Thursday, July 30, 2015

The People's President has departed, Leaving Billion Hearts Broken.

Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam
1931-2015

How Ethiopia Went from Famine Crisis to Green Revolution

As President Obama traveled to Ethiopia this week for meetings about security, human rights, and to visit the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, most people likely conjured up images of the country from the 1980s—a land ravaged by drought and famine. July 13, 2015 marked the 30th anniversary of the Live Aid concert for Ethiopia organized by Bob Geldof to mobilize funding for famine relief.
What most people probably don’t know is that Ethiopia has made significant progress during the last 20 years in restoring its degraded lands and improving its food and water security. According to Belgian and Ethiopian researchers,” Northern Ethiopia is now greener than it has ever been during the last 145 years,” and “human investments have overridden the impacts of climate change.”
So what happened?
A new documentary, Ethiopia Rising: Red Terror to Green Revolution, co-funded by WRI and made by award-winning UK filmmaker Mark Dodd, tells the story of how Ethiopia’s people restored vast areas of degraded land to productivity. Their story offers inspiration for other countries facing degraded soils, famine and climate change.

Ethiopia’s Green Revolution

Shortly after the overthrow of the Marxist regime in 1991, the regional government of Tigray launched a major land restoration campaign implemented with the support of village communities and donor agencies such as the World Bank, USAID, German Development Cooperation, World Food Programme and others. With support from government, farmers stopped using very degraded land for grazing and collection of firewood in order to allow trees and shrubs to naturally regenerate. This effort was combined with tree-planting.
At the same time, farmers also constructed stone bunds and terraces on steep slopes, which forced rainfall and runoff to infiltrate soil rather than rushing down hills and causing erosion and flooding downstream. This helped groundwater recharge in valleys, which allowed people to dig shallow wells that they could use to irrigate crops and fruit trees during the dry season.
<p>Stone bunds and terracing allow rainwater to infiltrate slops and support irrigation in the valleys. Photo by Chris Reij/WRI</p>
Stone bunds and terracing allow rainwater to infiltrate slops and support irrigation in the valleys. Photo by Chris Reij/WRI
More than one million hectares of degraded agricultural and forest land has been restored in East and Central Tigray alone. What makes it even more remarkable is that it’s happened under harsh conditions, such as steep slopes and shallow soils. It is estimated that the people of Tigray have moved at least 90 million tons of soil and rocks by hand to reshape their landscapes.
<p>Northern Ethiopia is greener than it has been in the past 145 years. Photo by Chris Reij/WRI</p>
Northern Ethiopia is greener than it has been in the past 145 years. Photo by Chris Reij/WRI

The Multiple Impacts

It’s had tremendous results. Whereas Tigray only had about 40 hectares (99 acres) of irrigated land in the mid-1990s, it now irrigates almost 40,000 hectares (99,000 acres). In 2007, Tigray became self-sufficient in food production, which can to a significant degree be attributed to the large-scale restoration efforts. In 2000, Tigray was the poorest region of Ethiopia, with 61.4 percent of its population living below the national poverty line. According to the World Bank Ethiopia Poverty Assessment 2014, this percentage had dropped steeply to 31.8 percent in 2011, which is close to the national average of 31 percent.
<p>Village leader Aba Hawi in his irrigated orchard in Tigray. Photo by Chris Reij/WRI</p>
Village leader Aba Hawi in his irrigated orchard in Tigray. Photo by Chris Reij/WRI
And the country doesn’t plan to stop there. Ethiopia’s national government committed to restore an additional 15 million hectares of degraded lands by 2025, as part of its Climate-Resilient Green Economy strategy and the international Bonn Challenge.
President Obama’s visit may have drawn attention to an often overlooked nation, but it shouldn’t stop there. Many world conferences will be held in the remaining months of this year—on climate change, Sustainable Development Goals, forestry, desertification and more. Participants may draw inspiration from Ethiopia’s story, which shows what’s possible when communities, governments and NGOs come together to breathe fresh life into village lands.
Courtesy : World Resources Institute. 

Saturday, July 25, 2015

Govt comes up with draft on e-waste

With more than 25 crore mobile phones being discarded by users each year, the Union Environment Ministry has come up with a new draft plan that would suggest how best the electronic waste (e-waste) can be disposed off.
One of the key features of the draft E-waste (Management) Rules 2015 is to financially reward the user, if the person deposits the equipment with a designated e-waste collection centres. Setting up the collection centres would be responsibility of manufacturers.

