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Vivekanup |
Carbon Trading by Railways |
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Respected all: Railways have indulged in lot of energy savings by adopting earth friendly processes, including WAG9 locomotives, reduction in consumption of
electricity, use of solar panels at LC gates and other locations. Is there a possibility that by getting the carbon cap and then applying to CDM India, an
authority under the Ministry of Environment and Forests for carbon credits and making money in exchange? Given that we run around 4500 odd diesel locos over
the IR network running on fossil fuel, even a slight improvement will bring about substantial monetary gains. Regards Vivek Tripathi IRAS
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scmitra |
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Infact, last time I heard, MOR was doing something about carbon credits. Infact whole electrification can be utilised as carbon credits due to Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM) and electrical wing was processing something. Dont know if mech boys will like it,though!
Ofcourse potentialities are great.And after watching 'An Inconvenient Truth', I think we might as well before we are submerged! scm |
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subbu98 |
CDM | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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I guess mere electrification does not qualify for CDM. Source of electricity is the significant aspect of it. Unfortunately thermal power plants provide a huge
portion of electricity in India. Emission Factor of Indian Thermal Plants is quite high. Someone was telling the other day that projects or activities that
result in a minimum reduction of 1 million ton of carbon dioxide per year qualify for Carbon Credit. It's much easier for power generators to make out a
strong case by switching over to a technology or process that increases the efficiency of the process of generation and in turn leads to reduction in emission.
For end users, I'm told, the process for obtaining carbon credit is much more stringent. For example, all calculations have to be backed by a strong and
authentic data base. Normative calculations would not do. I do not know if we already have a mechanism that records the real time fuel efficiency of our locos.
In case of electric locos, tying up the load for our motive power stations based on normative calculations is one thing and how much load each loco actually
draws under real time conditions is quite another. I have a feeling that we might be tying up a much higher load than we actually draw. In case of diesel
locos, there does not seem to be any real time database. At least that was my experience when we were doing such calculations in Railway Board. Having said
that, any CDM proposal must be holistic in approach for an end user like us. Since what ultimately counts is how much carbon dioxide emission is reduced by the
project or range of activities, the same has to be established through (a) a switch over to a technology or practice that results in lesser power consumption,
(b) switch over to a fuel that emits much lesser carbon - both during its generation and utilization. Some examples could be:
(1) Replacing normal lamps and tubelights by CF lamps all over Indian Railways - offices, stations, workshops, residential buildings. (2) Switching over to electrical locos and making sure that the electricity that we buy is from a cleaner source. This can be achieved by investing money in new power plants that are being set up with a cleaner technology and swapping the credit for the same while drawing electricity from all sorts of sources all over the country. Whatever the proposal contains, it must establish that it would lead to a minimum reduction of 1 million ton of carbon dioxide per year. Subhashisha Nath Dy FA&CAO, COFMOW
Last Edited By: subbu98
05/03/08 01:24:17.
Edited 1 times.
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pankajp |
pollution and IR | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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whenever pollution is talked on Indian Railways, only Diesel-Electric locomotives are singled out.
The pollution caused by IR's DG sets (Railway's own power houses & those of signal department), Track machines, Tower cars (both diesel electric and diesel hydraulic) , Road vehicles owned by IR (road cranes, road vehicles, trucks, cars etc) is also significant. Probably the power plant being set up by IR in Nabinagar [in collaboration with NTPC] will produce pollution free electricity for traction purpose, even though this power plant is coal based. The approach of IR for earning carbon credits by reducing pollution must include all aspects of IR's working. |
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pkatre |
Carbon Credits | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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IR has huge potential for earning carbon credits. But we will have to adopt non conventional energy sources aggressively to generate enough volume of emission savings. Given the energy intensive nature of traction, we may not be able to make much headway without a radical change in technology which would not be justified at the current market rates of conventional energy sources though we are fast approaching a phase where rapid strides in fuel cell technology coupled with rising price and scarcity of fossil fuels would make clean energy economically viable even for traction. There are isolated instances of deployment of clean energy sources in IR like Solar lighting of LC gates and way side stations. In fact a number of works have been sanctioned under PH-36/29 etc for this. S&T department has been successfully deploying solar panels in non electrified sections for their IBS projects. All these efforts should be systematically recorded and scaled up. They will add up to substantial savings of carbon emissions and should be able to earn good amount of carbon credits for IR. There are 38000 LC gates and large number of stations without adequate power. The opportunity for use of clean energy is immense. Conversely, aggressive use of clean energy by IR will give a boost to the Non conventional energy industry which can start a virtuous cycle of lower prices of equipment and higher demand.
