Holocene Year 5 Issue 04 - 06

Year 5/Issue 04-06/December 2019–February 2020

The World after 5th Extinction Special Energy Issue

Oil production, carbon capture, sequestration and enhanced oil recovery in a developing nation

No Reason to Compromise: National Energy Priorities in the Era of Climate Change

A Ray of Hope

Quarterly Newsletter of

Energynomics

Oil production, carbon capture, sequestration and enhanced oil recovery in a developing nation Cover Photo : ERM Impact Assessment Team

Year 5/Issue 04-06/December 2019–February 2020

“I've been very passionate about renewable energy for many years, particularly solar energy and its capacity to bring abundant clean, sustainable energy to millions around the globe.” ~ Richard Branson

We must not waste energy by leaving more and more carbon footprint because we need to do something more important: Photograph by Debasis Roy Karmakar

Year 5/Issue 04-06/December 2019–February 2020

The Holocene is the geological epoch that began after the Pleistocene at approximately 11,700 years BP and continues to the present. As Earth warmed after the Ice Age, the human population increased and early man began to change the planet forever. For Exploring Nature, our newsletter Holocene is our platform to convey our concerns on human threat to biodiversity. We will use our newsletter as a media to highlight the current local and global issues which could impact biodiversity of Mother Nature and promote awareness of biodiversity in alignment with our group’s mission of promoting awareness of different aspects of Mother Nature among people.

In this newsletter our readers will get information and periodic updates on.  Recent significant discussions on biodiversity, going on across the world.  Major recent research and studies on biodiversity.  Biodiversity explorations planned and conducted by national and international groups as well as Exploring Nature.  Information and interesting readings on wildlife photography and biodiversity modelling etc.

Year 5/Issue 04-06/December 2019–February 2020 © Exploring Nature and Forest Conservation Cover, Design and Illustration © Exploring Nature and Forest Conservation All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without proper prior permission in writing from Exploring Nature and Forest Conservation.

Content:  Cover Story Oil production, carbon capture, sequestration and enhanced oil recovery in a developing nation by Dr. Sushanta Bose 3|Page  Editorial Dilemma in Indian Regulatory Framework towards Commitment for Sustainability Governance: The Crisis and Commitment 9|Page  Expert Speaks No Reason to Compromise: National Energy Priorities in the Era of Climate Change by Vijaya Jayaraj 11|Page  Story Room A Ray of Hope by Dwaipayan Ghosh 14|Page  Cohabitation Energynomics by Vrushabh Borkar 17|Page  Voice of Nature Global Climate Strike and Workshop on Habitat Conservation by Exploring Nature 20|Page  Theme Poster The Ray of Hope by Rohan Fernandez 23|Page

Editorial Board Team Exploring Nature Logo and Title Design Arijit Das Majumder and Saikat Chakraborty Website www.exploringnature.org.in e-mail info@exploringnature.org.in

The Quarterly Newsletter of

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Dr. Sushanta Bose Geologist–Petro physicist

Carbon capture utilization and sequestration (CCUS) in relation to enhanced oil recovery (EOR) has a significant potential to help improve socio-economic development of countries like India. It is important to understand that even a small improvement in either oil production or environmental condition will have a huge impact on a rapidly developing nation. In fact, the socio-economic benefits most likely extend beyond a single nation and impact the entire planet.

Countries like India are trying hard to rapidly expand their activities in this area of oil production and lot of policies and strategies are being developed related to implementation of EOR techniques and CCUS. Not all EOR techniques have the same environmental or economic impact. So, to be able to make informed opinion about these initiatives, it is important to develop understanding on how these technologies work.

It is amazing how human can launch rockets to land vehicles on the Mars and the Moon. Technologies developed and implemented in the oil and gas exploration and production (E&P) on daily basis are no less critical. In fact, the scientists and engineers in this industry have to deal with so much uncertainty and such limited knowledge about the underground geology of rocks that it is absolutely necessary to integrate imagination, and creativity with quantitative technics of science and engineering. Geoscientists and reservoir engineers are as much an artist as they are technically strong to be able to find and produce oil and gas. They employ commonly available and utilized technics to extract oil and gas from the subsurface reservoirs.

Oil production: primary, secondary and tertiary Oil is produced out of subsurface reservoirs by a variety of means however; there is a large difference between finding and producing oil. Not all oil that are found can be produced, because mankind is not able to pay for it, in short, they are not economical. Even those reservoirs that are produced, not the entire amount of stored oil can be extracted. In fact, only a small amount of the stored oil are usually produced. Let’s consider that we have a 500mL water in a glass container. When you pour out the water it does not pour out all 500mL because a very thin layer of water keeps the surface wet.

This happens because water sticks to the surface. Believe it or not water is sticky. That stickiness depends on how thick the water is (viscosity), the type of material the container is made up with, and 3|Page

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also the roughness of the surface. That leftover amount may seem small in this case but now consider a much larger container with lots of glass marbles inside containing the same 500mL water. If you pour this water out you will be able to recover much less amount of water than the first example because much more water will stick to the surfaces of those marbles. Now imagine the marbles are much smaller than the second example. What do you think will happen to the holes where that water is stored? Are they smaller or larger? Do you leave less water behind or more? You are right, more and more water will be left behind with smaller and smaller marbles because more water will stick to more surfaces of the marbles.

