-Prof SWAPNIL PARDIKAR

 Our environment provides us with a variety of goods and

services necessary for our day to day lives. These natural
resources include, air, water, soil, minerals, along with the
climate and solar energy, which form the non-living or
‘abiotic’ part of nature.

 The ‘biotic’ or living parts of nature consists of plants and

animals, including microbes. Plants and animals can only
survive as communities of different organisms, all closely
linked to each in their own habitat, and requiring specific
abiotic conditions.

 Thus, forests, grasslands, deserts, mountains, rivers, lakes

and the marine environment all form habitats for specialised
communities of plants and animals to live in.
 Interactions between the abiotic aspects of
nature and specific living organisms together
form ecosystems of various types.

 Many of these living organisms are used as our

food resources. Others are linked to our food
less directly, such as pollinators and dispersers
of plants, soil animals like worms, which recycle
nutrients for plant growth, and fungi and
termites that break up dead plant material so
that micro-organisms can act on the detritus to
reform soil nutrients.
 About ten thousand years ago, when mankind changed from
a hunter-gatherer, living in wilderness areas such as forests
and grasslands, into an agriculturalist and pastoralist, we
began to change the environment to suit our own
requirements.

 As our ability to grow food and use domestic animals grew,

these ‘natural’ ecosystems were developed into agricultural
land. Most traditional agriculturists depended extensively on
rain, streams and rivers for water. Later they began to use
wells to tap underground water sources and to impound
water and created irrigated land by building dams. Recently
we began to use fertilizers and pesticides to further boost the
production of food from the same amount of land.
 However we now realize that all this has led to
several undesirable changes in our environment.
Mankind has been overusing and depleting
natural resources. The over-intensive use of land
has been found to exhaust the capability of the
ecosystem to support the growing demands of
more and more people, all requiring more
intensive use of resources. Industrial growth,
urbanisation, population growth and the
enormous increase in the use of consumer
goods, have all put further stresses on the
environment. They create great quantities of
solid waste. Pollution of air, water and soil have
begun to seriously affect human health.
 During the last 100 years, a better health care delivery
system and an improved nutritional status has led to
rapid population growth, especially in the developing
countries. This phenomenal rise in human numbers has,
in the recent past, placed great demands on the earth’s
natural resources.

 Large stretches of land such as forests, grasslands and

wetlands have been converted into intensive agriculture.
Land has been taken for industry and the urban sectors.

 These changes have brought about dramatic alterations in

land-use patterns and rapid disappearance of valuable
natural ecosystems. The need for more water, more food,
more energy, more consumer goods, is not only the result
of a greater population, but also the result of over-
utilization of resources by people from the more affluent
societies, and the affluent sections of our own.
 Industrial development is aimed at meeting growing demands
for all consumer items. However, these consumer goods also
generate waste in ever larger quantities. The growth of
industrial complexes has led to a shift of people from their
traditional, sustainable, rural way of life to urban centres that
developed around industry.
 During the last few decades, several small urban centres have
become large cities, some have even become giant mega-
cities. This has increased the disparity between what the
surrounding land can produce and what the large number of
increasingly consumer-oriented people in these areas of high
population density consume.
 Urban centres cannot exist without resources such as water
from rivers and lakes, food from agricultural areas, domestic
animals from pasture lands and timber, fuel wood,
construction material and other resources from forests. Rural
agricultural systems are dependent on forests, wetlands,
grasslands, rivers and lakes. The result is a movement of
natural resources from the wilderness ecosystems and
agricultural sector to the urban user.
 A major part of natural resources are today consumed in
the technologically advanced or ‘developed’ world,
usually termed ‘the North’. The ‘developing nations’ of
‘the South’, including India and China, also over use
many resources because of their greater human
population. However, the consumption of resources per
capita (per individual) of the developed countries is up to
50 times greater than in most developing countries.
Advanced countries produce over 75% of global industrial
waste and greenhouse gases.
 Land itself is a major resource, needed for food
production, animal husbandry, industry, and for our
growing human settlements. These forms of
intensive land use are frequently extended at the
cost of ‘wildlands’, our remaining forests,
grasslands, wetlands and deserts. Thus it is
essential to evolve a rational land-use policy that
examines how much land must be made available
for different purposes and where it must be
situated. For instance, there are usually alternate
sites at which industrial complexes or dams can be
built, but a natural wilderness cannot be recreated
artificially.
This photograph is taken from the United States Environmental
Protection Agency website describing Arlington's award for overall
excellence in smart growth in 2002 — the first ever granted by the
agency.
Suburban development near Colorado
Springs, Colorado, United States.
 Scientists today believe that at least 10 percent of
land and water bodies of each ecosystem must be
kept as wilderness for the long term needs of
protecting nature and natural resources.

