If one had looked down to the earth from outer
space on July 31, both North India and parts of North America probably showed
thick strokes of black, although for two very different reasons.
That day, India played host to the world’s worst
ever black out, while elsewhere in the west, companies were setting fire to
their share of natural gases, a byproduct of excessive oil drilling in certain
parts of United States.*
When oil is pumped from an oil well, natural gas
also is recovered. While oil is stored, natural gas is processed and the
remnants, which are unusable, are ignited using gas flares.
The flares, orange in colour, evolved into thick
serpentine smoke above the Americas, and on the other end of the globe, life came
to a halt for about 600 million Indians.
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| Typical gas flares Image courtesy:Wikimedia |
At the outset, the two issues have a common
denominator-lack of infrastructure.
Grid failure in Agra brought life to a standstill
across 21 states in India. Excessive use of electricity by states, fuelled by
transmission losses and lower production, failed the grid.
There’s barely enough for the Indian states to get
by. Nuclear power plants are being set up, much to the dismay of the locals and
environmentalists. Precious time in the parliament is lost over debating energy
issues.
Spanning wide away to the west and rewinding to
about six years ago, natural gas and oil was thought to be in shortage in
United States. People then learned to drill horizontally into shale formations
(Shales are sedimentary rocks, rich in petroleum and natural gas), by pumping
sand and water into stone structures to release the trapped fuels. This new
technology helped tap oil and natural gas in the previously unexplored areas.
Availability rose, prices fell, storage houses maxed
out, while flaring rose to an all time high.
According to an article by David Fessler, about 100
million cubic feet of gas gets burnt everyday at Bakken shale formations, at
the northern part of United States. That’s enough to heat up 5,00,000 homes.
He also says, “Burning that much natural gas spews
about two million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually.
According to the Times, that’s as much as 384,000 cars, or one moderately
sized coal plant, throw off.” Read the article here
Pipelines and processing plants haven’t been able to
match up to the speed of extraction. Oil prices have been falling, with U.S.
crude touching a three month low of about $77 per barrel.
Indians continue to pay sky high prices for fuel,
thanks to the complicated pricing system, which I honestly do not have the
energy or patience to understand.
I work at US timings in India; spend time getting to
know their resources, while spending ours.
While we’re talking about energy, lets also talk
clean energy—solar companies. Incidentally, U.S. companies are shifting away
from clean technology. Chinese companies are producing them at a price the U.S.
companies cannot hope to compete with.
If I sound patronizing for the American companies,
you should know I have no special affinity for them. But I do care when the clean
tech stocks fall, because that’s equivalent to raising a red flag to all those
who would want to invest in a cleaner tomorrow.
On one hand, investors are pumping money in oil companies,
which are burning gas away by the second while on the other-they’re taking money
off solar companies, which could pave way for a greener tomorrow. On a third
hand, if there is one, India is.. well you know what’s happening in India.
Life,world, earth, nature... thy name is paradox.
*Parts of North America and other oil fields in the
world, would have (probably) shown thick black smoke since quite some time anyway
