Bharat Rakshak

Is K.R. Sridhar’s 'magic box' ready for prime time?

http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn ... n&hpt=Sbin

I wonder how green are the inputs required for the box. We will see I suppose when it comes out to the market.

K.R. Sridhar's device is essentially a thermoelectric heat engine. It uses catalytic gassification across the ceramic "ink" coated plates that generates heat and by a thermocouple reaction on the metal plates produces a current. The tricks are:

1. How long will the ceramic "ink" coated plates last and what are its cost?
2. Does the metal breakdown, via oxidation or other processes, when heated to 1000C.
3. What is the overall efficiency of the device? Some estimates of the Bloombox are at 60%.

Ebay bought 5 units at a cost of $700K/unit. Cost is $3.5M and they saved $100,000 in 9 months of utility costs. California and US tax laws provide upto 50% tax deduction for green energy applications, so Ebay bought 5 units for $1.75M, so it would take roughly 12 years to break even if the price of natural gas remains constant.

There are lots of financial questions, and really Sridhar is sort of like Steve Jobs at Apple keeping a trade secret, and then announcing it with lots of publicity. No harm in that and I do hope he is successful.

It was reported they made as much revenue as FCEL last year, which is impressive considering that FCEL's been around for 2 decades. They did not show someone using it to power a home, which leads me to believe that the claim of a $3000 device/home is not something within reach as of now.

But what's stopping utilities from using this technology in power stations for say peaking power? At their scale, the savings would add up, wouldn't they?

It is the cost,maintanence and durability of this machine under question. I wish a success for this machine. The investors should seriously engage in developing this into a commercial good avaialable in the market.

http://www.theglobalist.com/storyid.aspx?StoryId=8240

With the services of a Scottish company, Portugal is the first country to pioneer an eye-popping new technology known as a “sea snake” or “energy eel.” Sea snakes are long, floating cylinders that bob semi-submerged in the waves and convert wave motion to electricity.

Tata Power wants S. Korean firms to invest in India's energy sector
http://www.tradingmarkets.com/news/stoc ... 28546.html

Research and Markets: India Solar Photovoltaic Market
http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/resear ... ic-market/

Solar - issue is cost. With Rs 15/kwh or around, the issue becomes on ability of our loss making electricity boards / discoms to absorb significant quantities of such costly power. It is all right to say that global companies want to come to India - of course they would as no other country has such an ambitious program to absorb such capacities at such high rates. There should be strict indigenization requirements.

Is this thing for real? What is the bi-product or waste? In traditional fuel cells if you combine hydrogen and oxygen you get H2O as bi-product. What does KRs bloom box emit?

This needs some serious debate though.

http://news.nationalgeographic.co.in/ne ... ech-green/

Birla Power to invest Rs 5,000 cr in thermal & solar power projects

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/new ... 695818.cms

Suniva commissions 3 MW solar power project in India
http://www.instalbiz.com/news/3-full-ne ... a_544.html

NTPC eyes 1000 Mw renewable power project
BS Reporter / Mumbai/ Ahmedabad March 22, 2010, 0:51 IST
http://www.business-standard.com/india/ ... ct/389253/

India Launches Energy Conservation Fund, Aims At Saving 25,000 MW
http://cleantechnica.com/2010/03/20/ind ... -25000-mw/

Electric buses along with Solar power will be a great idea to try in India


Even When The Electricity Is Sourced From Fossil Fuel There Is Still A Reduction In Global Air Pollution!
http://citytransport.info/Electbus.htm#Advan

Electric Buses: Green Public Transport or THE Public Transport?
http://www.enviro-news.com/article/elec ... sport.html

COTA's new hybrid buses should hit the road in June
http://www.snponline.com/articles/2010/ ... 47pm_1.txt

India makes thin film solar cell leap

HHV Solar develops technology, equipment for setting up production facility, inks deal with Canadian firm

http://www.livemint.com/2010/03/2422101 ... e.html?h=B

Let me ask a strang and weird question. I ask this question myself. In many houses and in many electronic equipment, we use DC power supplies. We often convert 250 volts to DC volgates. Why not supply DC to houses? This means the equipments need to be altered to receive DCs directly not AC to DC converters. This may be tested in a small group of houses first then one may try this large scale. Could this bring changes in our reduction of use of large scale energies? This is a strange question for many I understand.