“A portion of the selling price will be retained by the producer and will be refundable to the consumer once the end of life products are channelised in the prescribed method,” according to the draft, which are open to public comments till July 31.

Though there is hardly any data on the quantity of e-waste generated in India, a decade-old study by the Central Pollution Control Board estimated generation of 1.47 lakh tonnes of e-waste in 2005, which was to increase to 8 lakh tonnes by 2012. The rising trend continues. More than 70 per cent of the waste is generated in 10 states – Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Delhi, Karnataka, Gujarat, 
Madhya Pradesh and Punjab. There are  23 e-waste recycling units having the total capacity of 90,000 tonnes per year.

Sixty five cities generate more than 60 per cent of the total e-waste in India, says a 2011 report prepared by the Rajya Sabha. 

Among the top ten cities generating e-waste, Mumbai ranks first followed by Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Pune, Surat and Nagpur.

Mahindra Group calls for more investment in e-cars


Mahindra Group, one of India's largest utility vehicle manufacturer, has called on the government to allocate budgets for setting up required to boost eco-friendly electric car usage in India.

"As far as the government is concerned, what we are happy about is that they are trying to push for electric vehicles to be used. It's on the infrastructure side where we would like to see more effort coming in and the government to sponsor such initiatives," said Pawan Goenka, Group president (auto & farm sector).

"The effort should be to allocate budgets for setting up infrastructure for charging, which will be very useful," he told PTI on the sidelines of Formula E at Battersea Park in south London.

The USD 16.9-billion Mumbai-headquartered conglomerate's Mahindra Racing became the only team to represent India in the recently-concluded Formula E event in London.

It was approached for the inaugural event supported by the world motor sports governing body FIA as among the few manufacturers of electric cars commercially.

"Electric vehicle infrastructure will start only in a few cities like Bangalore, Delhi, Pune, Mumbai and Hyderabad and once we have a critical mass of vehicles, then it can go into the suburbs and highways connecting these cities. It has to be a long-term plan," he explained.

The infrastructure spike would also be related to a gradual increase in the volume of e-cars being sold.

"The UK today sells around 30,000 electric vehicles a year and is expected to hit 50,000 this year. So they are in a ramp up curve. Comparatively, India has less than 1,000, so there is some catching up. It almost becomes a chicken and egg situation where you cannot put up infrastructure where it's not really being used," said the senior executive.

The group's Mahindra Reva Electric Vehicles Private Limited is behind India's first automatic electric car with e2o and plans to launch an enhanced version of the model in the UK in the first quarter of next year.

Belgium plans artificial island for wind energy storage

Belgium is planning to construct an island in the North Sea for the sole purpose of storing wind energy.
Wind farms, when constructed using traditional mainstream methods, will eventually require backup as their electricity market penetration increases, and when wind turbines generate surplus electricity due to unusually high wind speeds (which can happen pretty often) it goes to waste.
Image Source: Vestas
Belgium To Build Energy Storage Island“We have a lot of energy from the wind mills and sometimes it just gets lost because there isn’t enough demand for the electricity,” said spokeswoman for Belgium’s North Sea minister Johan Vande Lanotte. “This is a great solution,” the spokeswoman said, adding she thought it could be the first of its kind.
Excess wind power would be used to pump water out of the centre of the island, and it would be allowed to flow back in, but through an electricity generating turbine to augment overall electricity production when there is a shortfall of wind energy.
Vande Lanotte revealed these plans at the Belgian port of Zeebrugge late on Wednesday.
Large-scale wind energy storage has been mostly just a thought for many years, worldwide, but Belgium decided to step up to the plate and put it to the test.
There is an important fact about the electricity market penetration of wind power — in reality, the only real market penetration is done by electricity when it is used. By storing the surplus wind-produced electricity in the North Sea plant, this company can finally sell it, because excess electricity will be ready for when electricity demand increases during peak hours.
Source: reuters

