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"Oil Addiction"

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blrsri - 23 April, 2008 | Bangalore | Culture | Oil

words made more famous by President Bush..but this is indeed a very bad habit that the world has got into.

Addiction and bad habits have been traditionally limited to bad effects for the individual and in some cases few people around(passive smokers). But in the case of oil, this affects the environment so bad that our existence itself is threatened by it!

[flickr-photo:id=2435241431,size=m]

As the trends go we can see that the emerging economies are doubling their oil consumption by 10 years..this is going to
grow even faster for India in the coming years and this is very scary.
Our oil porduction has remained constant at around 600 thousand barrels per day while our consumption is more than 4 times that number.

We in Bangalore might not be aware, but every winter the global oil prices are more controlled by the heating demands in the US..Japan too having cold winters depends on heating, but has managed to use alternate ways for managing this.These measures to conserve is not just related to household energy consumption, they have made drastic changes at work too to reduce dependency on oil..
As a result we can see with the trends their oil consumption has actually come down in the years though their population and economy is growing!

What are we doing in India? trying to lay fuel lines from Iran and other countries to satisfy the appetite
of the fuel guzzlers? It is high time we stop and retrospect and change ways to save energy more particularly oil!

What can we do?

Metro - public transport not depending on fossil fuels directly is the best option for mass transport
Bicycles - best form of transport which will also help in maintaining good health
Electric scooters - These are already in the market and are quite efficient
Reva - this is the only battery driven car in the markrt now

It was Earth Day yesterday, its high time we think about the world around us and do something to kick the habit.

COMMENTS

cheap energy

tsubba - 23 April, 2008 - 11:28

some people have asked: if there was a very cheap energy source and it was very green, would it still solve any real problems?

electric vehicles?

silkboard - 23 April, 2008 - 07:49

How are the electric scooters doing in Bangalore? I saw a few of them launched here, but don't see many vehicles on the road yet.

I have been waiting for an electric auto rickshaw as well, I thought Reva should try to do one. But they never did. However, just last week, I remember reading about some company launching electric autos (Lohia's I think, or Greaves, not sure).

I think range and the 'hidden' cost of regular (2-3 years) battery replacement are the reasons that may keep informed people away from electric scooters right now. But I dont see any serious marketing effort yet, only remember 1 TV add (yo?), and a few newspaper inserts, thats all. Why? the EV industry is not confident yet?

Reva did badly because: It

narayan82 - 23 April, 2008 - 09:26

Reva did badly because:

  1. It was not a popular vehicle in the styling segement
  2. The battery life was 3 years, and new battery was about 75% the cost of the car
  3. It was quite highly priced for a tiny car (> rs.2.5 Laks)

Yes, Electric vehicles will make a huge difference.It would great, if we could manage to convert all the Autos to Electric. The chinese do have such a 3 wheeler in place.

I had this idea, about making Revas into Autos.

  • A large consignment/Order with govt. subsidy would bring down the cost.
  • A ergonmical re-design will give it more space and passenger comfort.
  • Charged Batteries can be supplied at Petrol pumps, which can be exchanged for drained ones.

But, I just dont think there is enough motivation from the government to control oil price through alternative methods, and I also hear about lobbying from petroleum industries, againt EVs.

Some other ideas for promoting EVs:

  1. Convert all domestic garbage vehicles to EVs (the autos that pick up garbage) - these can be charged at night. and they dont cover a large distance in a day.
  2. Electric Busses - these have over head lines running on roads, so this way it also becoomes a dedicated bus lane. I travelled in one of these in Salzburg, Austria - and the only disadvantage is a screeching coaused by interference with the PA system.

 

there are many more..

blrsri - 23 April, 2008 - 10:40

1. TVS scooty teenz

2. Hero has ’Velociti’- Scooter with extra speed, and ’Optima’- Scooter with extra range

and many more..I have seen them on road and are pretty decent..its hard to distinguish them as they look very similar to their petrol counterparts..

