The age-old question of Fossil-fuel power lends itself to centralized power systems, requiring long supply lines (rail or pipeline) to provide a constant supply of fuel and significant economies of scale in thermal energy production. These supply lines and huge power plants require enormous concentrations of capital, concentrating not only power generation but control of the grid. This explains the 20th-century electricity system.
Renewable energy is fundamentally different. Wind, solar, and geothermal are available everywhere and are so broadly commercially viable that in the US it has been determined that 31 states could meet their entire electricity need with in-state renewable energy resources. It’s also modular, with large-scale wind and solar power plants made up of smaller increments of two megawatts (wind) or 250 Watts (solar). There are much more modest economies of scale for both wind and solar, no long supply lines, and much smaller capital requirements for cost-effective power generation. Thus, renewable energy lends itself to a decentralized system of power generation and ownership.
In our trek for energy sufficiency, we should consider these observations and add current and futuristic thinking to come up with long-term solutions, therefore we look at some emerging technologies with these thoughts in mind: Rice straw is the waste product of growing rice. Normally, it is simply burned adding sooty pollution to the local air and nudging up atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. What if there were a better alternative to simply burning this material? Writing in the International Journal of Environment and Waste Management a team from India offer an alternative. Pardeep Aggarwal and Anu Prashaant of Amity University in Gautam Budh Nagar, India, suggest that rice straw could instead be utilized for power generation or bioethanol production.
Unfortunately, the team explains, some farmers believe that rice straw open burning can remove weeds, control diseases and release nutrients for the next crop. There is little evidence that rice straw burning does anything but pollute. Rice straw length, low elevation land, and even the great distance from farmhouse to farmland are additional factors that influence the field burning of rice straw. Rice straw cannot be used as cattle feed either and there is extraordinarily little time between successive crops to do much with the fields other than eradicating the stubble.
To make the alternative proposition viable both commercially and logistically, they explain that there is a need for a sustainable supply chain management of rice straw. Now there is but a single 12-megawatt power plant that uses 100% rice straw as its fuel, one million metric-Tonnes annually, but that is a fraction of the tonnage of this agricultural waste product. The team points out that the numbers of rice straw power plants in China too is low and falling. However, the environmental and economic benefits of utilizing a ubiquitous waste product could make power production and bioethanol production tenable given the right geopolitical conditions.
The team concludes from the study that "only when such infrastructure with proactive planning is available can a secured supply of rice straw be maintained for continuous year-long operations of a power plant."
Renewable energy is fundamentally different. Wind, solar, and geothermal are available everywhere and are so broadly commercially viable that in the US it has been determined that 31 states could meet their entire electricity need with in-state renewable energy resources. It’s also modular, with large-scale wind and solar power plants made up of smaller increments of two megawatts (wind) or 250 Watts (solar). There are much more modest economies of scale for both wind and solar, no long supply lines, and much smaller capital requirements for cost-effective power generation. Thus, renewable energy lends itself to a decentralized system of power generation and ownership.
In our trek for energy sufficiency, we should consider these observations and add current and futuristic thinking to come up with long-term solutions, therefore we look at some emerging technologies with these thoughts in mind: Rice straw is the waste product of growing rice. Normally, it is simply burned adding sooty pollution to the local air and nudging up atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. What if there were a better alternative to simply burning this material? Writing in the International Journal of Environment and Waste Management a team from India offer an alternative. Pardeep Aggarwal and Anu Prashaant of Amity University in Gautam Budh Nagar, India, suggest that rice straw could instead be utilized for power generation or bioethanol production.
Unfortunately, the team explains, some farmers believe that rice straw open burning can remove weeds, control diseases and release nutrients for the next crop. There is little evidence that rice straw burning does anything but pollute. Rice straw length, low elevation land, and even the great distance from farmhouse to farmland are additional factors that influence the field burning of rice straw. Rice straw cannot be used as cattle feed either and there is extraordinarily little time between successive crops to do much with the fields other than eradicating the stubble.
To make the alternative proposition viable both commercially and logistically, they explain that there is a need for a sustainable supply chain management of rice straw. Now there is but a single 12-megawatt power plant that uses 100% rice straw as its fuel, one million metric-Tonnes annually, but that is a fraction of the tonnage of this agricultural waste product. The team points out that the numbers of rice straw power plants in China too is low and falling. However, the environmental and economic benefits of utilizing a ubiquitous waste product could make power production and bioethanol production tenable given the right geopolitical conditions.
The team concludes from the study that "only when such infrastructure with proactive planning is available can a secured supply of rice straw be maintained for continuous year-long operations of a power plant."
According to downtoearth.org.in , the source of this photo, waste is not waste until it is wasted. In his article Jyotika Sood says Farmers in the state complain that rice straw is a huge problem for them because they follow mechanised agriculture. “When you harvest rice by a combine harvester, it leaves a significant length of straw on the field,” says Rajinder Kumar Sama, a farmer from Abohar district. So, crop residues in combine-harvested fields are burnt. Besides, explains Sarabjit Singh from Ghanaour village in Patiala district, both wheat and rice are long-duration crops. With a short period available between rice harvesting and wheat plantation, burning is the easiest and quickest way to get rid of rice straw. Singh adds that increasing labour cost is another reason farmers prefer setting fire to their vast swathes of paddy fields after they have harvested the crop.