Energy Security and Environment for Sustainable Development - A Techno-economic View Point

摘要

Energy security and environment for sustainable development are the two sides of the same coin namely, the economic development. Increasing demand for energy is a direct consequence of economic growth, which makes energy security a pre-requisite. As environment is not external to the economy, environment for sustainable development should be integrated into the planning process itself. To ensure environment for sustainable development, the energy resources should be clean, nonpolluting, renewable, self sufficient and available locally. The technology for energy extraction should be developed indigenously as far as possible. From techno-economic viewpoint the energy technology should be competitive compared to other available alternatives. The technology so developed should be as far as possible contributing little to global warming. With all these diverse and mutually contradicting constraints, one has to tackle the problem of energy security and create an environment for sustainable development in the long run. Nuclear power generation has the natural advantage over fossil fuel based power plants, as it does not contribute to the release of green house gas-CO.. Hydrogen has been found to be the most suitable energy storage medium as well as energy carrier and when coupled with solar energy it can help to replace the traditional energy sources and also help maintain the environment for sustainable development. However the development of solar hydrogen economy has to bridge many cost-wise, technological and practicality gaps for commercial substitution. Networking of rivers is essential for flood and draught control, to make drinking water available to all regions, to provide navigation and transportation facilities, increased power generation and enhanced cultivable land. It is essential to set up desalination plants in the close proximity of thermal and nuclear power plants to recover the waste heat and increase the cycle efficiency of the plant leading to optimum utilization of energy sources on one hand and reducing the waste heat rejected to the atmosphere/hydrosphere. Until 1960's the favored strategy to ensure food security was putting more land under the plough, resulting in the loss of much of the world wilderness and national forests. Later came the concept of increasing crop yields through a mixture of seed improvements and the technological inputs, which brought in Green Revolution. The performance of insect resistant Genetically Modified rice in trials is impressive. The rice Genome was sequential to the International Rice Genome Sequencing Project, a unique International Collaborative Research Project, which is a glowing example of one of the positive benefits of Globalization.