Why is AC used rather than DC to supply electricity
Attention Mr G.
http://real-applied-maths.blogspot.com/ ... upply.html

innovative solar gadgets

http://astore.amazon.com/smart-apartmen ... TF8&node=5

A serious advice to TN government ............

(in tamizh)

http://www.dinamalar.com/fpnnewsdetail.asp?news_id=7183

joshvajohn

pl also give a brief/abridged translation in angrezi so as to make non-tamizhian know what is there

I will try translating the article in few sentences....

The writer of the above article suggests to TN government...

"Instead of giving freebies such as television, free electricity and so on to the farmers for a popularity, it would be good to give them with a solar cell run pump. This will reduce the supply of the electricity to the farmers and so reduce the present huge cuts in the supply of electricity to the public in general".

Solar pump promises higher crop yields in power-hungry Bangladesh
12 Apr 2010 10:21:00 GMT
http://www.alertnet.org/db/an_art/60167 ... 2101-1.htm

Robison BL40D Solar Water Pumps from Connexa Energy
http://www.azocleantech.com/Details.asp?newsID=9455

Commonwealth Games to be solar powered
http://www.renewableenergyfocus.com/vie ... r-powered/

Research and Markets: Renewable Energy Investment Opportunities in Emerging Economies
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show ... 3498.shtml


Thermax eyes diversification in solar, geothermal energy
http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/busine ... 51585.html

India emerges as key investment area for clean energy funds
http://www.livemint.com/2010/04/2700012 ... stmen.html

German energy firm to invest $133 mn in Indian power plants
http://sify.com/finance/german-energy-f ... ffibe.html

FICCI's solar energy task force pushes for performance clause
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/201 ... 471800.htm

Country outstrips UK, Japan, France and Canada as renewable energy capacity soars
Tom Young, BusinessGreen, 01 Jun 2010


India added 2.33GW of grid-connected renewable power capacity during the year to the end of March, according to a statement from the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, more than doubling the rate at which it installed renewables capacity during the previous year.

The record performance takes the country's total installed capacity of renewable energy to 16.8GW, far outstripping the performance of many industrialised nations including the UK, France, Japan and Canada.

According to the new figures, 1.57 GW of wind power were added during the year compared to 790 MW the previous year, although the rate of expansion dropped slightly compared to 2007-2008 when 1.66GW of new wind energy capacity was added.

But the country has still installed more capacity than leading wind energy markets Germany and Spain over the past two years and now boasts over 11GW of wind capacity, making India the fifth largest wind energy generator in the world.

http://www.businessgreen.com/business-g ... renewables

Achievement in RE Sector

Two major issues to be tackled
1. High cost of investment
2. Mostly imported technology

Low cost of generation of energy through fossil fuels and subsidised energy charges to all segment except perhaps HT customers are other factors.

joshvajohn wrote:Let me ask a strang and weird question. I ask this question myself. In many houses and in many electronic equipment, we use DC power supplies. We often convert 250 volts to DC volgates. Why not supply DC to houses? This means the equipments need to be altered to receive DCs directly not AC to DC converters. This may be tested in a small group of houses first then one may try this large scale. Could this bring changes in our reduction of use of large scale energies? This is a strange question for many I understand.

Why is AC used rather than DC to supply electricity
Attention Mr G.
http://real-applied-maths.blogspot.com/ ... upply.html

In simple terms.
Firstly, Power generation is mostly AC.
Secondly, transmission in AC with high voltage is easy and possible for long distances without much loss of power in terms of voltage and amps.
Thirdly, Conversion of AC -> DC is not difficult, whereas DC -> AC is more costly.
Fourthly, now that we followed a set of standards from a very long time, changing would not be feasible.Ours is 230V/50Hz

brihaspati wrote:Wanted to know, whether, "dye-based" solar panels are planned to be introduced/or at research/trial level, in India?

Its a very old question that went unanswered for more than a year. To my best of knowledge , this is not yet introduced in India.However you have given me an idea and I might like to ask some of the Engineering colleges to do some research in this area. Let me broach the topic to them and see their response.

Cost of solar panelss have comedown somewhat, though it still remains costly. BRF members who have raised some questions about solar panel area, cost etc may think of availing MNRE scheme funding to reduce it .