It gets more complicated by changing the liquid from water to oil. Yes, you guessed it right – much more oil will be left behind because oil is much stickier than water. Additionally, you cannot pour oil out of a large subsurface reservoir as you can pour water from a marble filled jug. Then how does oil come out? A reservoir at a few miles depth is usually under a lot of pressure, which initially helps to push oil out if the conditions are right. Additionally, we need to pump it out using various techniques but we cannot be impatient while taking it out. If we try to take it out faster than the reservoir can deliver, we may damage the reservoir forever and not recover the remaining oil. Also, we have to remember that oil reservoirs do not only contain oil but it contains both oil and water (as well as gas).

So, water is also produced along with oil (gas too). This gas in the reservoir can be at two states – a) in the form of a gas, free, alongside oil, and b) in the form of gas that is dissolved in oil - just like in a carbonated beverage or soda. A soda is where CO2 is dissolved in water under high pressure. If you are careful to open the can you would slowly release the pressure inside, so that the gas comes out of the liquid and out of the can without the drink itself. If you are not careful opening a soda-can you will see lots of beverage to ooze out along with the gas. This is because the pressure is not released carefully. Similarly, dissolved gas makes the oil (and water) less viscous and more mobile. So, oil tends to ooze out more out of the reservoir. Just like the soda can, when the pressure is low after the initial fluid loss (gas and liquid together or separately) it needs to be poured out, sorry… pumped out.

For oil reservoirs this is called primary recovery of oil, in which oil is either flowing out by itself and after initial flow (or a lot of time from the beginning) it requires pumping support to lift the oil from the well bore helping to ooze it out.

Can you take all of the soda out of your soda can? This is a good time to remember our old friendthe example of oil in a marble filled container! Once you pour out all the oil you are able to, there is still a lot of oil left in the jug, sticking to the marbles. A smart person may decide to pour in some water to wash the jug and the marbles to extract more oil out with the water. It is messy but it will easily get more oil out of the jug. That is exactly what is done in secondary recovery. Water is injected through a well (water injector well), which helps to drive some of the remaining oil to another well (producer well). This process also helps in two things: recycle the produced water (remember we also produce water along with oil?) by putting it back to where it came from, and more importantly, maintain the reservoir pressure. Pressure helps to drive fluid out - doesn’t it? Nonetheless, you can only get so much remaining oil from the jug in this way.

Can you take all of the soda out of your soda can? This is a good time to remember our old friendthe example of oil in a marble filled container! Once you pour out all the oil you are able to, there is still a lot of oil left in the jug, sticking to the marbles. A smart person may decide to pour in some water to wash the jug and the marbles to extract more oil out with the water. It is messy but it will easily get more oil out of the jug. That is exactly what is done in secondary recovery. Water is injected through a well (water injector well), which helps to drive some of the remaining oil to another well (producer well). This process also helps in two things: recycle the produced water (remember we also produce water along with oil?) by putting it back to where it came from, and more importantly, maintain the reservoir pressure. Pressure helps to drive fluid out - doesn’t it? Nonetheless, you can only get so much remaining oil from the jug in this way.

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All these steps, from primary to tertiary, have to be planned very well based on the property of the rock, oil and the reservoir. Otherwise, the producers can damage the reservoir permanently and the remaining oil can remain unlocked forever. Let’s again consider the example of our oil and marble filled jug. Let’s consider a natural situation, i.e., varying grain size of the sediment. Let’s say, the marbles are generally very small but in the centre there is a layer of larger marbles. If you inject water from one end through a straw (injector well) while not knowing the details of the marble size variation, you will create a channel of water through the pore space between the larger marbles and not even touching the oil between the small marbles. In fact the water from the water channel may push the oil far away from the wells or accessible places. To recover those one has to put more straws in and redesign the secondary or tertiary recovery techniques. All that is significantly more expensive and messy. If the cost is not worth for recovering those oil then that part of the oil reserve, which could have been recovered, is permanently lost. Even if the cost is worth, recovering that oil is now more expensive because of initial mistakes. For a jug it is easy to detect the reservoir property because we can see it and measure the size of the container and the marbles but for a reservoir it is several times more difficult to estimate these properties accurately because those are reservoirs are a few mile underneath the surface.

This figure, from article by Rezae et al., 2012, nicely shows complexity of pore spaces and the reservoir quality variations. These are photographs taken from microscopic studies of different types of sedimentary rocks. The blue colors in between the elliptical shaped sand grains are the pore spaces.

Subsurface reservoirs are under high temperature and pressure. Oil content, gas content, viscosity of oil, chemistry of rock and fluid, grain size of the reservoir and the trend of the variation of those properties in three dimensions, all of these are critical factors of how oil, water and gas and most importantly, Mother Nature will respond to how we try to produce the reservoirs. Not all reservoirs are good for chemical injection, polymer injection, CO2 injection, or injection of steam. Generally speaking, very heavy oil that would otherwise not flow, may become mobile by steam injection due to increased temperature (on top of the high temperature in the reservoir). Some very thick oil are also burned within reservoir so that the unburned portion of the oil becomes mobile due to temperature and gas assimilation. Oil of medium thickness can be pushed out of the pore spaces by using polymer.

