The New Nation - Internet Edition

Making renewable energy sustainable

Savvy Soumya Mishra

A 30-km drive from Chhattisgarh's border with Madhya Pradesh, India, through the Maikal mountain range, can take one to Ranidhera village. Power lines loom over the roads, promising electricity. But the cables run out on the poles leading up to the village. Installed one year ago, the poles provide little more than hope for the hopeful.

Cableless poles notwithstanding, the village has got accustomed over the past one year to CFL (compact fluorescent lamps). An small power plant, running on biofuel from the jatropha oilseed, supplies them at least three hours of electricity each day. It was set up by Winrock International India, an affiliate of the us-based Winrock International, as part of a project for sustainable, renewable energy.

A part of this project was to grow jatropha locally. This has not happened yet, which means the non-profit buys jatropha seeds from neighbouring markets. The oilseed's cost and its carriage place a burden on the project. Winrock chose Ranidhera from 50 remote villages it had assessed for setting up the project, said Arvind Reddy, who handles the non-profit's rural energy group.

It came from an ongoing collaboration for electrification with jatropha oil of Winrock, the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, and the Chhattisgarh Renewable Energy Development Agency. Financial support has come from the ministry, the British High Commission, and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

Work began in 2005 and by April 2007, all 105 households in the village had electricity for three hours a day. Winrock provided for free wiring and gave each household one CFL, distributing more lamps as per demand and affordability, said Reddy. Now, 30 households have one lamp point and 75 others have two. When some villagers wanted to run a television, the non-profit gave sockets to 60 households. "The demands were met very meticulously and in proportion to the availability of the seeds," Reddy said.

A village energy committee manages the demand for extra fittings; it has equal representation from the two main communities in the village: the Gond and the Baiga. Winrock trained the committee members for managing the utility and collecting tariff, which comes to Rs 3,500 per month. Of this, Rs 2,500 goes into the salaries of the three operators of the power station, and the remaining for operation and maintenance.

Users pay Rs 20 per month for each lamp and another Rs 30 for each socket. Electricity from jatropha is costlier than that from the power grid, "but is cheaper than kerosene, something that the villagers were using till the beginning of last year," Reddy said.

Chotan Dhurve, a Gond resident, agreed; apart from the cost, he had to travel up to eight km to major markets because the ration shop near the village did not stock kerosene. If and when the villagers get electricity from the main grid, they would have to pay Rs 30-40 per month for three hours of power-subsidized by a government scheme.

Ranidhera jatropha-run power plant, housed in a small building in the village, has three generator sets of 3.5 kVA (6 horsepower) and a backup generator of 7.5 kVA (10 horsepower). The backup includes the expeller that extracts oil from the jatropha seeds.

"The three operators selected by the village committee attend to the entire process, from extracting oil to running the gensets," said Ratan Dhurve, Ranidhera resident. Winrock calculated each 11-watt lamp required about six kg of seeds each month, and each socket a little more than 10 kg per month.

To supply the entire village, the power plant needs almost a tonne of jatropha oil. It also supplies 30 streetlights, though the village is not charged for it. Reddy said the number of connections in the village at an optimum number given the availability of seeds.

About the time the project started, the Chhattisgarh government distributed jatropha saplings for free to promote the biofuel. Had these saplings borne fruit, the raw material would have come for free. This depended on the village running an operation nursery. This did not happen.

One year into the project, Winrock buys jatropha seeds from markets in nearby areas at Rs 5-16 per kg; then there are transport costs, which take the total monthly cost to Rs 5,000-8,000, depending on the number of trips needed. Winrock did not provide the estimate for the total expenditure on seed since the operation started.

Villagers planted the saplings in about 10 hectares in 2006, though the project began in 2005. The jatropha plant takes three years to reach the maturity required for optimal seed production; so there will be no seed in the village till 2009. Winrock said this was a pilot project and their aim was to demonstrate the concept. It expected seeds to grow by the end of October this year, and estimated the production of 30 tonnes-enough for the 12 tonnes of oil needed to run the power plant for one year, the non-profit said.

This assumed all going well with the plants. This is not a foregone conclusion, as proved by some wild monkeys, which uprooted some of the saplings a few months ago. Reddy described his fear: "In case of crop failure, we will have to resort to diesel. We haven't thought of any alternative."

And then the villagers want more electricity for more uses. "It is just light that we get now. What about our farms? The irrigation pumpsets do not run on jatropha oil," said Raju Dhurve, farmer. Winrock has researched the possibility of biofuel for pumpsets and plans to set up a biofuel pumpset by the end of the year. Reddy said he wanted to be sure of the requirement first because it would increase the demand for jatropha seed.

