Climate Change and Energy Options for a Sustainable Future

The following sections are included:

• Dedication
• Reaching Out
• Foreword
• Preface
• Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• About the Authors

We are blessed to be living in a beautiful world, with its glorious sunrises and sunsets, its majestic animals, beautiful birds, varieties of insects, magnificent trees and plants, flowers with their divine charms and fragrances, etc. There is even a more complex world of single and multicellular organisms like bacteria and viruses beyond our vision capabilities but all the same very closely connected to our life cycles. More than 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water. The underwater world supports its own distinctly different ecosystem with a variety of fishes, algae, plants, other marine animals, and corals, etc. About 10% of the Earth’s surface is always covered with ice and again supports its own ecosystem. We have some form of life even up to a few kilometres under the surface of the Earth and up to two kilometres below the bottom of the sea with their own distinct life cycles. And together, they make an ecosystem where every species supports and depends on every other species for its survival. This ecosystem has taken a few billion years to evolve and has survived and recovered from several cataclysmic events…

The beautiful world that we described in the previous Chapter is also a fragile world. Nature has, over the last millions of years, evolved a web of life which maintains a very delicately balanced biodiversity.

Let us start with a story of hope and insight. When wolves were hunted into oblivion in the Yellow Stone Park in the USA in 1920s, the population of elk proliferated. It led to destruction of grazing land. Then the elks started eating tree saplings and smaller plants. The loss of vegetation led to erosion of land and drying up of the resident river. This led to destruction of habitat for bear, otters and fish, whose population decreased…

It is often said that the only certainty on the face of the Earth is the rising and setting of the Sun every morning and evening. What do we see when we look towards the sky in the night? There is the Moon, waxing and waning and moving slowly across the sky and the stars always engaged in a heavenly dance. Seen from space, the planet Earth presents one of the most beautiful sights, with its blue oceans, emerald seas, different continents, ice-capped poles, swirling clouds, snow covered lofty mountains, mighty rivers, verdant forests, and vast deserts…

It is generally believed that the first human ancestors appeared between five and seven million years ago, probably when some apelike creatures in Africa began to walk habitually on two legs. This helped them look up to larger distances for dangers and food and freed their two hands to manipulate objects. They were already flaking crude stone tools. Some of them even spread into Asia and Europe. The early man had to compete with other animals not only for his very survival but also for his food, the source of his energy and strength. His foods had their origin, directly or indirectly, in the photosynthesis from the insolation of the Sun. The discovery of Fire, Agriculture, and Industrialization has been recognized as major milestones in the evolution of the humans on Earth…

We have seen that food, water, and oxygen in the air are the basic needs of life on Earth. Humans learnt to supplement their own muscle power with external help like animal power, machines, etc. Engines and electricity are two major breakthroughs — steam and internal combustion engines generated power while electricity ensured power distribution. Hydrocarbons and the biomass were the fuels of choice, as these were easily available and had a large density of energy. Power on demand became a reality in the recent centuries. An unavoidable consequence of sourcing power from fossil fuels is the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere…

While travelling in North America in 1837 and later, Louis Agassiz noticed rock striations, moraines, and erratic rocks — the kind he had seen in The Alps and proposed the Theory of Ice Age Glaciation. Rock striations are deep scratch marks left by other rocks when these were carried by glaciers over large distances to become erratic rocks. Moraines are debris carried by glaciers to long distances…

Development is the natural aspiration of every human being — every individual would like to have a ‘better’ tomorrow than today, every individual will like his children to have ‘better’ tomorrow than they themselves had. However, the word ‘better’ is relatively undefined with different meanings to different people. Ever since man discovered the use of fire around a million years ago, his development has been rapid. Cooking made more foods edible year-round, released more nutrients and calories from both vegetables and meat, and killed harmful bacteria, viruses, and parasites. This led to increase in the brain size of early humans and gave him extra time to develop problem solving skills. Since then, man has not looked back. It is often said that man’s development was driven by fire and his brain…

Before we embark on a description of various sources of energy and possible options available to us for our sustainable future, let us get an idea about the enormity of this task by estimating the energy requirement of the world in coming years based on estimates of population and their aspirations…

We have already pointed out that the only source of energy that the early humans had was the Sun and the muscle power of himself and of animals. Over a period, he learnt to tame the power of fire, blowing wind, and running water. The discoveries of coal and oil were major milestones in human history which not only triggered the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century but also promised to power the industries for a long time to come. But the growth of the energy usage over the recent decades tell a different story. While the global energy usage has grown by leaps and bounds and continues to grow with hydrocarbon fuels — coal, oil, and natural gas, forming the backbone of our energy resources, it has also been realized that the present and the projected rates of consumption of these resources cannot be maintained for ever. Some estimates indicate that the world will run out of these resources in less than a century. It was also mentioned earlier that continued burning of hydrocarbons have started loading the Earth’s atmosphere with more and more carbon dioxide, resulting in an appreciable increase in global temperature with catastrophic consequences. It is not surprising that the world has started relooking at some of the traditional sources of energies like wind and solar power that are not only renewable but are also environment friendly. More renewable energy resources like tidal and geothermal energies have also been identified in the recent years. Recent developments in semiconductor technology have opened the possibility of drawing electrical energy directly from the sunlight using photovoltaic panels. Twentieth century also saw the emergence of nuclear energy as an option to satisfy partly, the growing energy needs of the world…

Sun has always given us light and warmth since the beginning of life on Earth. We have already seen that Sun is also the basis of all our energy resources — the hydrocarbons, water, wind, tides, waves, biomass, etc…

The following sections are included:

• Some Basic Nuclear Physics
• The Manhattan Project and After
• Nuclear Reactors for Electricity Generation
• Why Nuclear Power Did Not Grow as Much as Anticipated?
• The Story of Indian Nuclear Power
• Heavy Water and Enrichment of Uranium
• Commercial Nuclear Power in India
• 1974 Pokharan Peaceful Nuclear Experiment and the Technology Denial Regime
• The Way Forward: New Concepts in Reactor Designs
• Molten Salt Reactor
• Pebble Bed Reactors
• Generation IV International Forum (GIF)

The Sun and all the stars in the universe, derive their energy from fusion reactions. The sunlight and the heat from the Sun, along with water and oxygen on Earth have led to evolution of life on our unique planet, as we saw earlier…

We have seen that reactor accidents, which resulted in (partial) core meltdown in all the three major nuclear reactor accidents so far, were caused by the problems in the self-sustaining chain reactions which require that the reactor runs in a critical mode. Is it possible to develop new technologies which can displace the conventional nuclear reactors?…

The following sections are included:

• Nuclear Safety
• Defence in Depth
• The Three Mile Island Accident
• Chernobyl
• Fukushima
• Nuclear Waste

In the preceding pages, we have given indications of several applications of nuclear radiations. Scientists have studied nuclear radiations since 1890s. This has led to a wide variety of its uses. Now, we use radiation in medicine, academics, and industry. It has become a valuable tool of investigation in such varied areas as agriculture, archaeology, geology (including mining), law enforcement and space exploration, etc…

Before we formally close our discussions on the world energy resources, it is worthwhile to discuss one other source of energy, the hydrogen. We shall also see in the following, that hydrogen, while being a very powerful energy source, is not an energy resource in the same spirit as coal, oil, or natural gas…

The following sections are included:

• Summary
• Outlook

Let us start with a story with a powerful message. Mahatma Gandhi went to England in 1931 along with leaders of various political parties and several Rajas and Maharajas, to participate in the Round Table Conference and negotiate India’s independence from Britain. He was invited to meet King-Emperor George-V…

The following sections are included:

• Bibliography
• Index