Adding polymer increases viscosity of the injected water (displacing medium) thereby increasing the 5|Page

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relative mobility of oil compared to the water. Recovery of oil may increase with increase in relative mobility of oil. Surfactants can work like soap to reduce the stickiness and make more oil free from the attraction of the pore walls. Both surfactant and polymer related EORs are called chemical EOR. For lighter oil, CO2 and other miscible hydrocarbon gases can swell the remaining oil by dissolving in it. Swelling of oil may make it even more light and mobile thereby increasing the recovery of that oil.

Chemical EOR success cases are very few, if not rare, due to its unpredictability of effectiveness.

However, thermal EOR (steam and in-place-burning), CO2 injection and gas injection EOR has numerous success cases from around the world. As per US Department of Energy website, there are 141 successful ongoing CO2-EOR projects in the US. This has also been possible because US geology has provided unique natural source of CO2 from underground rocks.

A cartoon showing how the CO2 EOR may work to drive more oil out of the reservoirs. Figure source: US Department of Energy Website

EOR and CO2 –EOR in India

CO2 EOR concept is not entirely new in Indian oil and gas sector. A search on the public database reveals an article from 2012 SEG conference where ONGC scientists and engineers presented that a CO2 EOR feasibility study of an undisclosed mature Indian oilfield showed potential for method to be successful. They also mentioned that the natural CO2 is not available in India, hence, man-made 6|Page

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(Anthropogenic) CO2 is to be used for the method (Ref: CO2-EOR: A Feasibility Study of an Indian Oil Field: https://www.onepetro.org/conference-paper/SEG-2012-1052.

At the same time, some other types of EOR methods were ahead of the CO2-EOR. These other methods (e.g., combustion, and chemical) were either being tested or deployed in the oil fields. Hart energy article, dated March 2014, reported that Cairn India was expected to start EOR by polymer injection during Jan-march 2015 in Mangala Field (Ref: https://www.hartenergy.com/exclusives/cairn-india-takes-eor-project-mangala-20013).

In a publicly available document dated June 20, 2017 (presentation from DGH workshop 2017) mention of CO2 EOR can be found as a conceptual EOR process, while, thermal, gas injection (i.e., hydrocarbon gas, e.g., methane, etc.) and chemical injection (polymer) was presented as commercially successful and on-going process (http://www.dghindia.gov.in/assets/downloads/594b77be75491EOR_in_Indian_Context_by_ONGC .pdf).

In the same workshop in 2017, Cairn also presented their success case of chemical EOR at Mangala (Ref: http://dghindia.gov.in/assets/downloads/594b77b4ac2e2EOR_application_in_Rajasthan_Fields_b y_Cairn_India.pdf). In fact this is one of the exemplary cases for the success of polymer/ASP in the whole world. Success here was brought due to its efficient, methodical and timely implementation.

An idea of the efficiency of implementation can be obtained by taking a note of the timeline of this case.

As the enthusiasm and directions percolated down from the ministry, both state owned companies, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation of India (ONGC) and Oil India Limited (OIL), made significant progresses in their respective ways toward various EOR implementations, especially CO2-EOR. According to World Oil, OIL kicked off their enhanced and improved oil recovery program in full swing by entering into joint venture with University of Houston (UH) in October of 2016 (Ref: https://www.worldoil.com/news/2016/10/28/oil-india-limited-signs-mou-with-university-ofhouston-to-increase-production and https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/oil-andgas/oil-signs-mou-with-university-of-houston/57548106).

Oilfields of OIL are mostly from north-eastern state of Assam, where availability of anthropogenic CO2 is not the same as that in the more industrially developed western states of Gujarat or Rajasthan.

OIL, therefore, also involved NRG Energy Company from the USA, to locate the source of the anthropogenic CO2.

(Ref: https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/oil-and-gas/oil-signs-mou-withuniversity-of-houston/5754810).

As UH-OIL joint venture makes significant progress in improved recovery and carbon capture projects (Ref: https://uh.edu/news-events/stories/2017/september/09252017UH-Oil-India-CarbonCapture.php ) The Indian Express reported on Feb 15, 2018 that ONGC plans to inject CO2 in their Gandhar field, which was earlier under EOR by hydrocarbon gas injection (Ref: http://www.dghindia.gov.in/assets/downloads/594b77be75491EOR_in_Indian_Context_by_ONGC. pdf).

The online report said -“While the technology is a proven concept in the West specially the US and Canada, ONGC’s project would be the first large scale CO2-injected project in Asia. The Gandhar experience would be replicated at other mature fields, said a company official. At present, steam and natural gas are pumped into the reservoir to loosen the crude oil and maintain well pressure.”… “It 7|Page

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will be operational in 20 months…… ONGC was talking to NTPC for collecting the gas.”(Ref: https://indianexpress.com/article/business/business-others/for-recovering-an-extra-20-millionbarrels-of-crude-oil-ongc-plans-to-use-unconventional-tech-5064456/).