Winrock has several other projects lined up for the village. In July this year, a rice de-husking mill running on jatropha oil began operations-Winrock foots the bill for the jatropha seeds and oil. It is also trying to make briquettes of the deoiled presscake for use as cooking fuel. The difficulty is the presence of toxins in the presscake.

Arun Sahu, a social worker familiar with the area, was concerned about the projects after Winrock withdraws and hands them over to the village. He said rivalry between the Gond and the Baiga would hinder smooth management of the operations and the assets.

"The Gond are known to dominate the Baiga and there is a likelihood that they would control the village committee soon after Winrock pulls out," Sahu said. Winrock said it had not noticed any rivalry between the two groups, except some Baiga electricity users delaying payments.

(Source: CSE/Down To Earth Feature Service)

India declare Ganga national river

The government of India early this month decided to declare the Ganga as the first 'national river' and set up a high powered Ganga River Basin Authority headed by the Prime Minister to protect the ancient river from pollution and degradation.

"It was decided that there is a need to replace the current piecemeal efforts taken up in a fragmented manner in select cities with an integrated approach that sees the river as an ecological entity and addresses issues of quantity in terms of water flows along with issues of quality," a PMO release said after a meeting chaired by the Prime Minister and attended by ministers of water resources, environment and forests and urban development.

Dr Manmohan Singh told the meeting that there was a need to set up a model for cleaning of rivers through the new institutional mechanism. The proposed Authority headed by the Prime Minister would have as its members chief ministers of states through which the 2510 km long river flows. It flows through Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal.

The details of the authority to be vested with appropriate powers would be worked out in consultation with state governments and Central ministries. Dr Singh referred to the special place Ganga has in the hearts and minds of all Indians and stated that this emotional link needs to be recognised. "The country should set up a model for river cleaning through the new institutional mechanism," said the PMO statement.

The proposed authority will promote inter-sectoral coordination for comprehensive planning for the river. Various agencies working on different aspects of river conservation and pollution management would be brought together under this proposed authority.

The Ganga with its source at Gangotri glacier in Gaumukh in Uttarakhand which has been receding rapidly enters the Bay of Bengal at the Sunderbans delta and the industries along its banks cause immense pollution, a cause of concern for the government.

Dr Singh wanted detailed final proposals to be prepared within two months after necessary consultations. It was also recognised that the spirit of the Ganga Action Plan as conceived in 1985 by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of making the cleaning of the Ganga a people's movement should be restored. Last month, the PM had met a delegation led by Shankaracharya Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati and Magsaysay awardee Rajendra Singh who pressed for making the Ganga a national river as it continued to be polluted despite the government having spent a huge amount on pollution control projects.

(http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=2&theme=&usrsess=1&id=229784)

Pastures gone: Sustaining livestock turns difficult

Tashi Morup

At an altitude of more than 4,000 metres in the trans-Himalaya, Changthang, the plateau that extends from Tibet to eastern Ladakh, looks like a tiny piece of paradise full of lakes. But venture into its far eastern areas along the border and the illusion wears off as one stumbles upon carcasses of lambs and kids.

Weakened by lack of food, animals had given birth to dead lambs and kids in the winter. There was no food because locust swarms had attacked the pastures for three consecutive years-they struck again this year. And also because grazing patterns have changed over the years.

Cold and dry, Changthang has been home to Changpa nomads for centuries. It is not an easy place to live in. It is a cold desert where agriculture is extremely difficult. But Changpas have survived here with their flocks of sheep, goats, yaks and horses in a delicate balance with nature, forever careful of its scarce resource: pastures. Over centuries they have evolved an indigenous and effective rangeland management system that involves reserving certain pastures for winters when snow covers higher grazing areas and regulating communities' movement according to the pasture's condition. Today this system is under strain.

The survey teams constituted by the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC), Leh, in February 2008 have reported that this year herding groups shifted to spring pastures in January and February, one-and-a-half to two months ahead of time, "due to which there is every apprehension that the livestock in general may suffer scarcity of fodder". The trend was observed in Anley, Rongo, Kuyul, Skagjung and Demchok areas.

