AUTOMOBILES:
HYBRID POWER
Vehicles are the biggest producers of dirty greenhouse gas emissions. In the West, car manufacturers acknowledged this and began morphing existing models running on petrol into cars that had the option running on a green-fuel, mostly electricity. The most well-known of these hybrid cars are the Toyota Prius and the Ford Escape SUV.

In India, industry experts say, the first indigenous hybrids may roll out next year. Mahindra showed a prototype for hybrid cars at the last Auto Expo in Delhi. Tata Motors’ car will have both an internal combustion (IC) engine as well as an electric motor. Tata Motors says that the IC engine will be used at high speeds (and probably at the start and when accelerating suddenly) while the electric motor will be used at mid speed ranges.

“For other new cars, it is going to be fuel efficiency. With 3 to 4 per cent is fuel reduction, the emission can come down by 6-10 per cent,” said Chenoy. Though some sections are demanding mandatory fuel efficiency standards, the industry claims they are doing well without it.

Meanwhile, the two-wheeler segment is set for a radical change. Bangalore-based Electrotherm launched the Yo bike this February in Gujarat. It is a no-petrol, pollution-free battery-operated two-wheeler costing between Rs 16,000-29,000 with a maximum speed of 25 kmph. For the cost of a litre of petrol, the Yo can run 700 km. It also has a anytime, anyplace battery charger.

Hero Honda and Atlas are working on similar battery-powered vehicles. “Two-wheelers are 26 per cent of all Indian vehicles, and the difference in total emissions will be large if they go green,” said Dilip Chenoy, head of Society for Indian Automobiles Manufacturers (SIAM).

AGRICULTURE:
APPLES TO CHERRIES IN HIMACHAL
First a delayed and insufficient winter snowfall. Later a sharp, sudden rise in the temperatures and then an untimely hailstorm. Alarm bells are ringing in Himachal Pradesh, home to the country’s choicest apples.

So it is for staples like wheat, rice too. But apples are important as the state Government earns Rs 1,500 crore from the orchards. Himachal has lost as much as 60 per cent of the crop to erratic weather. “The apple crop is weather-stressed,” admit horticulturists across the prosperous fruit belt. “Looking at other crops is the solution,” they say.

The YS Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry at Solan has some suggestions. Says Jagmohan Singh, Vice-Chancellor: “We have strongly recommended to the government and to orchard owners that they gradually shift to other fruits. We have successfully tested and endorsed planting of new fruit varieties like pears, apricots, plums and kiwi fruit. All these tolerate a wider temperature band.”

The state’s Horticulture Department itself has identified nearly five varieties of cherry and about a dozen new varieties of pears, apricot and peach as replacement.

In fact, some of apple areas like Kotgarh in Shimla’s upper hills have emerged as the biggest producers of cherry. More than 35 percent of the apple orchards there now have cherry trees. Orchard owners in neigbouring Kotkhai, Narkanda and Matiyana are interested. In Rajgarh pears, plums and apricots are replacing apples. Kiwi fruit now grows in Kullu, Shimla and Solan.

The apple growers are also being persuaded to switch to hardier American varieties like gale-gala and red-fugi. Says J .P Negi, Principal Secretary (Horticulture): “We have tried to provide sufficient stock of the plant material for new foreign apple varieties that can survive climate change.”
—Ashwani Sharma

INDUSTRY:
CLEAN LUCRE
Two Indian corporates, one from Gujarat, the other from Haryana, both in the refrigerants business, are leaders in carbon trading under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

Clean Development Mechanism is an arrangement under the Kyoto Protocol that allows developed countries to invest in emission reducing projects in developing countries as the cost of reducing a unit of carbon emission is very high in developed countries. In fact, Vadodara-based Gujarat Fluorochemicals Limited and Gurgaon based SRF Limited are seeing their bottom lines grow by selling carbon credits, rather than through refrigerants. This at minimal technology replacement cost that go into their CDM projects.

Between them, the two account for 74 per cent of India’s total of Certified Emission Reduction (CERs). Against a profit after tax of around Rs 130 crore last year from its CFC business, GFL Executive Director Deepak Asher claims a potential profit of up to Rs 400 crore per annum. The company realised a neat Rs 350 crore last year by selling its approved credits. SRF has been making over Rs 100 crore each quarter by selling carbon credits since 2005-6.

These companies only show the potential. With a bit of effort, industry could be raking in carbon funds before other countries like China and Korea lap them up.
— Abhishek Kapoor

INNOVATION:
TECH EXCHANGE
WHAT is the connection between water pumps in Chhattisgarh villages and flying between two cities in the UK? Each time British citizens heat homes, take a flight or drive the car, CO2, a greenhouse gas, is added to the atmosphere. To offset this, they could pay someone else to reduce the CO2 in the air and balance it out. Climatecare, an NGO, helps British citizens calculate and pay for the damage they cause to the environment. It uses the money to fund transition to a lower-carbon world.

They offer various options from a range of projects in developing countries for introducing renewable energy, improving energy efficiency or for forest restoration.

Chhattisgarh’s treadle pump is one of the several projects listed with them. It is a simple device developed by the International Development Enterprises (India) (IDE-I), a not-for-profit company. It uses human power to pump water from wells, streams and lakes up to the fields.

A study by The Energy Resources Institute (TERI) that profiles existing treadle pump users clearly shows these devices can be used in place of diesel pumps in households. Most farmers have seen their annual income double as a result; for some, it has increased five-fold. Using manual power reduces diesel fuel use by 0.45 litres per hour on average, saving 0.65 tonnes of CO2 per year.

There are similar organisations that are making use of the increasing awareness in the West about their high carbon emissions to introduce a low-carbon technology in India.

CONSUMER APPLIANCES:
GREEN LABELCarrier, a well-known air-conditioning company, presented its first five-star labelled air conditioner in the market at a premium of Rs 4,000. It was the first to put a premium on energy efficiency.

About 90 per cent of companies producing tubelights, 60 per cent of refrigerators and half of air conditioners have voluntarily opted for the Bureau of Energy Efficiency’s (BEE) energy-efficiency labels. BEE hopes to make them mandatory in the next six months.

According to BEE calculations, the country could prevent waste of as many as 18 billions units of electricity annually by 2011 just by saving this end-use energy.

The challenge is consumer awareness. “The consumer has to build demand for these energy-efficient products,” said Saurav Kumar, Secretary, BEE. “With power bills going up, for some it would be economics. For the rest, there has to be a bigger reason to buy these products.”

BEE, functioning under the Ministry of Power, has been doing periodic campaigns but still has a long-way to go before a billion-plus consumers realise what the stars mean on the labels.

This is the first step that the country has taken towards giving a choice to the consumer on the most energy-efficient products. It is expected to lead to a whole set of new infrastructure. Right now, these products are tested in accredited labs around the country. Once these labels are made mandatory, there will have to better labs to ensure credibility of the label.
Next on agenda: greener inverters, diesel pumps, transformers and consumer electronics.