Biogas: Answer to Rural India’s Energy Independence?

Biogas has been known as an effective cooking fuel for more than 70 years now. Yet, biogas has not been harnessed to its fullest potential. With dwindling oil and natural gas reserves and increase in demand, the price of cooking fuel has been increasing steadily. With the developing countries like India and China registering impressive economic growth, the purchasing power of the middle class has been growing exponentially, thereby, putting pressure on the fuel supplies of their respective countries. Biogas generation has the potential to satisfy a significant portion of the demand for efficient, yet inexpensive, cooking fuel for the middle class in India, especially, rural India.

I have been hearing and reading about biogas alias land fill gas or bio-methane gas quite often these days. When I read articles about the bio-methane projects in Western Europe, especially the Scandinavian countries, it made me sit up and pay a little bit more attention than I do while reading such articles. I was instantaneously glaring at this question: Why is Bio-methane not being produced on a commercial scale in India? It is not that we in India have a plentiful supply of oil and natural gas deposits nor we lack the demand for a reasonably priced fuel for our cooking, electricity generation and transportation needs. I started reading about bio-methane and its potential as a useful fuel. I learned, very quickly, that we in India have been toying with the idea of a biofuel – “Biogas” for a little more than 70 years. Yet, we have not taken full advantage of the potential this fuel has to offer. At this point, I decided to find out why biogas did not turn out to be a commercial success in India?

Briefly, Biogas typically meant gobar (cow dung based) gas for a large section of society for the better part of the 20th century in India. Availability of gobar in large quantities became an issue. Water supply required to prepare the feed was also an issue. Rest of the world, more specifically, the Scandinavian countries moved beyond the idea of using just cow dung. They had extended the feed source from just cattle dung to anything and everything that is organic. And by doing so, they turned waste, an environmental problem into an energy producing opportunity. They had solved their waste management problems to a large extent by turning all their waste, typically organic, in to a sustainable green energy source – “Biogas”. They were producing enough bio-methane that they started feeding it into their electricity grid and using it for fueling their automobiles as CNG. The Europeans worked on techniques that improved the yield of biogas by optimizing anaerobic digestion, a process vital for generating biogas.

This sort of scientific approach towards solving technical challenges was found lacking in India. The biogas plants started in rural India as part of the government initiative, failed to produce enough gas due to improper design, maintenance and professional support. During my research, I came across Dr. Anand Karve’s work on using high calorific content feed for producing biogas for individual households. This was the tipping point for me from being a person just interested in renewable energy to a true believer in Biogas as an answer not only to India’s cooking fuel and electricity generation needs but as a benign yet a very powerful tool in waste management sector.

To me, this not only seems as the most eco-friendly way to manage the waste produced by humans, but also as an excellent business proposition for major energy utility companies to take advantage of. This area is bound see enormous growth, especially, if major energy consuming countries like the US, china and India move towards signing the Kyoto protocol and work towards reducing green house gas emissions, in the short term. In the long term however, the finite supplies of oil and natural gas will eventually force major oil exploration companies and energy utility companies to adopt biofuels to address the energy needs to their respective markets.

As I reach the end of this article, I realize that biogas is just not an option for rural India, but, actually a way to move forward for even the most advanced countries in order to secure their energy future without putting the planet at peril.

Nanotechnology: Smart Investment or Inflated Bubble?

Nanotechnology has come to fore as a technology that has the potential to create the next multi-trillion dollar market. As any another technology in the past, this technology is also faced with various challenges as well as opportunities to create jobs and enable the growth of markets. But the question that we need to ask ourselves is whether this technology is being nurtured responsibly or this greatest opportunity of our times to create new markets is being squandered?

I have been associated with the field of nanotechnology for about 5 years now, both as a researcher and an intellectual property technology analyst. When I first started off learning about it the opportunities seemed unlimited. Nanotechnology was touted and is still considered in many quarters as an answer to all the technological challenges faced by the tech industry in the pursuit of advancement of technology. The 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act passed by the Congress of the United States of America was definitely a critical step in right direction which has, from that point on, spurred on investments in the form of public grants and private investment to the tune of tens of billions of dollars across the world. This has led to a dramatic increase in research and development effort across the world, in particular, the United States, Europe and Japan. This effort can be linked to an explosive growth in the number of journal publications spanning various aspects of nanotechnology. However, over a period of time, through my experiences as a researcher, I realized that nanotechnology might not be the answer to all the technological challenges, as touted, after all. But, I was really captivated and impressed with the potential this technology brings to the table of innovation and problem solving. I had come quite a distance in adjusting my outlook on this exciting technology from being a silver bullet for all the technology problems to one of a key enabler in achieving the right solutions for the technological challenges as well as the advancement of technology.
At this point, I was reminded of the telecommunications industry around 1997-2000 time frame. Almost every major carrier had major stakes in the fiber optic technology, especially in the DWDM technology. Huge investments were made based on inflated forecasts of demand and the expectations were sky high. However, one key aspect that was taken for granted: technological break throughs that were critical for maintaining profitable performance to cost ratio. Technological progress at a rapid pace was taken for granted. When the costs were not going down and the demand started to fade, it resulted in the collapse of the telecommunications industry. But, what was sad was to see the near demise of a technology with tremendous potential: DWDM. Looking at the investment trends in nanotechnology, just before the discovery of the recent economic down turn, it seemed as if significant amounts of money was being invested in areas where either technological breakthroughs would take a very long time and it would be very difficult to predict the bang for buck ratio for the end products based on these break throughs or the performance improvements enabled by these technologies might just be an over kill for end applications. Hence, the investment to benefit ratio might not be so attractive. I am increasingly inclined towards an approach where strategic technologies are identified based on their ability to create products that can be very useful and responsible investments be made in those technologies. I would like to stress on the word "responsible" as I feel that it is very important to nurture the technology in the right way because this nurturing will pretty much decide the fate of the technology and its ability to succeed in the market place and enable the growth of an industry.

I think the same concept of responsible nurturing should be applied to nanotechnology, else we will be responsible for greatest lost opportunity of our times to create jobs and new markets.