NAGPUR: For a sustainable tomorrow, the nation should not just rely on renewable energy and completely discard fossil fuels, but find ingenious solutions to use them both, said scientist RR Sonde of National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog), on Friday.
“With the rate at which our resources were depleting, we were quick to find solution in solar and wind. But what about the times when there are clouds or no winds? We need to create a hybrid source of energy which is facilitated by both fossil fuels and renewable energy,” he added.
Sonde spoke about how use of hybrid energy will prevent losses during transmission and gave ready solutions for the same.
“We establish humongous power plants because we believe the bigger ones will reduce energy production. But we forget to count the energy lost during transmission. If hybrid energy is used and transferred in the form of hydrogen or ethanol liquids, it can considerably bring down transmission losses and save a huge chunk,” he said.
He emphasized that all these solutions will only be fruitful if society acts responsibly. “We conveniently blame plastic for causing problems but fail to register that it was our inability to use it wisely that led to this grave situation. We are puffing 35gigatones of CO2 every year in the environment without giving it a moment’s thought. Scientist, too, need to make a firm statement on the issue irrespective of the boundaries of their work,” he said.
Sonde said, “Saving mother earth is not just a scientist or an activist’s job. We as a society must create awareness and understand the repercussions of each small decision. Make efforts to know how you can proactively work towards a better environment and understand that it is a collective effort.”
Sonde was the chief guest at an event organized by CSIR- National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (CSIR-Neeri) on National Energy Conservation Day which is observed across the country on December 14.
At the outset, the institute also inaugurated a 175kW solar power plant which will take care of 10% of bill of total electricity consumption of Neeri campus.
Talking to TOI, scientist Nitin Labhsetwar said, “The solar unit will save Neeri approximately Rs22 lakh annually that is spent on electricity. In order to save more, we have replaced 67 air conditioners with more efficient ones. We could not install more panels due to guidelines of maintaining greenery on the campus, but it is definitely on our agenda.”
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes
