The Obama tour — a pinch of green on loads of grey

In the business dailies the hype was over and it happened so rapidly. And after days of euphoria some premonitions started trickling in. Though, the disturbing fact is that the media for mass consumption could not come out from the shadows of pompous excitements and buoyant enticements.

The White House issued a Fact Sheet which declared the achievements of the Obama visit. The highlighted points in that fact sheet were: Enhancing Bilateral Climate Change Cooperation; Cooperating on Hydroflurocarbons (HFCs); Expanding Partnership to Advance Clean Energy Research (PACE-R); Accelerating Clean Energy Finance; Launching Air Quality Cooperation and then five other points on cooperation of technical nature. But every concerned person knows that none of these has something novelty, these points are just formalisation of things already in motion. Though one US Congressman, Senator Tom Carper, a senior member ofthe Senate Environment and Public Works Committee congratulated Obama for some achievement in the Climate front saying, "This agreement with India is significant progress toward the larger goal of a reaching a comprehensive global agreement on climate change in Paris later this year”, it can safely be said Senator Carper was exaggerating, actually no headway could be made, and the western media, a wide range of them from news portal BBC to environmental portal Grist, were quick to point it out. And it was not possible simply because India’s national viewpoint regarding emission still questions the western logic of capping total emission figure without weighing the per capita emission figures.

Incidentally in the last issue of this journal we mentioned that dipping crude price would not cast a shadow on the future of renewable. And it was partly verified by fact ― indeed we heard a big-bang vow regarding renewable energy. Solar energy is becoming cheaper and the subsidy burden is on the decrease. India, which produce less than 3GW of solar power joined hand with the USA, which has some 12GW solar capacity to produce 100GW of solar in India by 2022! But how is that possible? India’s capacity to produce Solar PV is not at all some figure that can act as a launch pad for such an ambitious project! Well, the purported solution is US loans and aids, and then, what BusinessStandard headlined as: “Make in US, sell in India deal for renewable energy”. If this is the green part of the deal then we can say ― it is green here and greenbucks there! US aggressive stance on India’s indigenous Solar PV manufacturing facility was being criticised and contested by Indian manufacturers since as early as 2010-11. The prestigious civil society ecological group Centre of Science and Environment(CSE) in 2012 alleged that US was using their climate-finance to kill Indian solar panel industry. [See “India accuses US of "ruining" domestic PVindustry”, in PV Magazine, 20 Aug 2012]. If at all this Indo-US deal materialises, then only the US, and a few Indian houses attached with US solar business like the Adani group, will of course reap a golden harvest. But it is up to the government of India to decide whether to protect or bury India’s own renewable industry.

If that was the ‘green un-business’ part of Obama-Modi deal, the next part of the achievement can be called ‘un-green business’. And it can overshadow the “100GW Solar by 2022” figure. Because it is government’s plan of having 50% of energy, by 2050, from Nuclear Power and that too perhaps without any comprehensive liability clause binding the suppliers of Nuclear Plants. Till now, most of India’s nuclear power plants are made indigenously. Only in some recent cases India is buying from the Russian farm ROSATOM and the Russians are bound to abide Liabilities in case accident occurs. AREVA, the French company was also eyeing for Indian market and though they might not like the liability clause they did not insist that much to override that. Only farms those were very insistent were the US farms like Westinghouse and General Electric, who want to sell power plants but are not at all willing to accept their liability in case of any accident. That is very worrisome. But now, strictly speaking, there are no US nuclear farms as those all are now Japanese controlled. So, besides Russian and French nuclear plant makers we have three big Japanese companies controlled by the houses of Toshiba, Hitachi and Mitsubishi respectively. So when the US is pressing India to liquidate or soften the liability clause they are actually working on behalf of all global players in this field. But will India succumb to that? Rather we should ask, Does India Need That at all? All developed countries have stopped commissioning any new nuclear plant. One of the most advanced countries in science and technology, Germany, has not only declared no to nuclear power but they have already started their nuclear plant de-commissioning schedule! Moreover, nuclear power is not just a safety nightmare, it is also does not make sense from the viewpoint of economics. [Interested readers may go through a small piece of evidence: “Why The Economics Don't Favor NuclearPower In America”, by Mark Cooper, senior fellow for economic analysis at Vermont Law School’s Institute for Energy and the Environment, in Forbes, 20 Feb 2014.]

So? Looking from an environmental point of view, do we have much to cheer watching the Modi-Obama fanfare?

