India : a hot spot for Renewable Energy October 31, 2009

India is fast emerging as a frontrunner in terms of harnessing renewable energy resources. It has been ranked No.1, on par with the US, in annual solar power generation, while it claims the fifth spot in wind power generation. India also makes it to a credible fourth position for scope, space and facilities allotted for renewable energy expansion.

In its survey (ended May 2009), Mc Kinsey & Company has stated that India has an annual solar energy yield of between 1,700-1,900 kWh/KWp of installed capacity, one of the world’s highest solar intensities.
As per the BP statistical review of world energy, India has been ranked No. 5 in the world, contributing about 8% of the total global wind energy. The other top contenders include the US (20.7%), Germany (19.6%), Spain (14%), China (6%) and Denmark (3%).
India again makes it to the fifth spot, in the Ernst & Young renewable energy country attractiveness indices. A survey which rates countries as per their regulatory environment, fiscal support, unexploited resources, suitability to different technologies among other factors that facilitate the growth of renewable energy in a country.
India’s index for development of renewable energy resources in hydropower sector makes it to the fourth spot in the global order behind the US, Germany and China. Similarly, the country’s development index in biomass is ranked third in the world after US and Germany, and ahead of countries like Italy, UK, France, Canada and Australia.

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Extreme Days I August 28, 2009

Image by ocean.flynn via Flickr

• UK plans to generate one third of electricity from renewables by 2020 [+]
• India: 16% of humanity but less than 3% of global fresh water resources. [+]
• The Rosy periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus) increases a child’s chance of surviving leukemia by 10 to 95%. But this plant is increasingly threatened for a host of reasons, and as they disappear so do our life saving resources. [+]
• Climate change already is claiming more than 150,000 lives each year, with causes ranging from heat waves to respiratory illness. [+]
• Thermal expansion has already raised the oceans 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters). [+]
• India’s total GHG emissions stood at 1,853 million metric tons equivalent of carbon dioxide, about 4.9% of global emissions in 2005, according to the World Resources Institute. [+]

August 26, 2009

Image by kaneda99 via Flickr

the energy sector contributed 61% of total emissions in India, pegged India’s per capita emissions at only one-twentieth of the United States and about one-tenth of western Europe and Japan.

source: http://su.pr/4TiMqg

August 25, 2009

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A separate government report said India’s forests are absorbing about 11.25 % of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) every year at 1994 levels – or about 24 billion tonnes of CO2 -a potential market worth $120b

source: http://su.pr/4TiMqg