"Desert locust swarms have already devoured almost entire lower pastures," says Sonam Tashi, a 60-year-old nomad from Anley Khaldo, which is among the worst affected areas in Changthang. "Our main summer pasture Zhung (used in June, July and August) is lying abandoned, completely destroyed by locusts. Instead we are using Shuzhung winter reserved pasture," says Chinba Gyatso, Goba, chief of Rongo. "More than half our grazing grounds perished after repeated locust attacks, and we suffered the loss of over 300 lambs and kids in the past three years." Gyatso adds that in the wake of locust attacks a reddish grass has replaced normal pastures. Animals do not eat this grass because it burns their mouth, says Tsering Phuntsog, district sheep husbandry officer, Leh.

Changthang sub-division's assessment report on damages by locust swarms in 2007 submitted recently, shows 124,530 sheep and goats and 10,391 large animals, primarily yaks, were directly affected by pasture scarcity caused by the desert locust attack. Some of the worst-hit areas are Rongo, Loma, Anley Pongog, Anley Khaldo, Anley Buk Shado and Korzok where between 40 and 60 per cent pasture damage by locust is reported. Nidder, Nyoma, Mudh, Skagjung, Demchok, Kuyul, Tsaga, Chushul, Man Merak and Phobrang are other severely hit areas, with 15 to 30 per cent of grazing land destroyed by locust swarms, says the report.

Even as the administration was assessing the damage done by the desert locust last year, the swarms attacked again this summer. Kuyul, Rongo, Loma and Zhung were the target this time, said T Dawa, scientist, agriculture department. Although it was not as severe as earlier, it came at a time of crisis. LAHDC had arranged for about 270 tonnes of barley and alfalfa to help the Changpas sustain tens of thousands of livestock through the winter this year. Last year also it had distributed free feed and ration among the Changpas.

But such measures treat the symptoms, not the causes, which are overgrazing and pasture denudation over decades. Locust attacks only made the situation worse. Many argue that subsidies and relief have only made people susceptible to dependency. What the region needs is a long-term strategy taking into account various factors that have led to the pasture crisis.

The genesis of the problem can be traced to the Tibetan uprising in 1959 and the Sino-Indian war in 1962. The turmoil in Tibet and the war saw a large number of Tibetan Changpas settling in eastern Ladakh. The Changpas' traditional grazing grounds shrunk considerably after China captured some crucial winter pastures, including large portions of Skagjung, the key winter reserve pasture for the entire Changthang, in Kuyul area. Indian and Chinese army posts that came up along the border following the war also restricted the movement of nomads across Changthang. Chimet Nurboo of Kharnak nomadic community, says earlier most nomads would migrate to Skagjung in winters. As a result, the nomads now migrate more often on a smaller region.

According to a project report on the development of pashmina by the Leh Sheep Husbandry Department, it is the winter pastures that are more at threat. "A good portion of our pastures reserved for use in winters at Skagjung are grazed by animals brought in from the other side (from the Chinese side) of the border in summers," says Tangay from Kuyul border village. The Changpas have been complaining that their movements are highly restricted along the border, whereas nomads from the Chinese side move in freely along with thousands of animals. Today, the sheep and goat population of the Nyoma block alone is 171,376, of which 47,129 are owned by Tibetan nomads, according to the Sheep Husbandry Department, Leh. Increase in livestock population on reduced pastures is putting stress on rangelands. As a result the growth of grass is stunted and some important leguminous plants are facing extinction. According to Om Prakash Chaurasia, scientist, Field Research Laboratory, Leh, the quality of the Changthang pastures, which have been a mix of grass and legumes, is declining with the proliferation of weeds such as artemisia.

Wildlife, including kyang, argali, antelope and gazelle, also graze on these pastures.

Tourists with pack animals and car rally teams also destroy the fragile top soil as is evident from the condition of pastures surrounding Tso-kar (lake) in Samad area and Ldad in Kharnak, which are turning into deserts. Tyre marks can be seen all over Loma, Rongo and Anley as well.

Yet another cause of pasture degradation is the increasing goat population with growing pashmina business. The Leh Sheep Husbandry Department data shows that the number of goats has gone up from 184,824 in 2005-2006 to 208,878 in 2007-08, whereas the number of sheep has gone down from 76,443 in 2005-06 to 60,721 in 2007-08.

Grazing habits of goats contribute to desertification. "Goats have stiletto heels which break up the delicate plants that hold the dust in place," Chicago Tribune quoted Martin Williams, an authority on desertification at the University of Adelaide, Australia, as saying in an article in 2006. Goats are also expert foragers. "They graze down to lower levels and pull up stuff, where a camel would be browsing … The goats nibble at the bark around seedlings which transports nutrients to the plant, so once that bark has been damaged, the plant will die," Williams said.