Moving to Renewables: Why we should not be Deceived by the Oil Price Fall

During past several weeks we are witnessing a lot of confusion regarding future of renewables while crude price was tumbling. Sadly, it was not confined among novices of resource economics or markets. We do not know how could FT make a heading like “The Big Drop: Cheap oil burns green energy”! [By Pilita Clark in London, December 17, 2014] Even Mr Eric Reguly, European Bureau Chief Rome of The Globe and Mail very guardedly wrote “History suggests that clean energy and cheap oil are not compatible. ... I suspect that China’s clean-energy drive will slow down a bit if oil stays low. The Chinese are cost-conscious capitalists and won’t be able to resist entirely an energy bargain. But here’s hoping that ... cheap oil will not entirely derail China’s clean-energy pursuit.” [Cheaper oil and China’s clean-energy drive, The Globe and Mail Published Friday, Jan. 09 2015]

There are two obvious points that guide us to move steadily towards renewable energy even if we choose not to learn from the great German Example: one of the most technically advanced and sophisticated economy marching progressively towards a Zero-Nuclear & clean energy future. Already in the last year, we saw Germany setting a new record, generating 74 Percent of power needs from Renewable Energy even if for a single Sunday, which only showed Germany’s huge advancement in this field – producing more than a quarter of energy need from renewable on an average. [Think Progress, Kiley Kroh, May 13, 2014]

Point 1: Crude price fluctuate regularly as historical time-series data show. Ugo Bardi of the celebrated Club of Rome is one of the most respectful figures in the field of resources. Perhaps he got a bit annoyed over noisy market chatterers and presented a beautiful chart in his blog Cassandra Legacy which we reproduce here: (this chart was made by Frances Coppola)

Figure 1 from http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.in/2015/01/the-oil-price-collapse-whats-so-special.html

 It is a semi-log graph showing prices in log scale and it traces crude price in the last 30 years. It showed that oil is indeed slippery and 50% to even 75% falls are not uncommon or unforeseen.  Moreover within 2-3 years price rises again with general tendency of going up to a higher point than the previous crest. 

The inflation data website has yet another illuminating presentation showing us the oil price fluctuation in perspective (http://inflationdata.com/articles/inflation-adjusted-prices/gasoline/).  Let us see that:

Figure 2 Inflation adjusted oil price $/gallon, Courtesy http://inflationdata.com

So we can rest assured that just for a dip in crude price (which this time is more political than economic) we need not be nervous about future of renewable energy, that governments and inventors may opt for fossil-fuel again and ... etc. 

Point 2: Our drive for Renewable energy is not just a market-driven drive. It not only stems from resource economics but also and mainly from Ecological considerations. If making cheap was the criteria we would have ended up in a coal-economy as in Great Britain a century before or Coketown of the “Hard Times” (Charles Dickens) earlier. The rise of green-thinking in the second half of the last century was behind our paradigm shift from solely soulless profit-driven economic considerations. Nobody would like to see their future living in high rises in high deserts surrounded by high seas. And that was precisely where our development mania was driving us.

Some governments are trying to assimilate parts or bits of this new ecological paradigm, for example in Europe we have Spain and the Nordic or Scandinavian countries besides Germany. Governments are subsidising renewable like solar and wind knowing t fully well that subsidy ‘distorts’ market.

RWE AG, one of Germany’s largest utilities, is not feeling shaky with global crude price drop and their energy price drop as a recent Bloomberg report suggests. They just view it as a temporary or transient phase.

We also need not be concerned much fancying some dirtier bleaker renewable future. Moreover, people can propel government choices too, at least to some considerable extent.

Acknowledgement: I am thankful to Professor Ugo Bardi, http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.in/ and the website http://inflationdata.com

Published in Business Economics, 01-14 February 2015

Cleaning Ganga: Dispelling some Myths and Wrong Perceptions

1 — Goddess Ganga is pure, she cleans us of our sins; she can cleanse herself, no need mortals’ intervention; she has self-cleansing power... 

Figure 1: Beautiful Ganga and Balmy Tales: from Times of India (Speaking Tree)

It may be argued that such ideas are obsolete now at this twenty-first century, particularly among educated citizens. But no. And the myth which sanctifies our uncaring attitude towards mother Ganga is pretty widespread, which in turn causes public apathy or unenthusiastic effort towards cleaning Ganga. The 7-IIT SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) on GAP-I and GAP-II mentioned this point too as a weakness. 

Many of those who worship Ganga (and other gods and goddesses) release plenty of puja materials like flowers etc in Ganga water. But all such materials are effectively oxygen-demanding wastes. These wastes in their process of bio-degradation eat up oxygen dissolved in water which in turns causes an untoward chemical environment which, to say the least, is harmful for fish and other aquatic life-forms including the endangered Gangetic River Dolphins and turtles. Religious organisations and institutions may consider intervention in this regard.

2 — Last time they spent more than 20 billion in GAP-I and GAP-II and this time we were hearing of Rs 63 billion during Modi’s Namami Gange scheme and during Ganga Manthan we even heard of Nitin Gadkari’s Rs 800,000,000,000 super-project. So much money will be thrown into water!