About Reva, I know few folks who are driving one for a few years in blr and they are happy with it..on the way to work today I saw another one which was the Reva-i and the owner had stickered all around.'I hate pollution' 'see, car doesnt have an exhaust'

Reva has a market in the European countries where subsidies are high..Its already on second hand market..http://www.greencarsite.co.uk/4sale/00028.htm

With this years budjet electric cars and vehicles are cheaper..so we should see more on our 'get kothambari' visits!

Are electric vehicles really a solution?

Rithesh - 23 April, 2008 - 11:08

Electric vehicle are really not a solution to this problem.

Shifting to electric vehicle will increase the consumption of electricity, and when demand grows significantly, costs also increase. A significant number of our power generation plants use diesel, gas or other petroleum products as fuels. Also coal prices though not entirely dependent on oil prices, are also increasing.

European countries basically promote the use of electric vehicles to reduce the pollution in cities (which actually increases else where - near power plants). I dont really see any advantages, so that we could push for more incentives for electric cars. Also we should not forget the environmental hazards of the batteries used in these vehicles.

Uses electricity..but still viable!

blrsri - 23 April, 2008 - 11:34

This was discussed on praja before..before that lets have some stats on power generation in India, according to wiki:

Thermal power plants: 64.7% (about 50% is coal)

Hydro: 26.2%

Nuclear: 3.1%

others: 5.9%

Agreed half of our power comes from coal at this point but this is still much better than the improperly tuned petrol engines on the road! ABout emissions, the power plants have very good installations to handle suspended particles and other harmful chemicals before they are released into the atmosphere.

So electric vehicles are the way to go, atleast for now.

We can always get back to the fuel-cell cars running on hydrogen and letting out water  or as the Tatas have planned out a MDI air car release in India, a car that runs just on air and emmission being cool air..

till then the battery technologies are getting better day by day and the vehicle batteries are being improved for capacity..longitivity and better performance.

immideate soln not long term

narayan82 - 23 April, 2008 - 11:57

I think in the long term, research can give us better options like the hydrogen fuel cars!... Right now, we could do with Electric Cars, and maybe even come up SOLAR options for charging. Even if pollution isnt the key, oil prices could be.

moving off frontpage

admin123 - 23 April, 2008 - 12:02

Sorry blrsri, and other folks, this is a Bangaore focused forum, and since the topic is more global or national in nature, and not really a local one, we have taken this post off front page. The blog post can still be accessed on blrsri's blog page.

If members want to read/write on such issues, do let us know via the feedback form or this suggestion thread. If there is demand, then we will try create a separate 'space' for such discussions on Praja.

local energy

tsubba - 23 April, 2008 - 12:26

some elders had written a few locally relevant articles specifically checkout shankar sharma's article is saying yes to chamalapura and saying no to coal good enough? also read say yes to chamalapura no to coal in general go through http://mysore.praja.in/tags/chamalapura

some tips for blr to reduce oil use..

blrsri - 24 April, 2008 - 00:51

I started off commenting about how japan worked on the oil habit..would like to add that they followed very simple steps like..reducing the ac temp in winters and increasing it by a deg in summers..inturn compensating by warmer clothes and cooler cottons for summers resp.

About roads..they had similar issues like bangalore and some suggestions are..

- all of us, especially the neo rich croud, drive around blr in swanky cars, most times with just one person in the car and at junctions like Bennignanahalli, they have all windows closed even at high noon..what are they doing? burning fuel to maintian their luxury with A/C, though they have no where to go for the next 15 min!

All the while, the young kid behind his dad on the scooter next to this car is coughing badly because of the pollution!

wake up...open the windows, shut off the engines..breathe what the little one breathes..no one has right to breathe better at the cost of others! 

 

encourage any similar thoughts like this for this post..I am sure you folks are doing something for the environment especially the fuel problems in your own way..

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