Later, The Economic Times reported on April 17th , 2019 that “Indian Oil Corp (IOCL) have signed preliminary agreement with ONGC and OIL to deliver CO2 captured in their refinery so that the O&G operators can use that CO2 to enhance oil production in their respective mature fields.” (Ref: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/energy/oil-gas/refiners-co2-to-help-raise-outputof-aging-oilfields/articleshow/68898310.cms?from=mdr). As ONGC confirmed this news on their website on July 1st, 2019 (Ref: https://www.ongcindia.com/wps/wcm/connect/en/media/pressrelease/ongc-join-hands-oil-recovery), UH and OIL joint venture completes their pilot design and reports based on the computer simulation that 12% more oil (of the original oil in place) may be recovered from a mature reservoir that has already produced oil over 50 years and is currently declining (Ref: SPE-195378-MS-CO2-EOR and Carbon Storage in Indian Oilfields: From Laboratory Study to Pilot Design; Peila Chen and Anand Selveindran, The University of Houston; Chandan Kumar and Yomdo Saloma, Oil India Limited; Sushanta Bose, Sriram Balasubramanian, and Ganesh Thakur, The University of Houston). The authors here mentioned that in this pilot project (small area testing), this incremental oil recovery will be possible by capturing 150 metric ton of anthropogenic CO2 (likely from nearby power plant), per day for 5 years and injecting those into the reservoir.

Therefore, this also has significant environmental benefit. In fact, authors mentioned that enough CO2 is not currently available in that area to inject in more than one injector well.

With all the enthusiasm around, it is to be considered that EOR is a very technically intense process and is also challenging in terms of economics due to initial investments (Ref: http://www.dghindia.org/assets/downloads/594b77aa0f2f1Enhancing_Recovery_in_the_Indian_EP _Sector_by_Deloitte.pdf). If it is not implemented properly it may actually hurt the reservoir. Hence, a proper geological and engineering characterization, laboratory study and computer simulation needs to be performed. For implementation, the most important factor is to prepare the reservoir properly. For example, most of these mature reservoirs are pressure depleted. As we know from our previous examples that when we open the soda can and release the pressure, the CO2 is released from its dissolved state. That means it is not anymore miscible under this circumstance. However, miscibility is a key criteria for CO2 to work. When CO2 mixes with oil, it swells to become less viscous and more mobile. Similarly, geometry of a favourable rock formation, which facilitates movement of oil, gas and chemicals, in 3-dimension, needs to be characterized in detail to understand the pathways of oil and injected CO2. Plans need to be made accordingly. For depleted reservoirs, pressure needs to be restored by water injection to the level where CO2 becomes miscible again.

Therefore, the process of EOR, including CO2-EOR, can be long and complicated. With diligent planning under industry experts, this process can be efficient and effective. It is critical to study the reservoir rocks in great detail, analyse the fluid and rock chemistry and physical behaviour carefully, measure and monitor the reservoir temperature and pressure accurately, and most important is to plan properly from the very beginning for the most efficient and effective implementation of EOR. An effective EOR can recover much more oil and gas from the reservoir than it can from conventional methods. With CO2-EOR, the added benefit is the positive environmental implication of removing greenhouse gas, which is invaluable.

Figure sources:  Rezaee, R., Saeedi, A., and Clennell, B., 2012, Tight gas sands permeability estimation from mercury injection capillary pressure and nuclear magnetic resonance data, Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, Volumes 88–89, June 2012, Pages 92-99;  US Department of Energy website 8|Page

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Editorial

Dilemma in Indian Regulatory Framework Governance: The Crisis and Commitment

towards

Commitment

for

Sustainability

This year, India witnessed the second lowest pre-monsoon rainfall in 65 years. The three-month premonsoon season of March, April and May ended with a rainfall deficiency of 25 per cent. Along with a decline in monsoon rainfall since the 1950s, there is a marked increase in the frequency of heavy rainfall events. In this very year, Mumbai received the second highest July rain over a 24-hour period in 44 years, after the 2005 floods.

Extreme heat, changing rainfall patterns, droughts, over exploited groundwater, glacier melt, sea level rise, agriculture and food security, energy security, water security, health, migration and conflict you name a climate change induced crisis, and India is being impacted by it. This has been identified by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics who have been commissioned by the World Bank Group to look at the likely impacts of temperature increase from 2°C to 4°C in three regions.

When countries across the globe committed to creating a new international climate agreement at the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris in December 2015, India too submitted its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) to the UNFCCC. At that time, the whole world applauded India for taking a big step towards transforming the nation as well as the world, despite not being the main contributor to climate change.

Sustainable lifestyles, cleaner economic development, reducing emission intensity of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), increasing the share of non-fossil fuel based electricity, enhancing Carbon Sinks (Forests), adaptation of climate change by enhancing investments in development programmes, mobilizing finance, and technology transfer and capacity building are the key elements of India’s INDC. As a signatory and a committed partner to the international community, India adopted the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations that has, in turn, set in motion this historic plan, aiming to build a more prosperous, more equal, and a more secure world by the year 2030.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, proudly proclaimed “The sustainable development of one-sixth of humanity will be of great consequence to the world and our beautiful planet.”

