Dec/03/2011

Unveiling the aerosol factor in climate change

S.K. Satheesh, associate professor at the Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, was honoured last week by the Third World Academy of Sciences with its 2011 prize in Earth Sciences that carries a prize of 15,000 dollars.

For over 19 years, Dr. Satheesh has been studying atmospheric aerosols, the tiny suspended particles comprising natural elements like sea salt, desert sand, and volcanic ash and the soot released by human activities like burning biomass and fossil fuels.

The announcement from Trieste, Italy, said Dr. Satheesh was chosen for the award for his contribution to the understanding of atmospheric aerosols and their impact on the radiation balance of the earth-atmosphere system and climate.

He shared the prize with Wu Fuyuan of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing. Talking to The Hindu on a visit to his parents' house at Perungadavila, a suburb of Thiruvananthapuram, Dr. Satheesh said he was proud to be the first Malayali scientist to bag the award.

Aerosols, Dr. Satheesh explains, are one of the two major causes for global warming, the other being carbon dioxide. “While developed countries are responsible for most of the carbon dioxide emissions, developing nations account for a major share of the black carbon aerosol caused by industrial and automobile emissions and biomass burning,” he says.

On completing his MSc. in Physics from the University of Kerala in 1992, Dr. Satheesh joined Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre as a research fellow in the Atmospheric Sciences division. “Aerosol study was an emerging field at that time. It was a risky subject for a Ph.D. since there was not much of studies on the subject. But I saw it as a challenge,” he recalls.

He went on to do post-doctoral research in atmospheric radiation at the University of California before returning to India to join the Indian Institute of Science.

BIZARRE ENVIRONS

The study of aerosols has exposed Dr. Satheesh to some of the most demanding environments, from the frozen expanses of the Antarctic region to the tropical seas and the rarefied heights of the atmosphere above the Earth. He has sailed to the southern ocean in the Antarctic on board a research vessel, flown dozens of sorties on a specially-equipped aircraft and has spent two years on a small island in the Arabian Sea.

Black carbon aerosol, Dr. Satheesh says, can influence cloud formation and alter rainfall pattern. It may also enhance atmospheric warming by green house gases. “Observations over India for the last two decades show a five-fold increase in aerosol abundance,” he points out.

Dr. Satheesh feels that there is much to learn about the way aerosols affect regional and global climate and their influence on the Indian monsoon.

According to him, the fast increase in aerosol abundance and its distribution in high altitudes close to the Himalayan region is disturbing because of its potential to cause faster melting of glaciers.

Dr. Satheesh is the lead author of chapter seven on ‘Aerosols and Clouds' in the fifth assessment report of the Inter governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) slated to be released in 2013. “It is an honour for an Indian scientist to be selected for this role,” he says.

He feels that India and China, the two countries that contribute about 60 per cent of black carbon, need tight restrictions, including industrial licensing, to bring down aerosol emissions. “The National Carbonaceous Aerosol Programme, a joint venture between the Indian Space Research Organisation and the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, involving observations at 100 stations across the country, will provide India with valuable inputs for climate modelling,” he says.

He says the next stage of research on the topic would be the impact of aerosols on ozone depletion.

Smart Grid is the ‘energy Internet' of the future

 

A Smart Grid can reduce the need for additional transmission lines. Photo: S. Thanthoni

In India, the demand for power is surging with shortage peaking over 15 per cent. Many of the households are still not connected to the country's electricity grid. According to the Ministry of Power, India's transmission and distribution losses are among the highest in the world, averaging 24 per cent of total electricity production, in some states as high as 62 per cent.

In fact, the total average losses are as high as 50 per cent when energy theft is taken into consideration of which technical losses alone account for 30 per cent of all losses. Indian utilities need to address challenges of high AT&C losses, payment default by consumers, encroachments on electrical network creating unsafe situations, theft of electricity and electrical equipment, distribution transformer failure and rising power purchase costs.

To address what is emerging to be a serious national issue, considering the increase in demand for power and to create the required infrastructure for growth, India needs to invest in building a modern, intelligent grid. Let us first define a grid.

A grid is a collective name for all the wires, transformers and infrastructure that transport electricity from power plants to end users. The present day grid is unidirectional and does not maximize technological developments.

Even today people need to inform the utility of a problem or failure in their area. The effort is to change this in India, and across the world. Solutions such as capability of remote disconnection on non-payment by consumers, automatic alarms when network is being encroached or when people engage in theft will enable utilities stop pilferage and avoid unsafe situations or accidents. In addition, optimal asset utilisation can be planned with online data of overloading of transformers and network, which can help reduce or prevent failures.

