Right now , for most of north India, the greatest
necessity is to get rid of the smog created by stubble burning by farmers in
Punjab – Haryana – Rajasthan
While politicians of all hues are making a lot of noise
, some people are working hard to find practical alternate solutions to stubble
burning
Following are some examples :
[ A ]
Extract :
An innovative solution to
tackle air pollution due to stubble burning was showcased recently in Bennett University’s ( BU ) second
annual Engineering Project Showcase
The winner in the mechanical engineering department , ” Design and Fabrication of Torrefaction Reactor “, aims to provide a
cost-effective solution by converting crop residue into high energy fuel
It may help in eliminating the stubble burning problem
that impacts lives of millions of people in North India every year
Torrefaction
is a thermal process to convert biomass into a coal-like material called
pellets
The estimated 30 – 40 million tonnes of paddy straw that
remains unutilized and is burnt, has the potential to generate 6,000 – 8,000 MW
of electricity annually by using it with coal in the coal based power plants
This may also provide farmers with additional income,
said a source
=================================
[ B ]
Source :
https://www.bygen.com.au/technology
Extract
:
The novel technology developed
by ByGen was formulated through several years of intense R&D investigating
new approaches to the traditionally energy-intensive methods for activated
carbon production.
These conventional thermal
approaches utilise high temperatures (800 - 1200 °C) and high purity gases
(CO2/H2O).
Our approach requires
significantly less energy and can use cheap activation agents to achieve
the same quality activated carbon as the conventional approaches.
In addition, as we require
significantly less energy infrastructure for our process, we can scale it down,
allowing us to access cheap and abundant agricultural waste sites.
Our process can also be
retrofitted to existing carbonization / pyrolysis units to upgrade the char
output to activated carbon.
These factors mean that we can produce activated carbon at a fraction of the traditional
manufacturing cost, while still maintaining the same product quality
ByGen co-founder and
CEO Lewis Dunnigan
said he believed the breakthrough, made with co-founder Ben Morton, was the
first conversion of its kind in the world.
“Agricultural waste
has a high carbon content, as does plastic, so the idea occurred to us ‘why not
make activated carbon out of plastic?’”
Activated carbon has a variety of industrial uses, including purifying
liquids such as drinking water, food and beverage processing, odour removal,
contaminated soil remediation and gold processing.
It is traditionally made from coal, hardwood or coconut shells, and sells for about A$2000 a tonne.
ByGen is beginning a campaign to raise approximately A$2.5 million to
build a full-scale plant capable of producing industrial quantities of activated carbon from agricultural waste.
“Traditionally, you have to make it at about 1000 degrees using steam or
harsh chemicals. We felt like these energy intensive processes, often used in
developing countries with non-renewable feedstocks, weren’t sustainable, so we
tried lots of different Australian agricultural wastes and identified which
ones worked best.”
[ Source :
Activated
carbon breakthrough offers solution to global plastic crisis ]
Following is my email ( 10 Nov 2019 ) to Lewis Dunnigan
[ 'lewis@bygen.com.au' ] :
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Lewis Dunnigan
I write in context of the technology that you have
developed for producing Active Carbon , by converting / processing ,
Ø Agricultural Waste
Ø Plastic
I wish you all success in obtaining funding to
commercialize your process
As with everywhere else in the World, this technology
is badly needed in India, since , both plastic and agri waste are the biggest
pollutants here
Stubble { onsite agri residue after harvest }, burning
( by farmers ) is causing havoc with AQI { Air Quality Index } of most cities
in North India, exceeding 360 for past 10 days
A single state of Punjab burns 20
million tons of stubble within 15 days !
According to a
government estimate, over 500 million tonnes ( MT ) of agricultural straw are
produced every year in the country
Of this, nearly 362 million tonnes ( from rice-wheat-maize-millet ) , are burnt on the farms
Amount of surplus crop
residue is estimated at 84-141 million tonnes
Do
you think your process could use this waste and convert to activated carbon ?
I would like to alert the Indian Government re your
process
With regards,
Hemen Parekh
============================================
Today’s Hindustan Times carries following news :
Combating
air pollution: Niti Aayog, CII draft plan for clean industry
Extract
:
“Leapfrogging to advanced biomass co-firing [more
than 10% biomass] requires a long-term and comprehensive policy for the
promotion of biomass co-firing in thermal power plants.
Commercial feasibility of enhanced co-firing is
still being evaluated at this stage.
However, in long term, this could potentially
unlock a cost-effective strategy for greening the coal
power and simultaneous reduction of emissions from stubble burning in North West region,’’ the report says.
=========================================================
Nearly 2 years ago , I wrote :
“Power Minister R K Singh on Thursday said
that state-run NTPC will float
tender to buy farm stubble at Rs 5,500 per
tonne for power plants , a move that will check farmers from
burning it – a key source of pollution in in NCR
He said this move will help farmers earn
around Rs 11,000 per acre from
the sale of straw
“ On an average a farmer gets around 2 tonnes of stubble or straw in an acre “
, said Singh at a press conference
Now , Punjab farmers grow paddy in 3 million acres
That means 6 million tonnes of stubble ( @ 2 tonnes / acre )
At Rs 5,500 per tonne , this will amount
to Rs 3,300 crore of windfall
income - all in a span of 15 days !
And to enable this , all that is required
is 30,000 pairs of machines (
costing , approx. Rs 600 crores )
Where
are the Happy Seeders that Punjab’s farmers were promised? [ 18 Nov 2019
]
Happy
Seeder: A low-cost alternative to stubble burning [ 17 Nov 2019 ]
For a comprehensive understanding of why the farmers
are helpless , due to poor availability of Happy Seeder machines , this 2 year
old observation should be read in conjunction with :
Where
are the Happy Seeders that Punjab’s farmers were promised? [ 18 Nov 2019
]
Happy
Seeder: A low-cost alternative to stubble burning [ 17 Nov 2019 ]
========================================================
I urge Shri Prakash Javadekarji [ Minister for
Environment ] to :
# Publicize how
much stubble did NTPC purchase so far – and at what price
# Get one of our
National Laboratories to take up for commercialization, the innovation of
the students
of Bennett University
# Send an email
to Mr Lewis Dunnigan , asking him to give an “ on-site demo “[ at some
farm in
Punjab ], of the technology developed by him
=========================================================
17 Nov 2019
hcp@RecruitGuru.com