Phuntsog of the sheep husbandry department says the number of goats has been increasing since 2005 when cashmere wool price was stabilized as a result of the pashmina de-hairing facility coming up in Leh and the formation of the All Changthang Pashmina Growers Society, a regional cooperative that buys pashmina directly from the Changpas. People are rearing more goats than sheep because the demand for pashmina has overtaken that of wool and pashmina is fetching them better prices. Sonam Tashi of Anley, who has 80 goats and 20 sheep, says the Pashmina Growers' Society pays him Rs 2,600-2,700 a bhatti (2 kg) and Tsongpas (middlemen supplying pashmina to Kashmiri traders) pay even Rs 3,000 a bhatti.

To tide over the immediate crisis, the Sheep Husbandry Department is helping with feed banks, lambing shed facilities and enclosures on the lines of tsapkaks (reserved pastures). There are also schemes to provide free goats and sheep. But these initiatives have a limited impact given the magnitude of the pasture crisis.

"Pastures have come to the state of exhaustion in many areas such as Skagjung," says P Angchuk, scientist with the department. Although Changthang is spread over about 22,000 square kilometre, the grazing land is restricted to lower altitudes with poor vegetative cover. But there is tremendous scope for pasture development given the numerous waterways that gurgle through the Changthang wilderness.

In the past the authorities have tried to build canals-the Durbugh canal and Zara Canal in Kharnak-for irrigation, but they are yet to supply a drop of water. These and some newer projects remain mired in the bureaucratic process. Nor has there been a study of possible impact of such irrigation.

Not long ago, Phuntsog approached the Hill Council with the idea of consulting the Changpas themselves on crisis management. The Hill Council sanctioned Rs 1 lakh under "Development and Management of Winter Pastures", under the Border Area Development Project. The aim is to blend indigenous knowledge with scientific expertise.

(Source: CSE/Down To Earth Feature Service)

Unep atmospheric brown cloud project report: Cities across Asia get dimmer

(From previous issue)

Around 13 megacities have so far been identified as ABC hotpots. Bangkok, Beijing, Cairo, Dhaka, Karachi, Kolkata, Lagos, Mumbai, New Delhi, Seoul, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tehran where soot levels are 10 per cent of the total mass of all human-made particles. ABCs can reduce sunlight hitting the Earth's surface in two ways.

Some of the particles such as sulphates, linked with burning coal and other fossil fuels, reflect and scatter rays back into space.

Others, also linked with fossil fuel and biomass burning, in particular black carbon in soot, absorb sunlight before it reaches the ground. The overall effect is to make 'hot spot' cities darker or dimmer. 'Dimming'of between 10-25 per cent is occurring over cities such as Karachi, Beijing, Shanghai and New Delhi Guangzhou is among several cities that have recorded a more than 20 per cent reduction in sunlight since the 1970s For India as a whole, the dimming trend has been running at about two per cent per decade between 1960 and 2000-more than doubling between 1980 and 2004.

'In China the observed dimming trend from the 1950s to the 1990s was

about 3-4 per cent per decade, with the larger trends after the 1970s,'

says the report.

Impact on Cloud Formation and a Further Dimming Effect Regions with large concentrations of ABCs may be getting cloudier which can also contribute to dimming but data are not sufficient to quantify this effect.Particles and aerosols in the ABCs may act to inhibit the formation of rain drops and rainfall. 'The net effect is an extension of cloud life-times,' says the report.

Masking the Impacts of Climate Change ABCs shield the surface from sunlight by reflecting solar radiation back to space and by absorbing heat in the atmosphere.

These two dimming phenomena can act to artificially cool the Earth's surface especially during dry seasons. The pollution can also be transported around the world via winds in the upper troposphere (above 5 km in altitude).

As a result global temperature rises-linked with greenhouse gas emissions-may currently be between 20 per cent and 80 per cent less as a result of brown clouds around the world says the report.

If brown clouds were eliminated overnight, this could trigger a rapid global temperature rise of as much as to 2 degrees C.

Added to the 0.75 degrees C rise of the 20th century, this could push global temperatures well above 2 degrees C-considered by many scientists to be a crucial and dangerous threshold.

Thus simply tackling the pollution linked with brown cloud formation without simultaneously delivering big cuts in greenhouse gases could have a potentially disastrous effect.

The science of ABCs, woven with the science of greenhouse gases, is not simple and may be behind some highly complex warming and cooling patterns witnessed on continents and in different regions of specific countries.

