Energy is required for any economy to function. From the industrial revolution, the total energy used by the world has only increased in magnitude. However, the good news is that while a hundred years ago we were getting our energy from sources like coal, today’s energy sources are not only less polluting but also more efficient. As a
India announced last year that it would take its installed solar energy capacity from near zero to 20,000 MW in a matter of just over a decade, by 2022. This is quite an ambitious agenda and several people had doubts regarding the feasibility of such a plan, especially during these tough economic times.
As a concept, the idea of energy harvesting is hardly new. It comes from many similar ideas about other human needs – like food. Of course it is not feasible that everyone grows their own food because of the shortage of arable land. However, in the case of energy, we
Electronics are everywhere around us, and life in the 21st century is unimaginable without them. Computers, mobile phones, televisions, etc. are ubiquitous and have transformed the way the world works. However, like any technology, there are problems that need to be addressed, and electronic waste is one of the major one for the environment.
Electronic waste or e-waste grows at an exponential rate because the industry churns out new products at an ever faster rate. This renders old products useless.
From a technological point of view, India is an excellent place for the development of solar energy. It gets plenty of sunshine for most parts of the year, with the summer temperatures well in excess of 1000 F in most parts of the country. To the northwest, India has the Thar Desert that has been identified as a feasible spot for the development of solar power, since the area is mostly an arid land and gets plenty of sunlight.
Apart from the solar power generation potential at a large scale, there is plenty of scope for household solar harvesting.
It seems like an audacious claim, but Uranium-238 might just be the solution the world needs to solve the energy crisis. As many of the intellectual thinkers, serial entrepreneurs and research stalwarts all over the world combine their efforts to solve the energy crisis, Uranium 238 seems to pop up more often than not.
Before dismissing this as yet another pipe dream or a media publicity stunt, consider this – the best minds of the scientific and research community are already involved in this project. Bill Gates has recently classified this as an ‘Energy Miracle’ if successful. This is a total revolution and not an incremental improvement of existing technologies. This is why, if successful, it can redefine the way we look at all forms of energy and indeed the entire geo-politics and socio-economics of the world.