Energy

Many have contemplated the interrelatedness of oil and war, and this thought has been outweighed perhaps by more interpersonal matters at home.  Jerry Warner and P.W. Singer's 'Fueling the “Balance”: A Defense Energy Strategy Primer' explores the recent problems with US petroleum based tactical operations and how the costs of petroleum based vehicles used in conflict waste the United States Department of Defense billions in spending.  In the paper, the Center for Naval Analysis is cited saying “Inefficient use and overreliance on oil burdens the military, undermines combat…

Biomass currently supplies about a third of the developing countries’ energy varying from about 90% in countries like Uganda, Rawanda and Tanzania, to 45 percent in India, 30 percent in China and Brazil and 10-15 percent in Mexico and South Africa. The crucial questions are whether the two billion or more people who are now dependent on biomass for energy will increase. The fact that 90 percent of the worlds population will reside in developing countries by about 2050 probably implies that biomass energy will be with us forever. Planting of more trees in forest reserves for reducing global…

Biomass contributes a significant share of global primary energy consumption and its importance is likely to increase in future world energy scenarios. Current  biomass use, although not sustainable in some cases, replaces fossil fuel consumption and results in avoided CO2 emissions, representing about 2.7 to 8.8 % of 1998 anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Improved conversion efficiencies, besides a suitable management of biomass resources , could contribute significantly to reduce it unsustainable use, contribute a larger share of final energy demand and lead to a higher rate of fossil fuel…

An increasing population explosion and rapid industrialization is causing rapid destruction of forests. Nature crude is resulting in green house gas emissions causing population problems. Renewable energy sources provide answer to both of these problems by way of providing clean fuel on renewable basis utilizing the solar energy. However, there is always a competition between food vs fuel use of oils and any major thrust on biofuel production must take in to account that edible oils are not diverted to the production of biofuels. Barring exceptions of Europe and North America where enough…

The non articulated laticifer cell present in C.procera (Asclepiadaceae) are distributed in cortex , phloem region, pith and among parenchyma cells present in the stem. The transverse and longitudinal sections of the plants treated with plant growth regulators gave varying distribution of non articulated cells. Treatment with all growth regulators i.e. Indole acetic acid, Indole butyric acid, alpha Naphthalene acetic acid, Gibberalic acid and Zinc Sulphate had a positive effect on plant height, number of branches, per cent dry matter and per cent heptane extractables. The maximum increase in…

  Modern bioenergy technologies and biofuels are relatively benign from  environmental view point and produce very little pollution if burned correctly and completely.  The creation of new employment opportunities within the community and particularly in rural areas is one of the major social benefits from the exploitation of biomass for energy, industry and environment.  Use of biomass for energy and industry allows a significant quantity of hydrocarbons to be consumed without increasing the CO2 content of the atmosphere and thus makes a positive contribution to the…

Around 70 percent of the rural population of India relies on buring the bio-fuel in the form of fire wood, cowdung cakes, saw dust, crop residues, sugarcane remnants, coconut shell in various forms. The fireplace or the local language word “Chulha” used for burning such bio-fuel is wasteful and uneconomic procedure besides causing the health damage due to incomplete combustion releasing lot of smoke which remains inside the kitchen which is generally devoid of any ventilator in the villages. With the result rural women encounter severe lungs problems. The dual loss of bio-fuel on the one hand…

Shri Shiv Charan ji Mathur H E Governor of Assam and former Chief Minister of Rajasthan  was an able administrator,  a great visionary and one who ruled heart and mind of the people by his progressive ideas and openmindedness.  He treated everyone with great affectionand personal understanding.  As a Chairman of SPRI he was great  source of inspiration for the Biofuel project carried out by SPRI with support from World Bank and he himself sat through the proceedings of the training conducted for the farmers at SPRI in large number of Government officials and NGOs…

 India has over 180 million of wasteland out of which 90 million ha is uncultivable. The degraded and denuded lands arise due to soil erosions as well as secondary salinizations. However Calotropis procera is a potential plant for bioenergy and biofuel production in semi arid regions of the country because it is able to grow on such lands. The plant has a growth potential of 2 dry tones to 40 dry tones per ha depending on the agro climatic conditions of it’s growth. The plant has high level of regeneration potential and could be harvested up to 4 times a year. The plant yields…

Biomass refers to all the matter that can be obtained from photosynthesis. Most vegetable species use solar energy to create sugars from carbon dioxide and water. They store this energy in the form of glucose or starch molecules, oleaginous, cellulose, and lignocellulose .Biomass appears to be an attractive feedstock for three main reasons. First, it is a renewable resource that could be sustain ably developed in the future. Second, it appears to have formidably positive environmental properties, notably the recycling of carbon in the biological processes, resulting in no net releases of…