Wind power potential in AP assessed at 88,000 MW

The wind power potential in Andhra Pradesh is assessed to be at least 88,000 Mw from wastelands. Furthermore, there is a potential of around 12,000 Mw if 5 per cent of the state’s agricultural lands suitable for wind power were used.
According to a study by the Centre for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), wind power is cost-effective as compared with other sources of generation. The main challenge for large-scale wind power addition is managing its variability and unpredictability.
The state will have to develop fast ramping sources of generation such as hydro, pumped hydro, open cycle gas turbines, which could be used to manage the variability, the study stated.
Similarly, Karnataka has an estimated potential of 50,000 Mw from wastelands for a turbine height of 80 metres and an additional 20,000 Mw if 5 per cent of the agricultural lands suitable for wind power were used.
CSTEP recently released a report ‘Wind Power in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh: Potential Assessment, Costs and Grid Implications’ during a workshop on Roadmap for Accelerated Wind Power Development in India.
The major finding of the report is that the potential available in Karnataka and AP for wind power at higher heights is not a constraint for large-scale generation. The modern wind turbines installable at heights up to 100 metres can efficiently extract higher potential available in comparison to earlier models, which were built at less than 50 metres height.
Speaking on the occasion, S V Ranganath, chief secretary, Karnataka, stated that current allocations for wind power projects were not adequate given the high potential available to be tapped in Karnataka.
He stressed the importance of considering storage mechanisms such as pumped hydro storage to manage the unpredictability of generating large-scale power from wind resource.
“The implications of the results are significant for setting national level targets, at a time when the Planning Commission has indicated interest in setting up a National Wind Mission in the 12th Plan,” said Alok Srivastava, joint secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.
The study undertook a geographical information system (GIS)-based assessment of the availability of wind resource, land, and transmission networks for rapid wind power development.

Swedish scientists: Nanowires made of Indium Phosphate improve solar cell efficiency

The Swedish research team have published the results of their study in the journal Science in which they show how they have managed to achieve an efficiency level of 13.8 percent using nanowires. The scientists believe this result could pave the way for even more efficient solar cells. “Our findings are the first to show that it really is possible to use nanowires to manufacture solar cells” said Magnus Borgström, the author of the research paper and a specialist in semiconductor physics. “The right size is essential for the nanowires to absorb as many photons as possible. If they are just a few tenths of a nanometre too small their function is significantly impaired.”

Green buildings in Delhi likely to get more FARs

Green buildings help you reduce the electricity bill, save water and make your living space comfortable but now there is another incentive. Following a recent announcement by the lieutenant governor, green structures in the capital may be allowed a larger floor area ratio (FAR) compared to conventional buildings. 

FAR is the ratio of a building's total floor area to the size of the land on which it is built. In Delhi, it varies according to the size of the plot. 

"The LG has asked all agencies to convert maximum buildings into eco-friendly structures as green buildings are playing a significant role in minimizing the carbon footprint of cities. They require less energy both for cooling and heating. Increasing the FAR will be a good incentive for people to switch to eco-friendly buildings. This proposal will be added to Delhi Master Plan 2020," said Ranjan Mukherjee, the officer-on-special-duty (OSD) to lieutenant governor Tejendra Khanna. 

Delhi Urban Art Commission (DUAC) has also recently recommended to the urban development ministry that the FAR for green buildings be increased by 1%. "Two important features of our recent recommendations are that FAR be increased and 15% roof area be allowed to use if builders use roof-top solar photo-voltaic panels. The green rating for integrated habitat assessment (GRIHA) has become almost obligatory now so it shouldn't be difficult to shift to green architecture," said DUAC chairman Raj Rewal. 

He has also suggested that three independent architects look into each project. While one of them will be the architect of the building, the others can check if all the building bylaws are being followed. If there is no slip-up, the project will be deemed approved, minimizing the time for clearance. 

In the West, too, these incentives have been used to promote green buildings. For instance, United States Green Building Council recommends reducing duration of the review and permitting process for verifiable green building projects. Many municipalities in the US also allow percentage increases in FAR if a building meets green standards. Some municipalities with height restrictions have provided height bonuses for green structures.

Ultra-small devices for energy-efficient electronics

Redox active ferrocene alkanethiol molecules pack together and assemble into monolayer thin films on silver electrodes. Molecules that stand tall instead of crouching form tighter assemblies, which dramatically improves the device properties.

Scientists have designed and fabricated ultra-small devices for energy-efficient electronics. By finding out how molecules behave in these devices, a ten-fold increase in switching efficiency was obtained by changing just one carbon atom. These devices could provide new ways to combat overheating in mobile phones and laptops, and could also aid in electrical stimulation of tissue repair for wound healing.    