Parag |
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pkatre |
Carbon Credits-news item | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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A good move by IR. Please visit the following link for details:
http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?leftnm=3&autono=324727 Parag. |
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subbu98 |
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yeah. that's a better of way of going about things. whole hog. with the volume. in stead of the piece meal approach.
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srivatsarp |
Carbon Credits and Electrification | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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It is a myth that rail electrification reduces carbon emissions. It all depends upon the grid emission factor of the grid from which the OHE draws electricity.
In India, the GEF of most grids is over 1 kg CO2/KWh. I produce hereunder calculations, based on officially published data, which prove that DEMU's emit
far less GHG's as compared to EMU's. I urge members to take a careful look at the calculations and not be biased by the fact that I am a mechanical
engineer. All calculations and data are verifiable.
R.P.Srivatsa
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scmitra |
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Srivastavaji
scm |
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pankajp |
Srivatsa not Srivastava | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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It is Srivatsa and not Mr. Srivastava
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srivatsarp |
Electrification and Carbon Trading | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Dear Mitra Ji,
Sorry, the correct web address is http://cdm.unfccc.int/index.html (three c's in the address) After you have verified the data and calculations, I will tell you the fallacy in it and the fraud being perpetrated on IR and the nation as a whole by the electrification mafia. Regards, R.P.Srivatsa p.s. And thanks to Mr pankajp for correcting my name :-) |
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scmitra |
Apologies. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Thank you Pankaj.
scm |
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subbu98 |
Missing the point. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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We somehow seem to be missing the point in the electrical loco v. diesel loco debate. We have to be very clear about if we are interested in getting carbon
credit. The thumb rule is very clear. At least 1 million ton of carbon dioxide per year. If we have decided that we are interested, then we will have to look
for a way to go about it. I have stated else where that merely shifting over to electrical locos shall not qualify us suo motu for carbon credit. Our proposal
has to establish that it would reduce 1 million ton of carbon dioxide in a year. Mere electrification shall not get us any credit on its own. If
electrification is taken recourse to for whatever reason and simultaneously electricity is sourced from a plant with a technology that is cleaner than others,
we could have a case. The same could be achieved by merely going for a cleaner source without taking recourse to any further electrification. The bottom line
is we have to see what is the cost of such a switch over and how much carbon credit is obtained - and not to forget how much responsible we feel for the
pollution that we are causing for our current range of activities. The responsibility for the latter can be leveraged elese where.
The proposal for replacing the lamps of existing colonies with CFL is an excellent one. We could have done it on our own. But then the credit we could have got for the same may not have been the same as the cost we have incurred. A manufacturer of CFL lamps decided to do it on our behalf and pass on some percentage of the credit to us because we provided him with the opportunity. Subhashisha Nath |
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scmitra |
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Though I am all sympathetic to the causes of global warming, yet in the heart of my hearts I am a bit apprehensive of the modalities worked out.
The biggest polluter of the world is not a signatory to Kyoto Protocol and I think it has not yet agreed to reduce its emission level in the stipulated time. I think the entire ploy might well be the ploy of the west to keep the poor nation in a perennial stage of want to development, to make it a bit exaggerated. I will tell you why. Pollutants are not known to have nationalist feelings. These only follow the laws of science rather than the laws of heart. Hence these pollutants will flow from the high pollution density areas to low pollution density areas (water/air pollutants) or to put it simply, they will diffuse in such a manner to achieve equilibrium and a equal level of pollution density. Thus it makes sense for the west to (try to) keep east clean so that pollutants can roam to lesser pollution density areas thereby reducing their own pollution density due to pollution migration. Thus they can ensure better environment for their people or the pollution will make all of them diseased. It is only because of this reason and not any altruistic reason that they are now willing to pay for clean mechanism to be adopted and trade those carbon credits. Hence they can use their financial might to buy polluting rights whereas we in the underdeveloped countries can keep getting those carbon credit money without realising that this is at the cost to our future generation! One way to make the powers that be pay for polluting industries is to produce so much pollution ourselves (through industrialisation ofcourse) that reverse diffusion of pollution starts taking place and that our air becomes dirtier than USA's air so that diffusion takes that way-from hgh density to low density of pollutants. Then possibly, we might see some genuine concerns on global pollution levels! My two penny's worth lateral thinking! scmitra |
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