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The Chamber in association with Global Change Program, Jadavpur University, Kolkata brought forth the publication, which has been published by Springer.

 

The Editorial Board included Deb A Mukherjee, Vice President and Chairperson, Energy and Environment Committee, The Bengal Chamber; Dr. Sudipta De, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Jadavpur University and Key Resource Member, Energy and Environment Committee, The Bengal Chamber; Prof. Santanu Bandyopadhyay, Department of Energy Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay; and  Dr. Mohsen Assadi, Professor,  Faculty of Science and Technology,  University of Stavanger

 

The chapters in the publication feature advanced case studies and thought papers in the realm of Transformational Energy.  International experts have addressed energy sustainability from different viewpoints. 

 

There are also studies on sustainability of energy in India  against global perspectives. 

 

Prof. Ajoy Kumar Ray, Director, IIEST, Kolkata present at the program  said that most institutions need an industry committee to bridge Industry and Academia and only an united effort can usher in prosperity.

 

Energy is a vital component for modern civilization and often per capita consumption of energy is considered as the index of life standard of people of a country. The book has also discussed in detail the challenges regarding supplying energy for a decent living, at an affordable price and in an environment-friendly way.

 

The Chamber believes that its role goes beyond being the vanguard of industry and business. It also has to play an important role in enriching the academia as the contributions from the academia would, in turn, facilitate the industry with intellectual resources.

 

The ‘BCC&I Knowledge Forum: Bridging the Industry and Academia’ aims to archive and disseminate knowledge shared by the experts and stakeholders associated with the Chamber.

 

“This forum aims to give shape to an online platform offering knowledge repository which may be accessed and shared”, said Deb A Mukherjee.

 

Dr. Manpreet Singh Manna, Director (PMSSS & SWAYAM), Government of India, All India Council for Technical Education, in his special address, spoke about three important points of energy-generation, conservation and storage. And said this publication was like a combo pack of Make in India and Digital India.

 

This publication is the first initiative of the BCC&I Knowledge Forum. 

 

Swati Meherishi, Executive Editor, Applied Science and Engineering, Springer spoke about Springer being the largest academic publisher in the world that focused on topics that mattered to society and world at large.

 

Excerpts from the preface of the first volume of the book:

 

"With the growing concern for environmental degradation and specifically climate change problem, energy sector all over the world is facing the difficult challenge to meet the ever-increasing energy demand with minimum/no degrading effects on the environment in an economic way. Energy is a vital component for modern civilization and often per capita consumption of energy is considered as the index of life standard of people of a country. Supplying energy for a decent living at an affordable price and in an environment-friendly way is the critical challenge.

 

 

Sustainability is the concept of meeting the present demand without compromising the needs of the future generation. Optimum planning of use of natural resources to meet the need of the present as well as future generation is very critical for sustainability. Solutions must be socially and environmentally acceptable as well as economically feasible. Over a long period, fossil fuels were the main source of useful energy for rapid development of human civilization. Technologiesfor using these fuels have matured over a long period and are available at an affordable cost all over the world. However, limited remaining reserves of these fuels have forced energy technologists to explore alternative options. On top of that climate change problem may force us to ‘leave fossil fuels before they leave us’. Renewable resources are considered to be only future options of energy in a longer time frame as these are virtually inexhaustible. However, technologies for using different renewable resources are widely varying and most of them are still developing. Economic feasibility as well as social acceptance of these new options has to be checked thoroughly before they can emerge as reliable options for future. Intermittency of most of these resources is another problem. These are to be used when ‘these are available rather than when we need these for our use’. Different ways of addressing this challenge are under active investigation including suitable technology development for energy storage and ‘hybridization’ of different resources available locally etc. Thus solutions may be site specific and no unique solution may be available for the whole world. Removing fossil fuels immediately may not be a feasible solution too as other options are neither capable to meet the huge demand nor their reliability is assured under all possible adverse situations. Also a large capital is already ‘locked’ in fossil fuel based technologies. A planned smooth phasing out of these technologies is required with development of alternative ones within a specified time frame. This needs proper energy policy with multi level governance. Moreover, suitable change of existing fossil fuel based technologies during this transition is critical, most specifically due to climate change problem. Energy sustainability is a global challenge though many issues of it are site specific. Addressing energy sustainability is thus a global issue as well as local too – staring from a country even up to a small village of that country.