No doubt, the adoption of SDGs by business sectors in India is better than that of the Millennium Development Goals. However, in reality, India fares among the bottom five countries on the Environmental Performance Index 2018, plummeting 36 points from 141 in 2016, according to a biennial report produced jointly by the Universities of Yale and Columbia, along with the World Economic Forum. While India is flat at the bottom of the list in the category of environmental health, it ranks 178 out of 180 as far as air quality is concerned.

Unsurprisingly, its overall low ranking — 177 among 180 countries — has been linked to poor performance of environment health policies and deaths due to air pollution. As per the World Health Organization (WHO) report of 2015, out of 10 most polluted cities in the world, 7 are in India.

According to a report of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), in 2017, a total of 1.24 million 9|Page

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deaths in India were attributable to air pollution. According to the NITI Aayog, India is ranked at the 120th position amongst 122 countries on the Water Quality Index. Particularly, most Indian states have achieved less than 50% of the total score in augmentation of groundwater resources.

In 2008, eight Government missions were designed under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC), recognising that climate change is a global challenge. The plan promised that India will engage in multilateral negotiations in the UNFCCC in an active, positive, constructive and forwardlooking manner. A decade back when the plan was introduced, we were one of the 10-odd countries to have a consolidated policy in place to deal with climate change. Yet, we still don’t have clarity on how the NAPCC has fared. The NAPCC is still being implemented and for sustainability governance to succeed in India, the NAPCC needs to succeed in letter and spirit.

On 12th December 2015, India became signatory to the COP21. In 2018, at the COP 24 in Katowice, Poland, all signatory countries agreed on rules to implement the Paris Agreement which will come into force in 2020 - that is to say, a rulebook on how governments will measure and report on their emissions-cutting efforts. Therefore, essentially, we have one year to show some significant effort towards our climate change commitments.

These efforts undoubtedly needed some financial and policy level boosting from the new Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget for the first year of NDA-II government. Although Sitharaman’s Budget’s vision statement is “pollution-free India with green Mother Earth and blue skies”, no road map was proposed for the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP). Ironically, the ruling party’s election promise was to reduce air pollution by 35%, in the next five years, across 102 polluted cities. The new budget placed in the Parliament lacks a comprehensive funding strategy for multi-sector clean air action under the NCAP. The only way to make the new budget work for clean air is to leverage some of its proposed spending in transport and energy sectors.

The need of the hour is an element-by-element assessment of the NAPCC with respect to our dynamic and rapidly transforming regulatory framework and its effective realignment with India’s INDC to UNFCCC. A robust regulatory framework intended to implement the NAPCC and to meet the commitments made in the INDC, along with channelizing resources through policies, are the only hope to save our nation from embarrassment in front of the global community in 2020.

Hopefully, the NITI Aayog will not discard the NAPCC, drafted by their predecessors in the Planning Commission under the rule of UPA II, but implement it in letter and spirit for the wellbeing of our nation.

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Expert Speaks

Dr. Vijaya Jayaraj Climate Change Expert

Earlier published in 28th Aug 2019, 2019 issue of The Tilak Chronicle Link: https://www.thetilakchronicle.com/post/45153f90-c89a-11e9-bac7-cf475afc025e

Proponents of climate alarmism have long claimed that developing countries like India will be the worst affected by climate change and that they need to immediately switch to emission friendly energy sources. However, transition to renewables is not easy and costs the government dearly. Is India pressed against the wall on climate change and agriculture? How is our climate doing on the agricultural front and how much time do we have before we pull the trigger on climate?

With a population of 1.3 billion people and millions emigrating out of the country every year, India’s contribution to the global economy is significant. Traditionally agrarian, India has become increasingly dependent on its growing industrial sector. The country’s energy sector serves as the backbone of its industries, and it derives 72 percent (2014) of its electricity from coal-plants. That shouldn’t be a surprise, given India’s abundant coal reserves, which guarantee inexpensive and affordable electricity to a nation where poverty is still rampant. The country is also keen on building new nuclear and hydroelectric plants.

In recent years, however, India has been heckled by the United Nations and other global institutions to reduce its dependence on coal and install more expensive - and unreliable - wind and solar energy sources.

In fact, the pressure to reduce emissions was so intense - showing no sympathy towards India’s developmental goals - and ruthless, that the former chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian termed it as “carbon imperialism”.

The reason? Climate change!

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In India, experts predicted an agricultural nightmare resulting from CO2-induced climate change.

However, a closer inspection reveals something very different.

Temperature Rising, but Fairly Stable The average mean temperature in India was 24.28 degrees C between 1901 and 2017. For the most recent 50 years (1967 - 2017), the mean annual temperatures were around 24.54 degrees C. Despite the strong El Niño in 2016, the average for the past 17 years (2001-2017) remained only around 24.91 degrees C. Yes, there is an observable and definite rise in temperatures, but they are nowhere near the exaggerated claims of UN. Northern and central India have had better rainfall in the past five decades compared to the early 20th century. In fact, scientists say that there has been a revival of monsoon in Northern states since 2002. Record highs in Indian cities exhibit no significant increase in the past two decades. The country had numerous record highs in the year 2016 due to the super-El Niño phenomenon (warming of the tropical Pacific, which in turn warms air that circulates globally), which pushed temperature upwards.

Since then, temperature has largely remained close to the historical averages. The everyday highs during the early months of 2018 in southern India showed no marked increase from their historical average. And it is not just India’s weather phenomena that contradict the warming fears.