 Land as a resource is now under serious pressure

due to an increasing ‘land hunger’ - to produce
sufficient quantities of food for an exploding
human population. It is also affected by
degradation due to misuse. Land and water
resources are polluted by industrial waste and rural
and urban sewage. They are increasingly being
diverted for short-term economic gains to
agriculture and industry.
 Natural wetlands of great value are being drained
for agriculture and other purposes. Semi-arid land
is being irrigated and overused. The most
damaging change in land-use is demonstrated by
the rapidity with which forests have vanished
during recent times, both in India and in the rest of
the world.
 Forests provide us with a variety of services. These
include processes such as maintaining oxygen
levels in the atmosphere, removal of carbon
dioxide, control over water regimes, and slowing
down erosion and also produce products such as
food, fuel, timber, fodder, medicinal plants, etc. In
the long term, the loss of these is far greater than
the short-term gains produced by converting
forestland for other uses.
The National Institute of Hydrology has mapped the various land use
regions of the country to indicate the percentage of land under forests,
non-agricultural, plantation and grass lands
 Landforms such as hills, valleys, plains, river basins and
wetlands include different resource generating areas
that the people living in them depend on.

 If land is utilized carefully it can be considered a

renewable resource. The roots of trees and grasses bind
the soil. If forests are depleted, or grasslands
overgrazed, the land becomes unproductive and
wasteland is formed.

 Intensive irrigation leads to water logging and

salination, on which crops cannot grow.
 Land is also converted into a non-renewable resource
when highly toxic industrial and nuclear wastes are
dumped on it.
 Man needs land for building homes, cultivating food,
maintaining pastures for domestic animals, developing
industries to provide goods, and supporting the industry
by creating towns and cities.

 Equally importantly, man needs to protect wilderness

area in forests, grasslands, wetlands, mountains, coasts,
etc. to protect our vitally valuable biodiversity.

 Thus a rational use of land needs careful planning. One

can develop most of these different types of land uses
almost anywhere, but Protected Areas (National Park’s
and Wildlife Sanctuaries) can only be situated where some
of the natural ecosystems are still undisturbed. These
Protected Areas are important aspects of good land use
planning
 Farmland is under threat due to more and more intense
utilisation. Every year, between 5 to 7 million hectares of
land worldwide is added to the existing degraded farmland.
When soil is used more intensively by farming, it is eroded
more rapidly by wind and rain.

 The use of more and more chemical fertilizers poisons the

soil so that eventually the land becomes unproductive. As
urban centres grow and industrial expansion occurs, the
agricultural land and forests shrink. This is a serious loss
and has long term ill effects on human civilisation.

https://youtu.be/9TmZRZ-w1Y4
 The characteristics of natural ecosystems such as forests
and grasslands depend on the type of soil. Soils of
various types support a wide variety of crops. The misuse
of an ecosystem leads to loss of valuable soil through
erosion by the monsoon rains and, to a smaller extent, by
wind.

 The roots of the trees in the forest hold the soil.

Deforestation thus leads to rapid soil erosion. Soil is
washed into streams and is transported into rivers and
finally lost to the sea.
 The two most damaging factors leading to the
current rapid depletion of all forms of natural
resources are increasing ‘consumerism’ on the
part of the affluent sections of society, and rapid
population growth. Both factors are the results of
choices we make as individuals. As individuals we
need to decide;
 What will we leave to our children?
(Are we thinking of short-term or long-term
gain?)
 Is my material gain someone else’s loss?
 Forests and Deforestation:
 Causes and impacts due to mining,
 Impacts of dam building on environment,
forests,
 biodiversity and tribal populations.
 Use and over exploitation: Scientists estimate that India
should ideally have 33 percent of its land under forests.
 People who live in or near forests know the value of
forest resources first hand because their lives and
livelihoods depend directly on these resources.
However, the rest of us also derive great benefits from
the forests which we are rarely aware of. The water we
use depends on the existence of forests on the
watersheds around river valleys.
 Our homes, furniture and paper are made from wood
from the forest. We use many medicines that are based
on forest produce. And we depend on the oxygen that
plants give out and the removal of carbon dioxide we
breathe out from the air.
 The Total Forest and Tree cover is 24.56% of
the geographical area of the country.
The Total Forest cover is 7,12,249 sq km
which is 21.67% of the geographical area of
the country.
 The Tree cover is 2.89% of the geographical
area of the country.
 Watershed protection:
 Reduce the rate of surface run-off of water.
 Prevent flash floods and soil erosion.
 Produces prolonged gradual run-off and thus prevent effects of drought.

