and options such as Open University. In fact if we have a life-time partnership between producers and students with real world experience, we can hope to train students better equipped to handle these activities.
Are there structural studies done for bamboo?
Yes. In fact there are many studies including computations of Young's Modulus, specific gravity etc. done and classification and categorization work is also being done. It is indeed possible and being done in terms of modeling and analyzing bamboo as a building material. We are rapidly moving towards development of quality standards for engineered bamboo at levels required for ISO certification.
Consider the following scenario being looked at currently:
Suppose we have 20 students per teacher, with 10 teachers helping out 20 days per year. They are given 1000 Rs.. Then there will be a post graduate student working in one village first year and expand to three villages next year. In one district we want to select two areas of 5000 hectares each and create a network of the above mentioned set up and encourage the concept of open learning. A possible scenario is a practicing ITI student with real world experience can challenge an academic IITian equipped with no practical knowledge. That will be the ultimate achievement of bringing users and producers together in the education system.
Activity
The consequences of this activity are:
System Management and Policy
System management can be improved by setting up service enterprises for energy generation and distribution. A joint sector leasing and financing company with participation of the state renewable energy development agencies, private enterprises, professionals, user groups and cooperatives of artisans is an attractive prospect. This will help to separate the ownership and service functions. A pre-requisite of success is social acceptability of a two part tariff system where basic service will be provided at affordable price by availing of existing generation of distribution facilities and concession for development of renewable energy sources.
Changes are necessary in the land and water use and allocation policy. A bio-mass strategy must be implemented to raise the bio-mass production by use of funds currently available for wasteland development with a condition to create and sustain bio-mass pools. Entitlement of the bio-mass to the poor from the local and regional bio-mass pools would make it possible to recover the cost of energy services in the form of bio-mass.
High value bio-mass products, inputs for liquid fuel and chemical intermediate production:
The above list does not include items which have very specific uses and therefore difficult to market such as medicinal herbs, and consumer products such as perfumes, essential oils, flowers with hazard of market saturation.
Note: A hand out distributed includes tables for Ethanol yields of various crops based on average yields in Brazil, Types of raw materials potentially useful for microbial conversion to fuels, Energy analysis of ethanol production from various crop substrates.
References for further reading: