India in nuclear club; third largest emitter of CO2

According to Center for Global Development (CGD) India is in the third position in the list of biggest CO2 emitter through power generation after China and the United States.

In the recent years, India’s energy consumption has been increasing at one of the fastest rates in the world due to population growth and economic development. Another study shows that by 2017, India’s energy requirement is expected to be 335 GW. This is a quite big number. This is going to put severe demand pressure on the traditional energy source of the planet. China and India will directly compete with the developed countries for fuel. Imagine what will happen then? Ever increasing fuel cost, high emission of green house gases, not a pleasant view huh? Now itself India is the 3rd largest emitter of green houses gases in power sector with the state owned NTPC leading the march. And this trend is upward.

In this context Nuclear power is the good source (Cant say how safe it is, still we don’t know how to handle nuclear waste properly).It is a clean source that can reduce the dependence on traditional energy source. India didn’t get the NSG waiver because of this. The writing is on the wall. Companies like Blackstone Group, GE and many other corporations are eying the lucrative energy sector of India. Once approved by the respective countries they can sign contracts worth multi billion of US dollars. I don’t think there is anybody, who don’t want their hand in the plum? It’s a scramble for energy sector much like the defense contracts of India. It’s a win- win situation for all. But then by doing so aren’t we creating a wrong precedence? What happens if tomorrow another rogue country comes up with similar arguments (India has a clean history of nuclear non-proliferation which even some of the nuclear super powers can’t claim?). This is a sensitive issue with world energy market in one side and nuclear non-proliferation in another side of the balance. Let’s hope that everything goes fine.

Public support for nuclear power had dramatically decreased after couple of high-profile accidents, such as at the Three Mile Island reactor in the US in March 1979 and the Chernobyl reactor in April 1986 in the erstwhile Soviet Union.

However, in recent years, the nuclear industry has become less defensive about its safety record. The World Nuclear Association (WNA) website, for instance, points out that these are the only major accidents to have occurred in more than 12,700 cumulative reactor-years of commercial operation in 32 countries. The risks from western nuclear power plants, in terms of the consequences of an accident or terrorist attack, are minimal compared to other commonly accepted risks. Nuclear power plants are very robust, it asserts.

But we should look & develop other source of energy also like the wind energy, solar energy, tidal energy. These are much better and clean than the nuclear energy.

It’s a beginning… Let’s see how much we move forward.

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Mission accomplished: Year 2013 no ice cap on North Pole

Per country greenhouse gas emissions in 2000, including land-use change.

Per capita greenhouse gas emissions in 2000, including

The meltdown in the Arctic is speeding up and as a result the North Pole could be ice-free by 2013 instead of in 60 years’ time as earlier predicted, scientists have warned. Their apprehensions are based on computer studies of satellite images that reveal that ice at North Pole melted at an unprecedented rate last week — the disappearance is said to have exceeded the record loss of more than a million square kilometers in 2007 as global warming tightened its grip.

Scientist Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University: “When we did the first climate change computer models, we thought the Arctic’s summer ice cover would last until around 2070.”It is now clear we did not understand how thin the ice cap had already become — for Arctic ice cover has since been disappearing at ever increasing rates. Every few years we have to revise our estimates downwards. “Now the most detailed computer models suggest the Arctic’s summer ice is going to last for only a few more years — and given what we have seen happen last week, I think they are probably correct.”

You will think that in another 5 years some how we will do something.
Now the most shocking part. The ice cover may disappear temporarily this year itself according to scientists. Shrinking ice cap in the Arctic Ocean even produced a new sea route from the Bering Strait to Oslo last summer. Maritime enterprises in some industrial nations such as the United States and Britain have started mulling on how to use it to cut cost over the past six months!!! Still they haven’t learned. Their greed will kill us all. The rich developed nation will somehow protect them but what about those poor people in the developing & under developed countries. They will be massacred with no fault of them or their ancestors.

Imagine the tragedy when this happens. Floods, droughts and even war for fresh water.
Millions of people could be forced from their homes and suffer increasing disease, cyclones and floods caused by global warming. Chronic food and water insecurity and epidemic disease may impede economic development. And all this because of the greed of human race. And still they are not learning. Now everybody got china and India to blame. The biggest polluter United States is hiding behind them and blaming them. They say they will reduce their emission only if china & India also share the responsibility. China and India says that they don’t have to reduce any emissions since their per capita emissions are far less than United States!!! What a vicious cycle? But this never ending blame game will turn our green planet into a water world with even Everest under water. That would be a great achievement indeed. Shame on the world leaders. There won’t be anything left to fight for. It the time for action rather than blaming each other. Let put pressure on our peers, our government and the entire human race to protect our green plant not for our children grandchildren but for us.
Don’t wait for The Day After Tomorrow (movie by Roland Emmerich). Act now….

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