How to Conserve Energy Resources in India?

Increasing use of use energy by mankind is also related to pollution. The process of economic development is, in effect, the process of utilizing to increase the productivity and efficiency of human labour. In fact, one of the best indicators of the wealth of a human population is the amount of energy it consumes per person.

Per capita energy consumption, in the world, is increasing at a rate of 1.3 percent per year, which means a total increase, including population growth, of 3.4 percent per year.

At present, 97 percent of industrial energy production comes from fossil fuels, i.e., coal, oil and natural gas. Current global production of oil is tending to flatten out at around 20 billion barrels/year at the moment, due to energy economy measures adopted following the major 1972 price increase.

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However, viewed against man’s life-time, this curve is cause for anxiety as it means that the industry has to find 20 billion barrels/year just to maintain the current production rates. Should the finding rate fall further, the reserves will be consumed and eventually decline to zero.

Now, the current finding rate is 18 billion, barrels/year and proven reserves total 600 billion barriers. Thus, the global problem is likely to become serious before the turn of the century. Coal reserves have a cycle of pro­duction, which tails off around the year 2300. India has only 0.8 percent of the total world coal reserves.

For extracting energy out of fossil fuels, they are burned. In the process, they release, among other substances, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. Cur­rently, 20 billion tonnes of CO₂ are being released from fossil fuel combustion every year.

One half of this CO₂ actually appears in the atmosphere, while the other half is apparently absorbed, mainly by the surface waters/oceans.

The reserves of oil, natural gas and coal have started depleting. Their use as the source of energy will not only create a pollution problem but also complicate the growth of petro­chemical industries.

Already, cases are being made for reservation of these resources for chemical synthesis, in order to prolong the time-span available for the construction of syn­thetic oil and gas plants using the still abundant coal reserves as raw material.

Efforts are being made to develop technology for large scale power generation, espe­cially fast breeder nuclear reactors. The use of nuclear energy will decrease the CO₂ concen­tration in the atmosphere and abolish other complexities which arise when fossil feels are used.

Nuclear reactors produce unused fissionable material as waste, the reprocessing of which is always superior to the direct disposal of spent fuel in terms of economy, material conservation and environmental protection.

Recycling of unused fissionable material, through reprocessing, is very important as the process of reusing can be repeated until 40 times as much energy has been extracted from the raw material as can be done in conventional reactors.

Recycling and reprocessing permit the use of synthetic fissionable material, and conserves natural fissionable material. Nuclear energy can also be converted into electrical energy, which is pollution free.

Another side-effect of the use of this energy which is inde­pendent of fuel sources is its dissipation as heat. If the energy source is something other than incident solar energy (e.g., fossil fuel or nuclear energy), that heat results in warming the atmosphere.

Locally, waste heat or thermal pollution in stream causes disruption in the balance of aquatic life. Thermal pollution may also have serious worldwide climatic effects, when it reaches some appreciable fraction of energy, normally absorbed by the earth from the sun.

The natural sources of energy, prime amongst which is the sun, can also be considered as one of the future energy sources. Therefore, it is obvious that energy resources vis-a-vis the current rate of consumption are finite. Growth cannot continue forever and strategies must be adopted for a more eco­nomic use of energy and for the abatement the pollution caused thereby.