 

Sustainability of Indian energy sector needs thorough introspection. Presently coal dominates with 54% of installed generation capacity and ~69% in terms of actual power generation. Also most of these coal based power plants are of conventional PF fired with low efficiency. Large transmission and distribution losses with minimum environmental regulation are other limitations of these plants. Hydro power has the next largest share (21% of total installed). Other renewable and nuclear power have steady growth but with some constraints – technological, social, economical and even political. Transport sector is mostly dependent on imported oil with large uncertainty, economical as well as political. Traditional sources of energy also have a good share though decreasing. To have a sustainable plan for Indian energy sector assessment of present scenario and future planning based on this assessment is very urgent.

 

In two volumes of this book experts from all over the world have addressed energy sustainability from different viewpoints in several articles. Specifically Indian energy sustainability is also explored with a background of this global perspective.

 

In the introductory chapter Sikdar has reported his perception about the different terminologies, say, and clean, green and sustainable energy. Solar photovoltaic technology is considered to be one of the most widely used renewable technologies worldwide as an alternative to fossil fuel based electricity. Roy discussed this technology starting from the very basic fundamentals up to the most advanced research findings in this field. Integration of intermittent renewable electricity to the conventional grid is a real challenge. Microgrids are considered to be emerging solutions for utilizing different distributed intermittent renewable energies. N.K. Kishore et al. have presented an overview of present status of microgrids. Transmission and distribution losses affect the overall energy efficiency. Lakshmi and Ganguly presented a state of the art review of transition of power distribution systems. Distributed generation is emerging as a sustainable solution in place of large scale fossil fuel based energy systems. Iaria et al. have reported such a system using solar energy. Design of this system has been developed up to the full scale implementation. Unexplored potential of distributed generation in India has been reported by Jana and De. Full utilization of this potential may make a paradigm shift of energy sustainability of India. Delivery of multiple utility with single or multiple inputs is called poly generation. It increases overall energy efficiency with optimal design. A mathematical optimization process using linear programming for such systems has been discussed by Tan and Aviso. Though increasing renewable share is always desired, fossil fuel based electricity will continue to remain as the major source of electricity. Detoxification technology during processing of crude oil has been reported by Jarullah et al. CO2 capture is required to use fossil fuels in power plants in a longer time frame. Different technologies are being developed for this purpose. An overview of state of the art of this technology has been discussed by Maria et al. Prospects of use of algae specifically for this purpose have been discussed by Chowdhury et al. In spite of all challenges, coal plays a critical role for energy sustainability of India. This complex issue is addressed by Bhattacharyya, former chairman of the largest coal producing company of India. Finding new fuels and to use those in innovative ways also adds to future energy sustainability. A chapter on use of gas hydrates has been contributed by Nair et al. Bio fuel is undoubtedly one important option to substitute fossil fuels in future, specifically in transport sector. Several chapters discuss this important issue both from global perspectives as well as in Indian context. Two chapters by Verma and Kishore and another two chapters by Chowdhury et al.; Yadav and Sen discussed different aspects of bio fuels. Energy sustainability cannot be achieved without improving energy efficiency. Building energy efficiency is considered to be a very important issue for future energy sustainability. Two chapters by Azad and Rakshit; Saikia et al. discussed this important issue including Indian context. In the concluding chapter, possible energy efficiency measures in a milk plant of India have been discussed by Srinivasan et al.

 

Editors thankfully acknowledge the support of experts of different disciplines both as authors and reviewers. The book is the outcome of one of the collaborations (INCP-2014-10086) under the Indo-Norwegian Cooperation Program between the Jadavpur University, India and the University Of Stavanger, Norway. Both coordinators from India and Norway of this collaboration are two editors of this book. Support from industry is specifically acknowledged. The Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCC&I), the oldest industry chamber of India was very much supportive to this effort of joint activity by academia and industry. Chamber is also represented by its Vice President as one of the editors of this book. Department of Energy Science and Engineering of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay is one of the pioneering groups of India for higher studies and research of interdisciplinary sustainable energy. One Chair Professor of this Department is also another editor of this book."