 Atmospheric regulation:
 Absorption of solar heat during evapo-transpiration.
 Maintaining carbon dioxide levels for plant growth.
 Maintaining the local climatic conditions.

 Erosion control:
 Holding soil (by preventing rain from directly washing soil away).

 Land bank:
 Maintenance of soil nutrients and structure.

 Local use - Consumption of forest produce by local people who collect it for
subsistence –
 Food - gathering plants, fishing, hunting from the forest.
 (In the past when wildlife was plentiful, people could hunt and
kill animals for
 food. Now that populations of most wildlife species have
diminished, continued hunting would lead to extinction.)
 Fodder - for cattle.
 Fuel wood and charcoal for cooking, heating.
 Poles - building homes especially in rural and wilderness
areas.
 Timber – household articles and construction.
 Fiber - weaving of baskets, ropes, nets, string, etc.
 Sericulture – for silk.
 Apiculture - bees for honey, forest bees also pollinate crops.
 Medicinal plants - traditionally used medicines, investigating
them as potential
 source for new modern drugs.
 Where civilizations have looked after forests by using
forest resources cautiously, they have prospered,
where forests were destroyed, the people were
gradually impoverished.
 Today logging and mining are serious causes of loss of
forests in our country and all over the world.
 Dams built for hydroelectric power or irrigation have
submerged forests and have displaced tribal people
whose lives are closely knit to the forest. This has
become a serious cause of concern in India. One of
India’s serious environmental problems is forest
degradation due to timber extraction and our
dependence on fuelwood.
 Timber extraction, mining and dams are invariably
parts of the needs of a developing country. If timber is
overharvested the ecological functions of the forest are
lost.
 Unfortunately forests are located in areas where there
are rich mineral resources. Forests also cover the steep
embankments of river valleys, which are ideally suited
to develop dams and irrigation projects. Thus there is a
constant conflict of interests between the conservation
interests of environmental scientists and the Mining
and Irrigation Departments. What needs to be
understood is that long-term ecological gains cannot
be sacrificed for short-term economic gains that
unfortunately lead to deforestation.
The Three Gorges Dam has been the
world's largest power station in terms
of installed capacity since 2012: Zigui
County, Yichang, Hubei, China
 The implantation of a mine is a major habitat modification, mine-
waste residuals contamination of the environment
 for example. Adverse effects can be observed long after the end of
the mine activity.
 Destruction or drastic modification of the original site
and anthropogenic substances release can have major impact
on biodiversity in the area.
 Destruction of the habitat is the main component of biodiversity
losses, but direct poisoning caused by mine-extracted material,
and indirect poisoning through food and water, can also affect
animals, vegetation and microorganisms.
 Habitat modification such as pH and temperature modification
disturb communities in the surrounding area. Endemic species are
especially sensitive, since they require very specific environmental
conditions.
 Destruction or slight modification of their habitat put them at the
risk of extinction.
 Habitat Loss.

 Pollution.

 Water Loss.

 Climate Change.
 Joint Forest Management
 The need to include local communities in Forest Management
has become a growing concern. Local people will only support
greening an area if they can see some economic benefit from
conservation.
 An informal arrangement between local communities and the
Forest Department began in 1972, in Midnapore District of
West Bengal.
 JFM has now evolved into a formal agreement which identifies
and respects the local community’s rights and benefits that
they need from forest resources. Under JFM schemes, Forest
Protection Committees from local community members are
formed. They participate in restoring green cover and protect
the area from being over exploited.
NATURAL
RESOURCES
WATER

Prof- SWAPNIL PARDIKAR

 A graphical distribution of the locations of water on
Earth. Only 3% of the Earth's water is fresh water. Most of
it is in icecaps and glaciers (69%) and groundwater (30%),
while all lakes, rivers and swamps combined only account
for a small fraction (0.3%) of the Earth's total freshwater
reserves.
 Water resources are natural resources of water that are
potentially useful. Uses of water
include agricultural, industrial, household, recreational a
nd environmental activities.
 97% of the water on the Earth is salt water and only three
percent is fresh water; slightly over two thirds of this is
frozen in glaciers and polar ice caps. The remaining
unfrozen freshwater is found mainly as groundwater,
with only a small fraction present above ground or in the
air.
 Agriculture
 It is estimated that 70% of worldwide water is
used for irrigation, with 15–35% of irrigation
withdrawals being unsustainable.
 It is estimated that 22% of worldwide water is
used in industry.
 Major industrial users include hydroelectric dams,
thermoelectric power plants, which use water for
cooling, ore and oil refineries, which use water in
chemical processes, and manufacturing plants,
which use water as a solvent.
 Drinking water
 It is estimated that 8% of worldwide
water use is for domestic purposes.
These include drinking water, bathing,
cooking, toilet flushing, cleaning,
laundry and gardening. Basic domestic
water requirements have been
estimated around 50 litres per person
per day, excluding water for gardens.
 Naturally available water can be classified as:
 (i) Surface water and (ii) Ground water

 Surface Water:
 (a) Rain Water:
 It is the purest form of natural water because it is received by evaporation of
surface water. But it is made impure by the polluted atmosphere from where it
falls.