Agricultural Sector Blooming Despite Multiple Stressors The agricultural sector has produced record crop output in the last three years, dealing a lethal blow to the alarmist narrative of agricultural collapse. The agricultural output, despite the drought induced farmer stress and pricing issues, is a good overall indicator of the food security of the country. It won’t be long before more advanced agricultural technologies, like the introduction of drip irrigation in the past, will be utilized in high stress areas.

In light of this, there is no need to panic about the collapse of our agricultural system. The state of agriculture and the pressure from climate groups should not pressurise us into adopting unfriendly energy policies.

Wind and Solar are Catching Up, But Still far from Dependable While it is true that solar electricity prices are coming down rapidly, they (along with wind) still pose a serious challenge to maintaining electricity prices at affordable rates.

Mercom India, a renewable sector reporter, captured the visible impact of renewables on electricity prices. In July 2019, Mercom reported that the spot power prices witnessed a surge, rising to INR 3.38/kWh. This was a 15% increase compared to June 2019, in which spot power price was recorded to be INR 3.32/kWh. Before June 2019, spot power prices had soared high for four consecutive months in the same year. The spot power price increase in July and decrease in June were because of the intermittency/variability of energy generated from the renewable sources.

Even in the most advanced regions such as California and Germany, renewables were found to be the major cause for increase in electricity prices. India, in its developing state, cannot afford to raise its electricity prices nor allow the renewable market to cause spikes in spot power prices.

Due to these reasons, India should not be forced to abandon its coal when its agricultural sector is actually benefitting from the climatic conditions and the renewable sector is still a work in progress.

India’s industrial sector provides the right balance for a country that was traditionally agrarian.

Policies advocated by climate alarmists put both agricultural and industrial sectors in danger.

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Developing countries like India should adopt a balanced approach to their energy sector and put their national interests ahead of foreign interests.

India's oil and steel minister Dharmendra Pradhan recently said, “The country, in order to meet its energy demand, will continue to rely on traditional energy from coal-fired plants and oil and gas”.

The Minister’s comment reminds us of the reality that sustainable development of major economies has never been possible without fossil fuels. Even Jim Yong Kim, the Former World Bank President, acknowledged this reality - “There's never been a country that has developed with intermittent power”.

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Story Room

Dwaipayan Ghosh Electrical Engineer & Natural History Commentator

Earlier published in 20th October, 2019 issue of The Tilak Chronicle Link: https://www.thetilakchronicle.com/post/97a58cf0-f0a5-11e9-a003-abf72917a17b

In the very last quarter last year, Indian PM Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron won the title "Champion of the Earth" jointly for their leadership in making policies and launching programmes to increase the use of and dependence on renewable energy sources globally, after the International Solar Alliance (ISA) has been formed.

The background for this achievement was set in the year 2015. After the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference COP (Conference of the Parties) 21 at Paris, India submitted its "Intended Nationally Determined Contribution" (INDC) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In it, India promised to increase its total Installed Capacity (IC) of Renewable Energy Sources up to 175 GW by 2022. Within that 175 GW, two major contributors would be Solar Energy (100 GW) and Wind Energy (60 GW). As we approach the end of the year 2019, we must evaluate the present scenario.

At present, Indian's Total Installed Capacity of Renewable Sources is just above 80 GW, in which Wind (through windmills of IC 36.37 GW) and Solar (through solar energy plants of IC 30.71 GW) are contributing the most. Here, we can see that even though we have crossed the halfway mark of the target for wind energy, we are far away from achieving our target vis-Ă -vis solar energy.

For years, wind energy has been the primary source of renewable energy contributing to our national energy demand.

However, in the last two years, solar energy generation has been increasing steadily and uninterruptedly across the country, even though at a very slow pace. If we review the performance of our present solar units, the picture is not very gloomy, at least from a technical point of view. India's 14 | P a g e

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present IC of Solar Energy sources is 30.715 GW. A solar power plant of capacity of 1 MW can, on an average, generate 0.003 MU (million units) to 0.0045 MU a day. Now, if we consider the maximum energy generating capacity per day (i.e. 0.0045 MU/day), India, with its IC of 30.71 GW, can generate 4145.69 MU of electrical energy per month, on an average, solely from its solar energy sources. If we consider the minimum energy generating capacity per day (i.e. 0.003 MU/day), even then, India can produce, on an average, 2763.80 MU in a month from its solar energy resources.

This scenario which is reflected in the electricity generation data of the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) is definitely a reason to rejoice here. India’s average monthly generation from its Solar Energy Sources is 3123.37 MU for the last two years (From Sept ’17 to Aug ’19) with its minimum of 1994.07 MU in Sept ’17 and maximum of 4307.98 MU in Mar ’19. These data clearly show that our solar energy generation is increasing steadily even though at a slow pace, and our solar energy plants and equipment are working fine, as per the standards.

Monthly Solar Energy Generation Curve from October 2016 to September 2019

It is here that the question arises - if our plants are doing absolutely fine as per the standards, then why are so many among experts worrying that we might fail to achieve the target in 2022?

Our plants are performing well because of firstly, the technologies we have harnessed and are using, and secondly, the technocrats of our country. The plants are doing fine with the resources available to them.

