Mumbai’s lifeline has embarked on an impressive endeavour as Western Railway implements a unique method to generate power from speeding local trains. According to a senior official, “In a unique method, the speed and velocity of passing trains will power these turbines. The official added, “The system is able to deliver a 2 kVA output”. The railways have strategically installed wind turbines along the tracks, utilizing the gusts of wind generated by the trains to rotate the blades and convert wind energy into electricity….
The railways have used vertical axis wind turbines which has a capacity of 400 Watts each. Each of the turbines is complemented by a 2-kilowatt solar power panel. Together, they can provide a remarkable 2 kWA output…
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Most Indians are either alarmed or concerned about global warming
About 82% of Indians are either alarmed or concerned about global warming and are in support of bringing in energy policies to reduce its effects, reveals a new study. The study report, ‘Global Warming’s Four Indias, 2022: An Audience Segmentation Analysis’, prepared by the Yale Programme on Climate Change Communication and CVoter International, identified four types of audiences within the Indian public who were classified as “the alarmed,” consisting of 54%, “the concerned,” 20%, “the cautious,” 11%, and “the disengaged,” consisting of just 7%.
The study has found that the majority of the people belonging to three segments backed the formulation of policies to fight climate change and opined that the Indian government should be doing more to address global warming. They also backed the development of a national programme to teach Indians about global warming, train people on renewable energy jobs, encourage local communities to build check dams to ensure local water supplies, and express the opinion that India should reduce its greenhouse gas emissions immediately before other countries….
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April 2023 nights coolest in 5 years, days wettest after 2020
April managed to shed its “cruellest” tag this summer in India as the country not only witnessed its coolest nights of the month in the past five years but also the coolest and wettest days after 2020, IMD data showed.
Experts said the unusual weather pattern of April and May this year has been an outlier. The April pattern seems to continue in May, too, with the first few days of this month witnessing a repeat of unseasonable cool ….
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Rising Sea Levels could Swamp Shanghai
Shanghai, China’s most developed and richest city, has been sinking into the mud for at least 100 years. It was one of the first cities in China to suffer serious land subsidence, with an average rate of 22.94 mm/year from 1921 to 2007. That rate of subsidence has stabilised since 2010, but rising sea levels caused by global warming pose a new and very real threat to the city of 24 million.
Although land subsidence is estimated to be relatively stable, the rate of sea level rise is projected to accelerate under climate change in the future. The primary drivers will be oceanic thermal expansion, followed by glacier and ice cap melting. The disintegrating Antarctic ice sheet is projected to contribute most to the broad uncertainty ranges of future sea level rise….
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Tata Steel tests hydrogen in furnace to cut carbon output
Tata Steel has initiated a trial for hydrogen gas injection in one of its blast furnaces at the Jamshedpur plant in order to reduce fossil fuel consumption and carbon emissions. It commenced the trial injecting 40% hydrogen gas in ‘E’ blast furnace. The trial will continued for four to five days in what is the world’s first instance of hydrogen gas injection of such a large quantity into a blast furnace.
The move has the potential to reduce coke rate by 10%, translating into 7-10% reduction in carbon emissions per ton of steel produced. The trial is part of Tata Steel’s carbon direct avoidance (CDA) approach focused on the blast furnace, one of the heaviest known industrial contributors to carbon emissions worldwide…..
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Need $1 trillion every year to finance sustainable development of poorest countries: Jeffrey Sachs
Sachs mooted a massive increase in multilateral development bank financing and routine rollover of amortisations for over 20 years for the G20 Leaders’ Summit in September. Strengthening multilateral development banks is one of the key issues being pressed by India during its G20 presidency.
Strengthening multilateral development banks is one of the key issues being pressed by India during its G20 presidency.Sachs, who gave a presentation to G20 Sherpas on financing green development recently, said that roughly 1% of world GDP and 3% of world savings should flow towards this…..
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IIT Guwahati Researchers Develop Novel Catalyst For Sustainable Production of Green Hydrogen
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati have developed a catalyst that can release hydrogen gas from wood alcohol with no side production of carbon dioxide.The research, published in the journal ACS Catalysis, opens up exciting avenues for developing the hydrogen-methanol economy.
Beyond being an easy and environmentally safe process, the method produces formic acid, which is a valuable industrial chemical. This development makes methanol a promising ‘Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carrier’ (LOHC) and contributes to the concept of the hydrogen-methanol economy….