 (b) River water:

 River receives water from rain and when this water travels over the land
different minerals of the soil get dissolved in it.
 (c) Lake water:
 A lake, unlike a river does not flow through different lands, therefore it
contains much lesser amounts of dissolved minerals and it has a constant
chemicals composition. It can be used for drinking purposes.
 (d) Sea water:
 It is the most impure form of natural water because all the impurities thrown
into rivers enter the sea. Continuous evaporation of sea water takes place. Out
of the dissolved salts present in sea water, 2.6% is NaCl.
Surface water uses are divided into the
following:

 75% urban
 12% irrigation
 6% pastoral
 5% rural
 2% mining or other.
 Some of the major reasons for the over-exploitation and over-
utilization of surface water resource are:
 (i) Population growth:
 In 2000, the world population was 6.2 billion. The UN estimates that
by 2050 there will be an additional 3.5 billion people with most of
the growth in developing countries that already suffer water stress.

 (ii) Expansion of business activity:

 This expansion requires increased water services including both
supply and sanitation, which can lead to more pressure on water
resources and natural ecosystems.

 (iii) Rapid urbanization:

 Urbanization requires significant investment in water infrastructure
in order to deliver water to individuals and to process the
concentrations of wastewater – both from individuals and from
business.
 Groundwater is about 35 – 50 times more
than that of surface water supplies. Till some
time back, groundwater was considered to be
very pure. However of late, even groundwater
aquifers have been found to be contaminated
by leachates from sanitary landfills etc.

 A layer of sediment or rock that is highly

permeable and contains water is called an
aquifer. Layers of sand and gravel are not call
aquifers since they have low permeability.
 (i) Subsidence:
 When groundwater withdrawal is more than its
recharge rate, the sediments in the aquifer get
compacted, a phenomenon known as ground
subsidence.

 (ii) Lowering of water table:

 excessive mining as it would cause a sharp decline in
future agricultural production, due to lowering of water
table.

 (iii) Water logging:

 When excessive irrigation is done with brackish water it
raises the water table gradually leading to water
logging and salinity problems.
 A flood is an overflow of water that
submerges land that is usually dry. In the
sense of "flowing water", the word may also
be applied to the inflow of the tide.
 Heavy rainfall is the simplest cause of flooding. When
there is too much rain or it happens too fast, there just
isn’t a place for it to go. This can result in floods like flash
flooding.

 Overflowing rivers are another cause of floods. You don’t

necessarily need heavy rains though to experience river
flooding. As we mentioned before, river flooding can
happen when there is debris in the river or dams that
block the flow of the water.

 Broken dams are another cause of flooding. Older

infrastructure can fail when heavy rains come and water
levels rise. When dams break, they unleash torrents of
water on unsuspecting households. This is part of what
happened when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in
2005.
 Storm surge and tsunamis also cause flooding. Storm surges
from hurricanes and other tropical systems can cause sea levels to
rise and cover normally dry coastal areas in several feet of water.

 Channels with steep banks are also to blame for flooding. Flooding
often occurs when there is fast runoff into lakes, rivers, and other
basins. This is often the case with rivers and other channels that
feature steep sides.

 A lack of vegetation can cause flooding. Vegetation can help slow

runoff and prevent flooding. When there is a lack of vegetation,
there is little to stop water from running off and overflowing river
banks and streams.

 Melting snow and ice

 These aren’t all the reasons that flooding can

happen, but they are some of the most common.
 Loss Of Lives
 Floods kill by carrying people away in fast-moving water or drowning them. It only takes
six inches of water to wash a person away. Floods can also kill people by destroying
buildings and creating unsafe environments. One often-overlooked deadly effect of
flooding comes from waterborne illnesses.

 Property Damage
 Flooding also causes property damage to buildings by blowing out windows, sweeping
away doors, corroding walls and foundations, and sending debris into infrastructure at a
fast pace. Not to mention the furniture and items inside a home or business that are
damaged when flood waters make it inside.

 Economic Impacts
 The economic impact of flooding can be devastating to a community. This comes from
damage and disruption to things like communication towers, power plants, roads, and
bridges. This brings business activities in an area to a standstill. Oftentimes, major
flooding results in dislocation and dysfunction of normal life long after flood waters
recede.

