Dr Rajiv Desai
An Educational Blog
Solar Technologies
Solar Technologies: Solar is the only renewable energy source which could, in principle, easily meet all the world’s energy needs. _ “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.” Thomas Edison in 1931 ____ Section-1 Prologue: Currently, our civilization consumes around 17.7 Terawatts (17.7 terajoules/second) of power taken from all sources of energy, namely oil, coal, natural gas and alternative energies such as solar, wind, hydropower and others. Fossil fuels—including coal, oil, and natural gas—have been powering economies for over 150 years, and currently supply about 80 percent of the world’s energy. The environmental ramifications of using fossil fuels, combined with their expected remaining abundance on earth places limits on how much longer we as a species can rely on them as an energy source. If […]
ELECTRICITY
ELECTRICITY: _ The picture above shows how a barber cuts hair during recent power failure in India. _ Prologue: Electric crematoria were snuffed out with bodies inside, New Delhi’s Metro shut down and hundreds of coal miners were trapped underground after three Indian electric grids collapsed in a cascade on 30th and 31st July 2012, cutting power to 620 million people in India. The blackout engulfed as many as 19 of India’s 28 states on July 31, with more than 100 intercity trains stranded and traffic lights went out in busy roads, causing widespread jams. Without question, it was the largest blackout in world history. Hospitals, factories and the airports switched automatically to their diesel generators during the hours-long cut across half of India. Many homes relied on backup systems of invertors with batteries. On the other hand, millions of India’s poorest had no electricity to lose. Of the […]
