Sustainability Outlook Headlines

Expert for installation of smart grids

Efficient and reliable energy is a prerequisite for cities to turn smart, he says. For this, physical infrastructure, comprising power, water, and pubic health, among other things, is one of the four pillars.
 
Smart grids are required for Smart Cities to improve energy efficiency and increase reliability of power, according to Ravi Kumar Bhimasingu, assistant professor, IIT-Hyderabad.
 
For cities to turn smart, existing power grids should be modernised. Smart grids provide safety and security, and envisage measures for interconnecting renewable energy sources.... Read more..

Lessons for PM Narendra Modi's smart cities from Cisco's smart campus in Bangalore

At 61, Wim Elfrink recalls every image his father painstakingly drew up to recreate schools, airports, buildings that were razed to the ground in The Netherlands during the Second World War. While the Elfrink Senior, based in Rotterdam, was a brick-and-mortar architect tasked with such reconstruction, his son styles himself as a 'digital architect'.
 
As the Chief Globalisation Officer at Cisco, Elfrink prides himself on applying digital overlay to physical infrastructure. He's also the brain behind the 2.18 million square feet Cisco Smart Campus in Bengaluru that houses eight... Read more..

India to boost biofuel to cut Crude Oil import bill

India is planning to promote bio fuels to bring down crude oil import bill. For this the country will encourage the production of non edible oil seeds that lead to biofuel production.
Nitin Godkari, Minister for Road Transport & Highways, said the Government would take all efforts to remove hurdles in the increased production and usage of biofuels in the country.
Godkari reiterated that, in keeping with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s broad objective of “Make in India”, the production of non-edible oilseeds leading to biofuel production needs to be encouraged. He said... Read more..

Cars may soon be powered by their own body panels

 A car powered by its own body panels such as roof, doors and bonnet could soon hit the roads, thanks to new lightweight 'supercapacitors' developed by researchers. The 'supercapacitors' can be combined with regular batteries to dramatically boost the power of an electric car. 

The supercapacitors - a "sandwich" of electrolyte between two all-carbon electrodes - were made into a thin and extremely strong film with a high power density.  The film could be embedded in a car's body panels, roof, doors, bonnet and floor - storing enough energy to turbocharge an electric car's battery in... Read more..

DCB to start segregating waste at source

 Residents of Dehu Road Cantonment limits will soon have to segregate dry and wet household garbage. The project will be initially implemented in the army areas covering about 2,000 households.
The bio-degradable wet garbage will be used for composting and non-biodegradable waste will be disposed of or recycled.
Abhishek Tripathi, DCB's chief executive officer said that the project will reduce the amount of waste dumped at the depot. "The cantonment will be distributing two garbage bins - the green colour one will be for wet garbage and the white one for dry waste. Residents... Read more..

CSE warns against green buildings becoming 'green wash'

 India is locked in a frenzy of construction to meet the demand for homes, offices, and shops. A staggering two-third of buildings that will stand in India in 2030 are yet to be built. Unless policies minimize resource guzzling and wastes with appropriate architectural design, building material, and operational management, there can be massive environmental debacle in the building sector. Unlike the developed world, the challenge is not to retrofit the already built to make it green; but to build new, which is efficient, sustainable, affordable and comfortable for all. This will have... Read more..

SunEdison Wins 150 MW In India's Solar Power Auction

SunEdison is looking to expand its footprint in India, one of the fastest emerging solar power markets in the world. The company has recently announced plans to set up more than 5 GW of cumulative solar power capacity across two states in the country.
SunEdison won the right to develop 150 MW of solar power projects in India’s southern state of Karnataka, the company announced recently. The Karnataka Renewable Energy Development Limited had invited bids for 500 MW of solar power capacity. The fact that SunEdison has grabbed 30% of the capacity on offer points out that the company is... Read more..

Biogas from waste for 'Clean Puttur'

Even as the Mangalore City Corporation (MCC) authorities struggle to solve the garbage menace, Puttur Town Municipality in Dakshina Kannada district has come up with a novel plan of setting up a compressed biogas (CBG) plant to convert waste into cooking gas. 
 
The town municipality headed by newly elected president Jagadish Shetty Nellikatte has planned to set up a CBG plant in Puttur. The town, which generates approximately 15 tonnes of waste, will be able to produce at least 10 cylinders of 14kg biogas per day through the project. The TMC is also open to share the... Read more..

Narendra Modi government reconstitutes climate change panel, no member from industry

Barely three weeks before crucial negotiations in Lima, the government has reconstituted the Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change, reducing its size and dropping members, including sole industry representative Ratan Tata and Centre for Science and Environment director general Sunita Narain.
The 18-member council headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi will, like its predecessor panel, focus on national action for assessment, adaptation and mitigation of climate change. ET had first reported about the Prime Minister's plan to reconstitute the panel.
While the council will... Read more..

Community-scale photovoltaic-powered electrodialysis desalination systems for Indian villages

Photovoltaic-powered electrodialysis (PV-ED) is justified as an energy- and cost-effective means of desalinating groundwater in rural India, and the design requirements are presented for a village-level system.
 
Saline groundwater, which underlies 60% of India, can negatively impact health as well as cause a water source to be discarded because of its taste.
 
A quarter of India's population live in villages of 2000–5000 people, many of which do not have reliable access to electricity. Most village-scale, on-grid desalination plants use reverse osmosis (RO), which... Read more..

Govt ropes in states to meet 24x7 power goal in 5 years

The Centre has prepared a detailed roadmap in consultation with states to make India “diesel generator and inverter free” in the next five years, and fulfill the Narendra Modi government’s promise to provide 24x7 power to every home, factory and farm and put the country back on the high-growth trajectory.
 
Power, coal and renewable energy minister Piyush Goyal recently held meetings with ministers of states and Union Territories. The states were told that generating power alone was not enough.
 
“Development of power generation sector alone cannot ensure 24x7 power... Read more..