 Psychosocial Flooding Effects

 Flooding can also create lasting trauma for victims. The loss of loved ones or homes can
take a steep emotional toll, especially on children. Displacement from one’s home and
loss of livelihood can cause continuing stress and produce lasting psychological impacts.
 Drought is characterized by a lack of precipitation—
such as rain, snow, or sleet—for a protracted period of
time, resulting in a water shortage. While droughts
occur naturally, human activity, such as water use and
management, can exacerbate dry conditions.

 What is considered a drought varies from region to

region and is based largely on an area’s specific weather
patterns. Whereas the threshold for drought may be
achieved after just six rainless days on the tropical
island of Bali, annual rainfall would need to fall below
seven inches in the Libyan desert to warrant a similar
declaration.
Drought damage on the Fresno Harlen
Ranch in Fresno, California
Cynthia Mendoza/USDA
 HOMEWORK
Water conflict is a term describing a conflict between
countries, states, or groups over the rights to access water
resources.

water has historically been a source of tension and a factor

in conflicts that start for other reasons. However, water
conflicts arise for several reasons, including territorial
disputes, a fight for resources, and strategic advantage.
These conflicts occur over both freshwater and saltwater,
and both between and within nations.

However, conflicts occur mostly over freshwater; because

freshwater resources are necessary, yet scarce, they are the
center of water disputes arising out of need for potable
water, irrigation and energy generation.
 Map of the Indus System of Rivers excluding its
delta channels and tributaries draining in to Rann
of Kutch.

 The Indus Waters Treaty is a water-distribution

treaty between India and Pakistan, brokered by the
World Bank, to use the water available in the Indus
River and its tributaries.

 The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) was signed in

Karachi on 19 September 1960 by Pandit Jawaharlal
Nehru and Ayub Khan.
 The Treaty gives control over the waters of the three "eastern rivers" —
the Beas, Ravi and Sutlej with a mean annual flow of 33 million acre-feet
(MAF) — to India, while control over the waters of the three "western
rivers" — the Indus, Chenab and Jhelum with a mean annual flow of 80
MAF — to Pakistan.

 India was allocated about 16% of the total water carried by the Indus
system while Pakistan was allocated the remainder.

 It lays down detailed regulations for India in building projects over the
western rivers. The preamble of the treaty recognises the rights and
obligations of each country in the optimum use of water from the Indus
system in a spirit of goodwill, friendship and cooperation. This has not
alleviated the Pakistani fears that India could potentially create floods or
droughts in Pakistan, especially in times of war.

 In 1948, the water rights of the river system was the focus of an Indo-
Pakistani water dispute. Since the ratification of the treaty in 1960, India
and Pakistan have not engaged in any water wars, despite engaging in
several military conflicts. Most disagreements and disputes have been
settled via legal procedures, provided for within the framework of the
treaty.The Indus Waters Treaty is considered one of the most successful
water sharing endeavours in the world today, even though analysts
acknowledge the need to update certain technical specifications and
expand the scope of the agreement to address climate change.
Map of the Indus System of Rivers
excluding its delta channels and
tributaries draining in to Rann of
Kutch.
 The sharing of waters of the Kaveri River has been
the source of a serious conflict between the two
states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. The genesis of
this conflict rests in two agreements in 1892 and
1924 between the Madras Presidency and Kingdom
of Mysore. The 802 kilometres (498 mi) Kaveri river
has 44,000 km2 basin area in Tamil Nadu and
32,000 km2 basin area in Karnataka.
 Based on the inflow Karnataka is demanding its
due share of water from the river. It states that the
pre-independence agreements are invalid and are
skewed heavily in the favour of the Madras
Presidency, and has demanded a renegotiated
settlement based on "equitable sharing of the
waters".
 Tamil Nadu, on the other hand, says that it has already developed almost
3,000,000 acres (12,000 km2) of land and as a result has come to depend
very heavily on the existing pattern of usage. Any change in this pattern, it
says, will adversely affect the livelihood of millions of farmers in the state.

 The pre Independence agreement was based on the area occupied by Mysuru
Kingdom and Madras presidency. The areas of South Canara (previously
under Madras presidency), Coorg Province which were later merged with
Karnataka have not been accounted to calculate the right of Karnataka's
water share. Although the River Cauvery originated on the Coorg Province,
the Coorg province was not included in the agreement. This raises a
question about the validity of bilateral agreements between Mysore and
Madras presidencies.