A national Smart Grid would evolve the existing system into one that would be better suited for the information flow which is required for energy conservation, higher reliability and the introduction of variable generation power from renewable sources. Smart Grid is the convergence of Information Technology (IT), communication technology and electrical infrastructure.

It is a network for electricity transmission and distribution systems that uses two way state-of-the-art communications, advanced sensors and specialized technology to improve the efficiency, reliability and safety of electricity delivery and use. It is actually a process, an evolution of the electricity network from generation to consumption in a way that is interactive, flexible and efficient.

Proper implementation of Smart Grid might provide uninterrupted electricity to consumers across India to a larger extent, even in remote locations, while eliminating wastage of power units. Smart Grid solutions would enable utilities to increase energy productivity and power reliability while allowing customers manage usage and costs through real time information exchange. It impacts all components of the power system like generation, transmission and distribution.

The Smart Grid presents some primary benefits including lower operating and maintenance costs, lower peak demand, increased reliability and power quality, reduction in power theft and resultant revenue losses, reduction in carbon emissions and expansion of access to electricity. Smart Grids through demand response and load management reduce the per unit production cost. By reducing the peak demand, a Smart Grid can reduce the need for additional transmission lines.

Smart Grids are undoubtedly the “energy internet” of the future. The engagement and cooperation of all stakeholders (regulators, utilities, vendors, customers, etc) is a vital first step. Everybody has to work together and move at the same speed.

It will take India a few years to realize the full impact of Smart Grid when a utility control room operator can regulate an electric meter in homes.

The technology can help us reduce electricity transmission and distribution losses to 5-10 per cent annually. Without Smart Grid, India will not be able to keep pace with the growing needs of its cornerstone industries and will fail to create an environment for economic growth.

Bangalore to get nanotech research institute 

A specialised institute for nanotechnology research will be set by the Central in the city, the chairman of the Karnataka Vision Group on Nanotechnology C.N.R. Rao said on Friday.

“We have already got the land for the new institute, for which the Union Science and Technology Department has given its approval,” Mr. Rao, who is also chairman of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, said.

A similar research institute will be operational in Chandigarh from next month, he said, briefing the media ahead of the two-day Bangalore Nano 2011 conference being held in Bangalore from December 8, 2011.

Though there are a number of colleges that offer degree courses in nanotechnology and biotechnology, they are “not equipped” to teach, Mr. Rao said.

The fourth edition of Bangalore Nano, with the focal theme, “Nanoscience and Technology at the Cutting Edge”, will see participation by about 500 delegates, he said.

Sixty internationally acclaimed speakers — such as E.W. Meijer of the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, Timothy Fisher of the U.S., Anthony K. Cheetham of the University of Cambridge in the UK, IBM Almaden Research Centre director Stuart S.P. Parkin, Robert Stokes of Nanoink, U.S. and others — will deliver lectures on nano science at the event, he said.

Bhopal victims to stop trains from today 

On the eve of the 27th anniversary of the Bhopal gas tragedy, survivors demonstrate in front of a replica of the London Olympic Stadium in the Madhya Pradesh capital in protest against the choice of Dow Chemical as sustainability partner of the 2012 Olympics. Photo: A.M.Faruqui

Seek adequate compensation from Carbide, Dow Chemical

On the 27th anniversary of the Bhopal gas tragedy on Saturday, victims and survivors, still waiting for relief, will register their protest by launching an indefinite rail roko andolan (stop trains).

“On December 3, please don't travel by train. Change your reservations now. We are sorry to cause you inconvenience but stopping the trains is the only effective way we can think of to get our urgent and important message through to the Prime Minister and the government,” read a notice on the Bhopal.net website, which is endorsed by five survivor organisations.

According to Bhopal Group for Information and Action member Rachna Dhingra: “We have been trying to talk to the government about this issue for a year without any resolution and all other modes of protest seem to have had little impact on the government.”

Adequate compensation

The victims' major demand is adequate compensation from Union Carbide Corporation and The Dow Chemical Company — the compensation which was “denied to us because the government sold us out in 1989 and let the corporation walk away; also, last year's curative petition filed by the government massively downplays the number of deaths and the severity of injuries.”

Members of another organisation of survivors, the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan (BGPMUS), will stage a sit-in in front of the official residence of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan to press the demand for “setting things right” at the Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre (BMHRC).

“The BMHRC refuses dialysis to patients with total renal failure after the first month, and private clinics are neither safe nor affordable to the poor patients,” says Abdul Jabbar, one of the first-generation victims and convener of the BGPMUS.