The masking of greenhouse warming by ABCs may in part be the explanation for the lack of a strong warming trend over India since the 1950s during the dry season which runs from January to May.

ABCs may explain in part why the warming trend in India's nighttime temperatures is much larger than the trend in daytime temperatures.

Annual mean temperatures in mainland China have risen by over one degree C in the past half century.

However the trends have not been uniform with the Tibetan Plateau and the north, northeast and northwest of China experiencing the highest temperature rises.

Conversely southwest and central eastern China has experienced a strong cooling trend of between 0.1 to 0.3 degrees C per decade.

'The combined effects of greenhouse gases, ABCs and rapid urbanization are required to explain the complex pattern of warming and cooling trends in

China,' says the report.

Impacts on Weather Patterns Including the East Asian Monsoon The large heating and cooling effects of ABCs respectively in the atmosphere and at the surface, combined with the impacts of greenhouse gases, may be also triggering sharp shifts in weather patterns.

This is being aggravated by dimming over the Northern Indian Ocean versus the relatively clean Southern Indian Ocean setting up new gradients in surface sea temperatures and surface sea evaporation rates.

ABCs, along with the global warming may thus be acting to trigger significant drying in northern China and increased risk of flooding in southern China while in part also triggering other environmental and economic effects. Overall decrease in monsoon precipitation over India and Southeast Asia by between five and seven per cent since the 1950s.

Since the 1950s the Indian summer monsoon is not only weakening but shrinking with a decrease in early and late season rainfall and a decline in the number of rainy days.

In both China and India extreme rain events of more than 100 mm a day have increased.

In both India and China very heavy rainfall of more than 150 mm a day has nearly doubled.

The Hindu Kush-Himalaya-Tibetan glaciers provide the headwaters for the major river systems including the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Mekong and Yangtze rivers.

The Ganges basin is home to over 400 million people and holds 40 per cent of India's irrigated croplands.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences estimates that the glaciers have shrunk 5 per cent since the 1950s and the volume of China's nearly 47,000 glaciers has fallen by 3,000 square km over the past quarter century.

Glaciers in India such as the Siachen, Gangotri and Chhota Shigiri glaciers are retreating at rates of between 10 and 25 metres a year. The retreat has accelerated in the past three and-a-half decades.

The Gangotri glacier alone provides up to 70 per cent of the water in the Ganges.

ABC solar heating of the atmosphere, due to the absorption of soot and black carbon pollution 'is suggested to be as important as greenhouse gas warming in accounting for the anomalously large warming trend observed in the elevated regions' such as the Himalayan-Tibetan region says the report.

Decreased reflection of solar radiation by snow and ice due to increasing deposits of black carbon is emerging as another major contributor to the melting of ice and snow.

Elevated regions of the Himalayas within 100 km of Mount Everest experience large black carbon concentrations ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand nanogrammes per cubic metre.

Impacts of ABCs on food production and farmers'livelihoods may be many.

However there remains a great deal more research to undertake in terms of crops at risk and the precise role various ABC-linked effects-separately or in combination with those of greenhouse gases-may or may not be having.

Possible effects may include Damage to crops as a result of increased ground level ozone. In Europe a threshold concentration at which damage can occur is deemed to be 40 parts per billion The report says that in parts of Asia ground level ozone can reach 50 parts per billion during February to June and peaking again between September and November at 40 parts per billion The studies suggest that growing season mean ozone concentrations in the range 30 - 45 parts per billion could see crop yield losses in the region of 10 - 40 per cent for sensitive cultivars of important Asian crops such as wheat rice and legumes A recent study translated such impacts on yield into annual economic losses estimating that for four key crops-wheat, rice, corn and soya bean-these may amount to around $5 billion a year across China, the Republic of Korea and Japan Other effects may include damage linked with the various acidic and toxic particles from brown clouds depositing on plants from the atmosphere Reduced levels of photosynthesis and thus crop production due to 'dimming' Brown clouds contain a variety of toxic aerosols, carcinogens and particles including particulate matter (PM) of less than 2.5 microns in width.

These have been linked with a variety of health effects from respiratory disease and cardio-vascular problems.

Outdoor exposure: Increases in concentrations of PM 2.5 of 20 microgrammes per cubic metre could lead to about 340,000 excess deaths per year in China and India Indoor exposure: the World Health Organization estimates that over 780,000 deaths in the two countries can be linked to solid fuel use in the home Economic losses due to outdoor exposure to ABC-related PM2.5 has been crudely estimated at 3.6 per cent of GDP in China and 2.2 per cent of GDP in India.