 Decades of negotiations between the parties bore no fruit, until the

Government of India constituted a tribunal in 1990 to look into the matter.
After hearing arguments of all the parties involved for the next 16 years, the
tribunal delivered its final verdict on 5 February 2007. In its verdict, the
tribunal allocated 419 TMC of water annually to Tamil Nadu and 282 TMC to
Karnataka; 30 TMC of Cauvery river water to Kerala and 7 TMC to
Puducherry. Karnataka and Tamil Nadu being the major shareholders,
Karnataka was ordered to release 192 TMC of water to Tamil Nadu in a
normal year from June to May.
 (TMC), (tmc), is the
abbreviation of one
thousand million cubic
feet (1,000,000,000 =
109 = 1 billion),
commonly used in
India in reference to
volume of water in a
reservoir or river flow

The sharing of waters of the

Kaveri River has been the
source of a serious conflict
between the two states of
Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
 https://www.watercalculator.org/wfc2/q/househol
d/
ENERGY RESOURCES

Prof- SWAPNIL PARDIKAR

 https://youtu.be/44Wp3WE1AHs
 Energy has always been closely linked to man’s economic growth and
development. Present strategies for development that have focused
on rapid economic growth have used energy utilization as an index
of economic development. This index however, does not take into
account the long-term ill effects on society of excessive energy
utilisation.

 In 1998, the World Resources Institute found that the average

American uses 24 times the energy used by an Indian.

 Between 1950 and 1990, the world’s energy needs increased four
fold. The world’s demand for electricity has doubled over the last 22
years! The world’s total primary energy consumption in 2000 was
9096 million tons of oil. A global average per capita that works out
to be 1.5 tons of oil. Electricity is at present the fastest growing form
of end-use energy worldwide. By 2005 the Asia-Pacific region is
expected to surpass North America in energy consumption and by
2020 is expected to consume some 40% more energy than North
America.
Past and projected world energy use (source: Based on
data from U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2011)
https://ced.berkeley.edu/
 For almost 200 years, coal was the primary energy source
fuelling the industrial revolution in the 19th century. At
the close of the 20th century, oil accounted for 39% of
the world’s commercial energy consumption, followed by
coal (24%) and natural gas (24%), while nuclear (7%) and
hydro/renewables (6%) accounted for the rest.

 Among the commercial energy sources used in India, coal

is a predominant source accounting for 55% of energy
consumption estimated in 2001, followed by oil (31%),
natural gas (8%), hydro (5%) and nuclear (1%). In India,
biomass (mainly wood and dung) accounts for almost
40% of primary energy supply. While coal continues to
remain the dominant fuel for electricity generation,
nuclear power has been increasingly used since the
1970s and 1980s and the use of natural gas has
increased rapidly in the 80s and 90s.
 In 1882, the first Hydroelectric power dam was built in Appleton,
Wisconsin.

 In India the first hydroelectric power dams were built in the late 1800s
and early 1900s by the Tatas in the Western Ghats of Maharashtra.
Jamshedjee Tata, a great visionary who developed industry in India in
the 1800s, wished to have a clean source of energy to run cotton and
textile mills in Bombay as he found people were getting respiratory
infections due to coal driven mills. He thus asked the British
Government to permit him to develop dams in the Western Ghats to
generate electricity.

 The four dams are the Andhra, Shirowata, Valvan and Mulshi hydel
dams. An important feature of the Tata power projects is that they use
the high rainfall in the hills as storage areas. While the rivers flowing
eastwards from the Western Ghats are dammed in the foothills near
the Deccan plateau, the water is tunneled through the crest of the
Ghats to drop several hundred meters to the coastal belt. Large
turbines in the power plants generate electricity for Mumbai and its
giant industrial belt.
 CASE STUDIES
 In 1981, a plane called ‘The Solar Challenger’ flew from Paris to England in 5 hours, 20
minutes. It had 16,000 solar cells glued to the wings and tail of the plane and they
produced enough power to drive a small electric motor and propeller. Since 1987, every
three years there is a World Solar challenge for solar operated vehicles in Australia where
the vehicles cover 3000 kms.

 The world’s first solar-powered hospital is in Mali in Africa. Being situated at the edge of
the Sahara desert, Mali receives a large amount of sunlight. Panels of solar cells supply the
power needed to run vital equipment and keep medical supplies cool in refrigerators.

 Space technology required solar energy and the space race spurred the development of
solar cells. Only sunlight can provide power for long periods of time for a space station or
long distance spaceship.

 Japanese farmers are substituting PV operated insect killers for toxic pesticides.