For electric geysers you can use 100/200 lpd solar water heater, costing about 18000. You can install pipelines to deliver hot water to bathrooms and kitchen and washing machine. Temp is often reaching 80 deg C. In Kitchen you can save LPG as well.

AC takes more starting power so difficult for solar panels, but one can look at Solar AC.

Solar inverters are becoming popular. Solar homelighting system will reduce load on your power supply and power bill. Initial investment is high but if you live in metros , where power cost is high, your investment will be returned in 5 to 8 years. MNRE also gives subsidy though wrangled in bureaucratese.

In villages you can easily set up Solar Power Plant of 5-10 KWp costing abt 15-20 lakh. with subsidy, it will cost you less.

Primarily , regulatory regime or policy framework is still not very clear. Evacuation of power to grid is fraught with pitfalls.

In Germany, they have experimented with Feed-in tariff for rooftop PV where rooftop area is used for solar panels and power is used in house, excess power is evacuated to grid which fetches higher revenue than the grid power tariff for domestic consumers. This has led to a culture of saving electricity and giving more to grid to earn high revenue. Some such idea needs to be introduced here with the help of Power engineers.

Govt may float bonds to fund solar mission
http://www.livemint.com/2010/06/1621133 ... l?atype=tp

New solar mission norms launched
http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Ne ... ed/634754/

Farooq Abdullah calls for push to renewable energy projects
http://news.oneindia.in/2010/06/23/faro ... jects.html

India’s Largest Private Company to Invest in Solar Energy
http://earthandindustry.com/2010/06/ind ... lar-india/


SOLARCON India 2010 to focus on JN-NSM
on Jun 24, 2010
http://www.constructionweekonline.in/ar ... on_jn_nsm/

One of the success stories in non conventional sources of energy, lighting up rural Bihar.

http://business.rediff.com/slide-show/2 ... e-husk.htm

Their website http://www.huskpowersystems.com/

IREDA (Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Ltd ) has been declared Programme Administrator for JNNSM.(Solar Mission). It will be opening its website for obtaining registration for UserID and Password on 12th July. The developers have to pre-register with state competent authority and then on 15th July submit application to IREDA. Limit is 100KWp to 2 MWp cor Grid connectivity at below 33KV voltage. This is first phase of setting up of solar power plants in India and private investments are coming in a very big way. Target is 20000 MW of Solar energy and per MW cost is about 20 crores with Land req at 5 acres per MW. The only issue is that raw components ( silicon cells) are imported, while there are few manufacturers who assemble modules. Manufacturing of Silicon cell is energy intensive and its a polluting industry. These would come up where energy is cheap, labour is cheap and there is less and little regulations on environment issues. China fits the Bill in a big way and could become major beneficiary as power is rather cheap because of three gorges dam. Labour....we know. Environment, who cares. Presently India would not allow import of panels under the scheme, but things could change if developers pressurize govt to reduce the cost.


http://www.ireda.gov.in/
http://mnre.gov.in/

The day of the oil diatom

Indian scientist T V Ramachandra, Canada-based Richard Gordon and their colleagues have upgraded the increasing global interest in harvesting fuel from algae, the small organisms found widely in water, from oceans to the yucky, green slime on ponds.

The Ramachandra-Gordon plan uses solar panels to mass-cultivate genetically modified diatoms - one of the smallest and oldest type of algae - that secrete a gasoline type of oil. The diatoms can be "milked" regularly, as cows for milk, for their oil to use as fuel.

Soleckshaw – India’s First ever solar powered postal vehicle
http://www.thefirstreporter.com/technol ... r-powered/

India to generate 1,000 megawatts of solar power by 2013: Abdullah
http://sify.com/news/india-to-generate- ... ehcfi.html

In Andhra Pradesh alone they are allocating

Anantapuram District = 2200 acres
Guntur District = 4575 acres
Adilabad District = 1008 acres
Cudupa district = 625 acres
=========================
Total = 8,408 acres
=========================

How much electricity they plan to generate? ~800MW with ~10,000 crores of investment.

There are more efficient ways to generate solar electricity. Hope logic and national interests prevail.

Posting here....as Fuel Cells come under MNRE
3-yr old report on Fuel Cells and India: http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/media/pdf/ ... -India.pdf