In my previous post, I mentioned that I attribute my high(relatively, I mean, when compared to the average Indian) standard of living to the access to the Indian electric grid. I also said that I would like to preserve my high standard of living. So the question is, what wrong with the grid? This post is meant to highlight some of the problems with our current energy paradigm.
The Energy Source Issue
Here's a breakdown of the various sources of electricity in the country
As you can see, about 2/3rd of our electricity is generated using thermal generation facilities. These facilities use coal or natural gas for fuel. Both of these are non renewable fossil fuels. Once you burn them, they just disappear into thin air. Actually coal (especially Indian coal) does leave behind a large amount of ash. But that's not very useful.
The problem is that the price of both coal and natural gas, has been rising in recent years. Here's a chart for coal prices.
The reason for this is largely geological. Mining of natural resources is usually done by the lowest hanging fruit principle. The easiest cheapest deposits are mined first. After centuries of mining, all those easily accessible deposits have been depleted. More energy, effort and money (capital) has to be invested to access the deposits that are discovered today. That cost has to be recovered from the consumers (you and me). This is true for oil and natural gas as well.
The Complexity Issue
Even if we ignore the rising prices, there is another problem. Our current energy systems are way too complex. Basically, that is true for all modern systems. The entire progress story of human species has been nothing but a quest to add new layers of complexity on the previous ones. We call that complexity - technology. To be sure, computers are not becoming simpler just because they are getting smaller. People should see how a modern microprocessor is made, in order to understand just how complex a modern computer is.
As mentioned earlier, fossil fuels like coal are becoming harder to access. So how was this problem solved? Well, by using larger and larger machines for mining. Actually, these days they use a process called mountain top removal. Where large areas of land are simply blasted off using explosives, in order to expose the coal deposits underneath.
There are two kinds of energy resources- High Grade and Low Grade. Fossil fuels and Hydroelectricity are high grade energy resources. They provide very large amounts of energy per unit volume. Solar, wind etc are low grade energy resources. When you have high grade energy resources, it makes sense to centralize generation and distribution as much as possible. That way, it's more efficient and comfortable. Its better to have 1000 MW power plants and then distribute that electricity using a highly interconnected and complex national grid.
Now, the problem with this arrangement is that complex system always have single points of failure. Recently, entire North India suffered a black out because of a single faulty line. Black outs like that are seen even in western countries. An analogy can be seen in the financial world where a few failed companies in USA caused a worldwide recession.
It would be prudent of us the curtail our dependency on these hyper-complex systems. I believe that low grade renewable energy resources provide us with an opportunity to do that. We have to find ways to building small stand alone energy systems that can be easily maintained and replicated. And that is what this blog is dedicated to.
The Energy Source Issue
Here's a breakdown of the various sources of electricity in the country
The problem is that the price of both coal and natural gas, has been rising in recent years. Here's a chart for coal prices.
The Complexity Issue
Even if we ignore the rising prices, there is another problem. Our current energy systems are way too complex. Basically, that is true for all modern systems. The entire progress story of human species has been nothing but a quest to add new layers of complexity on the previous ones. We call that complexity - technology. To be sure, computers are not becoming simpler just because they are getting smaller. People should see how a modern microprocessor is made, in order to understand just how complex a modern computer is.
As mentioned earlier, fossil fuels like coal are becoming harder to access. So how was this problem solved? Well, by using larger and larger machines for mining. Actually, these days they use a process called mountain top removal. Where large areas of land are simply blasted off using explosives, in order to expose the coal deposits underneath.
There are two kinds of energy resources- High Grade and Low Grade. Fossil fuels and Hydroelectricity are high grade energy resources. They provide very large amounts of energy per unit volume. Solar, wind etc are low grade energy resources. When you have high grade energy resources, it makes sense to centralize generation and distribution as much as possible. That way, it's more efficient and comfortable. Its better to have 1000 MW power plants and then distribute that electricity using a highly interconnected and complex national grid.
Now, the problem with this arrangement is that complex system always have single points of failure. Recently, entire North India suffered a black out because of a single faulty line. Black outs like that are seen even in western countries. An analogy can be seen in the financial world where a few failed companies in USA caused a worldwide recession.
It would be prudent of us the curtail our dependency on these hyper-complex systems. I believe that low grade renewable energy resources provide us with an opportunity to do that. We have to find ways to building small stand alone energy systems that can be easily maintained and replicated. And that is what this blog is dedicated to.