Then, we must study policy level adoptions. To increase the IC to the extent of 100 GW, the government has to take some serious steps in order to encourage investments in the solar energy sector. If we examine the increase in IC of solar energy, we will find that in the last two years, it has been increased from 5.5 GW to 30.71 GW. This is a massive increase of 458%.

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However, the flipside of the coin is that since September 2017, we have increased the IC by only 25.21 GW – if we keep moving at this pace, we will be able to achieve an IC of about 68 to 70 GW in solar energy sector by the year 2022. Now, an achievement rate of 70% is not very unimpressive at this stage, especially in solar energy generation targets. However, when we see that the share of energy derived from conventional sources such as fossil fuels, hydel or nuclear energy is a staggering 91.12% of the total energy demand as of now, we must think deeply about our policies which are supposed to encourage more and more investments in non-conventional energy sources.

We always need to remember that we have promised to generate 40% of our total national energy demand from renewable sources by the year 2030, and this is one of our Nationally Determined Contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals.

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Cohabitation

Vrushabh Borkar Student

Energy conservation refers to efforts made to reduce energy consumption. It can be achieved through increased efficient energy use with decreased energy consumption or reduced consumption from conventional energy sources. Standard economic theory suggest that technological improvement increase energy efficiency rather than reducing energy use. It is said to occur in two ways. Firstly, increased energy efficiency leads to increased economic growth, which pulls up energy use in the whole economy. This does not imply that increased fuel efficiency is worthless, increased fuel efficiency enables greater production and higher quality of life. Energy saved is energy produced.

Therefore, substantial energy savings can be achieved through energy conservation measures. This will also help in reduction of environmental pollution.

Role of transport sector in energy conservation Transport swallows major part of energy conservation. There is large potential for energy savings in transport sector of the order of 20-25%.

Energy conservation in rural areas The major energy consumption in villages is by households followed Agriculture and Cottage industries. Energy consumption in villages in agriculture, domestic, lighting and industry sectors are 2.8%, 90.6 %, 2.2 %, and 4.4% respectively. The use of commercial fuel is very low due to light cost and non-availability. Coking accounts for major rural energy consumption (70-80%). Therefore, conservation of cooking is very important. The other areas of interest are lighting, space heating and cottage industries.

Energy conservation in urban areas Urban energy includes hot water, cooking, lighting, space conditioning and electrical appliances. Use 17 | P a g e

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Telecommunications

The energy conservation should be part of planning of government Infrastructure improvement

Construction, renovation and maintenance of railways

Traffic regulation

Construction and maintenance of waterways and ports

Construction and maintenance of road, bridge and tunnels

Promoting non-motorized transport

Discouraging private cars

Improvement of Road transport Public and freight transport

Improved buses, trucks and cars Availability of new vehicle models

of electricity and LPG with higher efficiency of cooking ranges and hot plates help saving energy. The largest savings are possible in restaurants, hospitals, and school hostels, where large scale cooking is carried out. Hot water is less of a basic need than cooking. If hot water is used only in winter, integration with space heating becomes rational. Fluorescent lights and nowadays LED lights can be used instead of incandescent lights play major role in energy conservation. Space conditioning including cooling, heating, ventilation and air purification plays an important role in middle and high income group households. The energy consumption for air conditioning may be ten times that of lighting.

Industrial energy consumption The large and medium scale industries are more energy intensive and labour extensive whereas small scale industries are relatively labour intensive. Process industries are more energy intensive than engineering industries. Metallurgical plants are very sensitive to quality of energy. The energy conservation measures will depend upon the technology level of individual plants. However, some measures are applicable to all industries. Most energy is consumed by large industries and that is where most energy can be saved.

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Power generations and distributions The maximum efficiency of thermal power plant is 35-40% and 60% of energy is lost as waste heat.

The average generation efficiency in India is 27%. By superimposing 23% of transmissions and distribution losses, the overall efficiency is only 21%. The decentralized power generations by autonomous power plants working on commercial fuels as well as local resources of solar, wind, hydro, biomass, etc. can help to save lot of energy.

These are all sectors where energy conservation possible and can be done through proper planning.

Role of government in India The primary energy demand in India has grows from about 450 million tonnes of oil equivalent (toe) in 2000 to about 770 million toe in 2012. This is estimated to increase to about 1250 (estimated by International Energy Agency) to 1500 (estimated in the Integrated Energy Policy report), millions toe in 2030. This increase is driven by a number of factors. The most important of which are increasing income and economic growth which lead to greater demand of energy services such as lighting, cooking, space cooling, mobility, Industrial production, office automation etc. This growth is also reflective of current very low level of energy supply in India. The average annual energy supply in India in 2011 was only 0.6 toe per capita; whereas the global average was 1.88 toe per capita. It may also be noted that no country in the world has been able to achieve a human development index of 0.9 or more without an annual energy supply of at least 4 toe per capita. Consequently, there is a large latent demand for energy services that needs to be fulfilled in order for people to have reasonable income and a decent quality of life.