A team of scientists from Tyndall National Institute at University College Cork and the National University of Singapore have designed and fabricated ultra-small devices for energy-efficient electronics. By finding out how molecules behave in these devices, a ten-fold increase in switching efficiency was obtained by changing just one carbon atom. These devices could provide new ways to combat overheating in mobile phones and laptops, and could also aid in electrical stimulation of tissue repair for wound healing.
The breakthrough creation of molecular devices with highly controllable electrical properties will appear in the February issue of Nature Nanotechnology. Dr. Damien Thompson at the Tyndall National Institute, UCC and a team of researchers at the National University of Singapore led by Prof. Chris Nijhuis designed and created the devices, which are based on molecules acting as electrical valves, or diode rectifiers.
Dr. Thompson explains, "These molecules are very useful because they allow current to flow through them when switched ON and block current flow when switched OFF. The results of the study show that simply adding one extra carbon is sufficient to improve the device performance by more than a factor of ten. We are following up lots of new ideas based on these results, and we hope ultimately to create a range of new components for electronic devices." Dr. Thompson's atom-level computer simulations showed how molecules with an odd number of carbon atoms stand straighter than molecules with an even number of carbon atoms. This allows them to pack together more closely. Tightly-packed assemblies of these molecules were formed on metal electrode surfaces by the Nijhuis group in Singapore and were found to be remarkably free of defects. These high quality devices can suppress leakage currents and so operate efficiently and reliably. The device can be cleanly switched on and off purely on the basis of the charge and shape of the molecules, just like in the biological nanomachines that regulate photosynthesis, cell division and tissue growth.

Tyndall Electronic Theory Group leader Prof. Jim Greer explains: "Modern electronic devices such as telephones and tablets in manufacture today rely on tiny switches approaching molecular sizes. This provides new challenges for electronics but opens up exciting opportunities for blending molecular properties to be used to advantage. Dr. Thompson’s work is an exciting new avenue to exploit molecular design to achieve new ways to perform information processing." A key enabling feature for nanoscale electronics will be the ability to use molecules as rectifiers and switches. By demonstrating the rational design of molecules that rectify current with a large and highly-reproducible ON/OFF ratio, the study provides a key advance towards the creation of technologically viable ultra-small device components. Fifty thousand of the rectifier molecules strung end to end would fit across the diameter of a human hair. Advances in computing, synthesis and characterisation means scientists can now understand and control material at the scale of atoms and molecules. 

The study was funded on the Irish side by a Science Foundation Ireland Starting Investigator award to Dr. Thompson. The computer simulations were performed on Science Foundation Ireland-supported computing clusters at Tyndall and at the Irish Centre for High End Computing. The combined experiments and simulations show for the first time that minute improvements in molecule orientation and packing trigger changes in van der Waals forces that are sufficiently large to dramatically improve the performance of electronic devices. Dr. Thompson explains: "These van der Waals forces are the weakest of all intermolecular forces and only become significant when summed over large areas. Hence, up until now, the majority of research into ultra-small devices has used stronger "pi-pi" interactions to stick molecules together, and has ignored the much weaker, but ubiquitous, van der Waals interactions. The present study shows how van der Waals effects, which are present in every conceivable molecular scale device, can be tuned to optimise the performance of the device."

The devices are based on molecules that act as diodes by allowing current to pass through them when operated at forward bias and blocking current when the bias is reversed. Molecular rectifiers were first proposed back in 1974, and advances in scientific computing have allowed molecular‐level design to be used over the past decade to develop new organic materials that provide better electrical responses. However, the relative importance of the interactions between the molecules, the nature of the molecule-metal contact and the influence of environmental effects have been questioned. This new research demonstrates that dramatic improvements in device performance may be achieved by controlling the van der Waals forces that pack the molecules together. Simply changing the number of carbon atoms by one provides significantly more stable and more reproducible devices that exhibit an order of magnitude improvement in ON/OFF ratio. The research findings demonstrate the feasibility of boosting device performances by creating tighter seals between molecules.

"The development of molecular scale electronics is heavily reliant on simulation and high performance computing", commented Prof. Greer. "The continued support for research infrastructure in Ireland allows for the scientific advances that lead to enhanced interaction with global industry leaders, and positions Ireland to be a key provider of research with impact."       










                                                                    

Simulating with Proteus

https://youtu.be/GDxYzqvTcnI