 In recent years, the popularity of building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV’s) has grown
considerably. In this application, PV devices are designed as part of building materials (i.e.
roofs and siding) both to produce electricity and reduce costs by replacing the costs of
normal construction materials. There are more than 3,000 BIPV systems in Germany and
Japan has a program that will build 70,000 BIPV buildings.
 Biogas is produced from plant material and animal waste, garbage, waste from households and
some types of industrial wastes, such as fish processing, dairies, and sewage treatment plants.
It is a mixture of gases which includes methane, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphide and water
vapour. In this mixture, methane burns easily. With a ton of food waste, one can produce 85
Cu. M of biogas. Once used, the residue is used as an agricultural fertilizer. Denmark produces
a large quantity of biogas from waste and produces 15,000 megawatts of electricity from 15
farmers’ cooperatives. London has a plant which makes 30 megawatts of electricity a year from
420,000 tons of municipal waste which gives power to 50,000 families.

 In Germany, 25% of landfills for garbage produce power from biogas. Japan uses 85% of its
waste and France about 50%.

 Biogas plants have become increasingly popular in India in the rural sector. The biogas plants
use cow dung, which is converted into a gas which is used as a fuel. It is also used for running
dual fuel engines. The reduction in kitchen smoke by using biogas has reduced lung conditions
in thousands of homes. The fibrous waste of the sugar industry is the world’s largest potential
source of biomass energy.

 Ethanol produced from sugarcane molasses is a good automobile fuel and is now used in a
third of the vehicles in Brazil. The National Project on Biogas Development (NPBD), and
Community/ Institutional Biogas Plant Program promote various biogas projects. By 1996 there
were already 2.18 million families in India that used biogas. However China has 20 million
households using biogas!
 Wind was the earliest energy source used for transportation by
sailing ships. Some 2000 years ago, windmills were developed
 in China, Afghanistan and Persia to draw water for irrigation and
grinding grain. Most of the early work on generating electricity
from wind was carried out in Denmark, at the end of the last
century. Today, Denmark and California have large wind turbine
cooperatives which sell electricity to the government grid. In
Tamil Nadu, there are large wind farms producing 850 megawatts
of electricity. At present, India is the third largest wind energy
producer in the world.
 The power in wind is a function of the wind speed and therefore
the average wind speed of an area is an important determinant of
economically feasible power. Wind speed increases with height. At
a given turbine site, the power available
 30 meters above ground is typically 60 percent greater than at 10
meters.
 The earth’s surface is 70% water. By warming the water, the sun, creates ocean
currents and wind that produces waves. It is estimated that the solar energy
absorbed by the tropical oceans in a week could equal the entire oil reserves of the
world – 1 trillion barrels of oil. The energy of waves in the sea that crash on the land
of all the continents is estimated at 2 to 3 million megawatts of energy. From the
1970s several countries have been experimenting with technology to harness the
kinetic energy of the ocean to generate electricity. Tidal power is tapped by placing
a barrage across an estuary and forcing the tidal flow to pass through turbines. In a
one-way system the incoming tide is allowed to fill the basin through a sluice, and
the water so collected is used to produce electricity during the low tide. In a two way
system power is generated from both the incoming as well as the outgoing tide.

 Electricity can be generated at sea and transmitted by cable to land. This energy
source has yet to be fully explored. The largest concentration of potential wave
energy on earth is located between latitudes 40 to 60 degrees in both the northern
and southern hemispheres, where the winds blow most strongly. Another developing
concept harnesses energy due to the differences in temperature between the warm
upper layers of the ocean and the cold deep sea water. These plants are known as
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC). This is a high tech installation which may
prove to be highly valuable in the future.
 Geothermal energy is the energy stored within the earth (“geo” for earth
and “thermal” for heat). Geothermal energy starts with hot, molten rock
(called magma) deep inside the earth which surfaces at some parts of the
earth’s crust. The heat rising from the magma warms underground pools
of water known as geothermal reservoirs.
 If there is an opening, hot underground water comes to the surface and
forms hot springs, or it may boil to form geysers. With modern technology,
wells are drilled deep below the surface of the earth to tap into geothermal
reservoirs. This is called direct use of geothermal energy, and it provides a
steady stream of hot water that is pumped to the earth’s surface.
 In the 20th century geothermal energy has been harnessed on a large scale
for space heating, industrial use and electricity production, especially in
Iceland, Japan and New Zealand. Geothermal energy is nearly as cheap as
hydropower and will thus be increasingly utilised in future. However, water
from geothermal reservoirs often contains minerals that are corrosive and
polluting. Geothermal fluids are a problem which must be treated before
disposal.
 In 1938 two German scientists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman demonstrated nuclear
fission. They found they could split the nucleus of a uranium atom by bombarding it
with neutrons. As the nucleus split, some mass was converted to energy. The nuclear
power industry however was born in the late 1950s. The first large-scale nuclear
power plant in the world became operational in 1957 in Pennsylvania, US.