Government of India has undertaken a two pronged approach to cater to the energy demand of its citizens while ensuring minimum growth in CO2 emissions, so that the global emissions do not lead to an irreversible damage to earth system. On one hand, in the generation side, the government is promoting greater use of renewable in the energy mix mainly through solar and wind and at the same time sifting towards supercritical technologies for coal based power plants. On the other hand, efforts are being made to efficiently use the energy in the demand side through various incentive policy measures under the overall ambit of Energy Conservation Act, 2001.

The current power distribution and transmission system is highly obsolete in technology and wasteful in resources. To mitigate such issues, the concept of smart grid has been introduced by Government of India is now at nascent stage. With rising population and per capita income level India is witnessing rise in private vehicular ownership. Electric Vehicles (EVs) here received huge limelight in this issue as it is perceived to reduce carbon di oxide emissions and make India energy import independent.

EVs are highly dependent on lithium batteries and since India is not lithium abundant, it is agencies banned to import lithium from rest of the world.

Thus India has both reasons and potential to adopt energy efficient techniques. The major shortfall in the whole scenario is lack of funds and expenses in utilizing it. The recent 220 million USD loans put along with 80 million USD with guarantee from the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development to India is expected to cover half of the targets set by the NMEEE (National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency), also creating potential market for energy efficient products in India.

Hence, the Indian scenario indicates a positive future with regard to energy efficiency and if executions of existing policies is done correctly, the rest of the path will cease to have major roadblocks.

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Voice of Nature

Global Climate Strike and Workshop on Habitat Conservation

20th September, 2019, at Kolkata, Exploring Nature convened a mass protest rally in support of Global Climate Strike. Around 100 people of different age group gathered and raised their voice in that rally. Between 20th and 27th September, the global climate strike took place across the globe, which is also known as Global Week for Future. It was a series of international strikes and protests to demand action be taken to address climate change. The protests took place across 4,500 locations in 150 countries. The event is a part of the school strike for climate movement, inspired by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. The 20 September protests were likely the largest climate strikes in world history. Exploring Nature is proud to be part of this initiative, organized in Kolkata. In India, more than 14,000 people signed up for 26 events across the country as part of the global strikes.

Rising maximum and minimum temperatures; rising sea levels; higher ocean temperatures an increase in heavy precipitation (heavy rain and hail); shrinking glaciers; thawing permafrost... and as result of all these, an increase in hunger and water crises, especially in developing countries; health 20 | P a g e

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risks through rising air temperatures and heatwaves ; economic implications of dealing with secondary damage related to climate change; increasing spread of pests and pathogens; loss of biodiversity due to limited adaptability and adaptability speed of flora and fauna; and many more direct and indirect impacts of manmade climate change leading us to complete collapse of ecosystems - another mass extinction.

India, the fourth largest carbon emitter in the world, has made its role clear in the battle against climate change, by making a bold commitment to reduce its emissions by 33–35 percent by 2030 compared to 2005 levels.

But political turf game of Global and National leaders has turned climate crisis into a political dilemma…..

Global leaders think “more learning in schools and less activism"; they are falsely claiming that the “all school strikes are set‑up".

But Exploring Nature, convened that mass gathering, at Kolkata in the afternoon of 20th September, 2019, to extend full support to the students attending the School Strike for Climate action….

In this same week, on Thursday 26th September, 2019, Exploring Nature in collaboration with International NGO WSOS presented a workshop on Wildlife Conservation in India. Around 300 students of Zoology, Botany and Chemistry honors batch of Vijayanagara College, Hosapete, Karnataka participated in that. Eminent Veterinary Surgeon and Director of Banerghatta Bear Rescue Center, Dr. Arun. S. Sha; Wildlife Conservation expert Dr. Samad Kottur; Naturalist Ms. Deepa Mohan; and Founder - General Secretary of Exploring Nature, Mr. Dwaipayan Ghosh; bike rider of "Journey for Tiger" campaign, Mr. Rathin Das, aka Wild Rathin were the speakers. A sumptuous lunch was organized by college after the workshop. Exploring Nature sponsored the whole event.

The programme was inaugurated by Chairman of Vijayanagara College, Sri. Sallisiddeya Swami and acting Principal, Sri. H. B. Anandahalli. Inaugural speech was given by Dr. Samad Kottur on habitat protection. Then Dr. Arun Sha talked about on importance of wildlife conservation and awareness around that. Dwaipayan Ghosh and Rathin Das deliberated on importance of tiger conservation and tiger habitat protection. Last speaker of the day was Ms. Deepa Mohan and she shared her experience and emphasized on importance of Birds, Butterflies and Trees, in conserving ecosystem.

This workshop was organized in alignment with Rathin Das’s bike riding campaign, known as “Journey for Tiger”, for which Exploring Nature is communication partner. In this campaign, Rathin is supposed ride through all 13 tiger range countries of the world, including 50 tiger reserves of India.

On 26th September, he was in Karnataka and by then he finished visiting all five tiger reserves of Karnataka. Therefore, his presence in Karnataka was utilized to hear his experience in travelling through all tiger reserves of country. Both Dwaipayan and Rathin emphasized on role of millennials and students of new generation in active participation in habitat protection for the better future of this planet.

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We have one earth and merely one chance to save it.

Exploring Nature invites you all to attend the open discussion

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Theme Poster

The Ray of Hope by Rohan Fernandez

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