Nobody is draining out money, actually. The money spent by govt circulates in the economy and goes on increasing our much-revered GDP. Even if we agree that there was a massive wastage In GAP in terms of getting ‘things’ worth that much money, the clean-up that was started by Rajiv Gandhi’s cabinet gave back several benefits. While one may see benefit in bigger fish catch or at least a continuation of quantum of catch (stalling reduction is also a gain) other may get indirect benefit from improved sanitation or direct benefit from tourism. Many towns got sewage and waste treatment facilities. Plus, many cities get drinking water from Ganges (through treatment, of course) and this water-treatment would have been costlier had there been no clean-up.

All such benefits can be calculated and a cost-benefit analysis could be done. It is also true for non-tangible benefits – for example leaving a cleaner Ganga for our future generation implies a ‘bequeath value’ that we are ‘willing to pay’ – even if we are ‘non-users’, that is, we are not directly any user, even if some of us do not go for taking a holy-dip and we may also leave aside probability of our grandchildren’s usage. A.J. James and M.N Murty did a commendable task of measuring the ‘value’ of GAP for non-users applying contingent valuation method (CVM).

In their study done in the 1990s they found that educated city-dwellers of India were willing to pay anything between Rs 180 to 500 (we simplified a lot) for the Ganga clean-up project. For better ‘return’ they were, in general, in favour of giving the money to some trustworthy non-governmental organisations instead of giving the money to government. And Anil Markandya and M N Murty authored a book — “Cleaning-up the Ganges: A Cost-benefit Analysis of the Ganga Action Plan” which was published by the Oxford University Press in the year 2000. There they showed that public money was not drained off in vain, indeed we got ‘returns’ of that public investment, we got benefits which were not at all trivial.

So, criticisms against government for their Ganga cleaning ventures must be rethought, though of course money spoilage, if any, should be checked. 

3 — This time there will be positive result. See, how eager Modiji is, how much he respects Mother Ganga, how beautifully he formulated – Aviral Dhara, Nirmal Dhara – continuous and clean... And govt is making a budget of almost a trillion...

Keenness, reverence etc all may be starting points but you cannot deliver with those only. Moreover, those Aviral dhara and Nirmal dhara phrases were all old slogans. In the 2012 IIT-SWOT analysis we had those terms. Still earlier, in the 2010 Yatra Report of Save Ganga Movement we heard of these coinages. In 2005 we heard “Ganga ko nirmal rahne do - Ganga ko aviral bahne do” slogan from a group of students and activists at Kanpur who took a Ganga cleaning expedition... But of course, if there is a pro-active government, citizens may dream and demand better environment including clean rivers.

A more welcome gesture on part of the government would have been an open appreciation that we should be learning from the experience, the weaknesses and strengths of previous GAPs (GAP-I & GAP-II), or learning from gaps in our GAPs before we launch next programme.

The Navigation proposal of the govt, as we are hearing it, is highly dangerous. Making Ganga a set of interconnected navigation channels is suicidal – as some experts feel. V N Mishra, Professor of Electronics at IIT-BHU and also head priest of Sankat Mochan Temple opines, “If these barrages will be constructed on the river Ganga at every 100 KM then the divided part of this holy river would become like 10-15 separate large ponds, where the river's continuous flow of water will be obstructed, raising serious threat and rise in water pollution levels”.

Figure 2:  2010, Ganga After Maneri Dam, from the blog of V. Sundaram, IAS

More and more constructions that actually impede flow are taking a toll in various ways. Without a good flow how can a river assimilate environmental loads? The IIT SWOT study [Dec 2011] remarked – “The upper and lower Ganga canals have diverted almost entire amount of the river flow in Uttar Pradesh. This diversion has reduced the capacity of the river to absorb pollution as absence of adequate flows has affected the process of dilution.” And if we bother about aquatic animals, they will face a severe threat — every time their corridor is cut into separate pieces they experience reduced propagation rate; less diversity and reduced genetic pool threaten ecosystems. For example, the barrages and dams are also responsible for reduction in number of our national aquatic animal – the Ganges Dolphin.  

It is very disheartening to learn from environmental scientists that the Ganga Manthan meet organised by the NDA govt did not focus on urgent environmental needs like ensuring more and freer flow of the Ganga. Prof B D Tripathi of BHU thinks: “Ganga Manthan lacked the discussions on how to ensure continuous and uninterrupted flow of river from Gangotri to Ganga Sagar to be maintained”.

Slowing down of the river has many other untoward consequences. It increased silting, elevation of river bed, and when a huge flow comes due to excess rainfall the river cannot contain the flow, it floods more easily, it may change course in some unthought-of way. River water also becomes more saline due to reduced flow. And the most amusing thing is that due to silting many dams are actually storing less and less water and making these dams more and more useless! The myth of “Development” by “Dams” needs to be rethought. The severe Uttarakhand disaster in 2013, for a time being, brought the issue of “unchaining” the Ganga in limelight. 

Will the citizenry and the government consider that Nature too has rights and Ganga has Right of Ecological Flow (or Environmental Flow)? To start with – nation’s revered environmental engineer Dr. G. D. Agrawal (also known as Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand) and his students have written many times on this issue and we may start studying those.

Published in Business Economics 01-15 Dec 2015