 Dr. Homi Bhabha was the father of Nuclear Power development in India. The Bhabha
Atomic Research Center in Mumbai studies and develops modern nuclear technology.
 India has 10 nuclear reactors at 5 nuclear power stations that produce 2% of India’s
electricity. These are located in Maharashtra (Tarapur), Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar
Pradesh and Gujrat. India has uranium from mines in Bihar. There are deposits of
thorium in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

 The nuclear reactors use Uranium 235 to produce electricity. Energy released from
1kg of Uranium 235 is equivalent to that produced by burning 3,000 tons of coal.
U235 is made into rods which are fitted into a nuclear reactor. The control rods
absorb neutrons and thus adjust the fission which releases energy due to the chain
reaction in a reactor unit. The heat energy produced in the reaction is used to heat
water and produce steam, which drives turbines that produce electricity. The
drawback is that the rods need to be changed periodically. This has impacts on the
environment due to disposal of nuclear waste. The reaction releases very hot waste
water that damages aquatic ecosystems, even though it is cooled by a water system
before it is released.
 India 95% of rural people and 60% of urban poor still depend on
firewood, cattle dung and crop residue for cooking and other
domestic purposes. Biomass can be converted into biogas or liquid
fuels i.e.. ethanol and methanol. Biogas digesters convert animal
waste or agricultural residues into gas. This is 60% methane and 40%
CO2 generated by fermentation.

 The commonly used agriculture waste is dung of domestic animals

and rice husk, coconut shells, straw or weeds. The material left after
the gas is used acts as a fertilizer. Small hydro generation units are
environment friendly. They do not displace people, destroy forests or
wildlife habitats or kill aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity.

 Industry and transport are the main growing users of energy in India.
Industries that are known for generating pollution also waste the
most energy. These include chemical industries, especially
petrochemical units, iron and steel, textiles, paper, etc. Unplanned
and inefficient public transport systems, especially in cities, waste
large amount of energy.
 Indian industries use more energy than necessary.
 Steel and energy: To produce one tonne of steel, India spends 9.5
million kilocalories. In Italy it is 4.3 million kilocalories and for Japan
it is only 4.1 million kilocalories.


 Cement industry: Over 2 million kilocalories are used to produce one

tonne of cement in India.

 Vehicles: Lighter materials should be used for cars. Instead of steel

we should use aluminium, fibre glass or plastics. These lighter
materials can reduce the weight by 15 % and increase the fuel
economy by 6 to 8%.

 Refrigerators: Better technologies reduced the annual energy needed

by a typical 200 lit refrigerator (with no freezer) from 350 kilo Watt
hour (kWh) to 90 kWh.

 Lighting: An 18-watt modern, compact fluorescent lamp, can

replace a standard 75-watt incandescent lamp.
 India’s oil reserves which are being used at present lie off the coast
of Mumbai and in Assam. Most of our natural gas is linked to oil and,
because there is no distribution system, it is just burnt off. This
wastes nearly 40% of available gas. The processes of oil and natural
gas drilling, processing, transport and utilisation have serious
environmental consequences, such as leaks in which air and water
are polluted and accidental fires that may go on burning for days or
weeks before the fire can be controlled. During refining oil, solid
waste such as salts and grease are produced which also damage the
environment. Oil slicks are caused at sea from offshore oil wells,
cleaning of oil tankers and due to shipwrecks.

 Oil powered vehicles emit carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrous

oxide, carbon monoxide and particulate matter which is a major
cause of air pollution especially in cities with heavy traffic density.
Leaded petrol, leads to neuro damage and reduces attention spans.
Running petrol vehicles with unleaded fuel has been achieved by
adding catalytic converters on all the new cars, but unleaded fuel
contains benzene and butadiene which are known to be carcinogenic
compounds.
 Oil related disasters

 During the Gulf War, oil installations burned for weeks

polluting the air with poisonous gasses. The fires wasted
5 million barrels of oil and produced over a million tons
of airborne pollutants, including sulphur dioxide, a major
cause of acid rain. The gases moved to a height of 3km
and spread as far as India. Oil also polluted coastlines,
killing birds and fish.

 The Exxon Valdez oil spill was a manmade disaster that

occurred when Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker owned by
the Exxon Shipping Company, spilled 11 million gallons
of crude oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound on March
24, 1989. It was the worst oil spill in U.S. history until the
Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.
 The Narmada Bachao Andolan in India
is an example of a movement against
large dams.
 The gigantic Narmada River Project has
affected the livelihoods of hundreds of
extremely poor forest dwellers. The
rich landholders downstream from the
Sardar Sarovar dam will derive the
maximum economic benefit, whereas
the poor tribal people have lost their
homes and traditional way of life. The
dam will also destroy the livelihood of
fishermen at the estuary. The
disastrous impact that this project has
on the lives of the poor, and the way in
which they are being exploited, need to
be clearly understood.