In various countries, immense research activities are going on in the field of power storage systems.
Lead acid storage batteries, currently available in India, have an average life span of four years, if maintained well and produce about 2 volts per cell when fully charged. In lead acid batteries, voltage output could be 12 volts or 24 volts in the form of DC and if required, can be easily converted to 220 V AC by an inverter. In recent years, there has been some progress in the development of new storage batteries, and these include aluminium-aluminium oxide, lithium-iron sulphide, zinc-chlorine, nickel-metal hydrides, etc. Some recent reports reveal that p-n junctions with acetylene films are capable of delivering current and some organic molecules have also been reported to have power storage capabilities.
Apart from batteries, the other ways of storing energy are:
- Mechanical systems - flywheels, springs etc.
- Hydrogen storage - with the development of nano-technology appreciable advances have been made in hydrogen storage systems. Hydrogen, produced by electrolysis, and being pollution-free, can be safely used as fuel for cars, buses, factories, etc.
Pollution and pollution control
Environmental pollution is caused by three types of pollutants : Solid, liquid and gaseous
(i) Solid pollutants are of two types : (a) Degradable and (b) Non-degradable pollutants.
Degradable pollutants like garbage, vegetable waste, grass, etc. are comfortably recycled to produce biogas and the remnants can be used as fertilizers. On the other hand, non-degradable pollutants that include plasticware, bags, etc are posing a hazardous threat to the ecosystem. In many countries collection and reprocessing have been initiated with a view to restoring that intricate ecological balance.
ii) Liquid pollutants are usually chemical effluents from factories and in India most of the rivers have been bearing the brunt of this ruthless assault perpetuated by erring factories. The effluents should be solidified and buried and solar energy can be used for evaporation of the water content. Using parabolic mirrors that focus rays on the effluent liquid does this. The evaporated water can then be condensed for other uses. eg Irrigation.
iii) Gaseous pollutants comprise factory exhaust and exhaust from automobiles, not to forget gaseous waste exhumed from thermal plants, where tons of coal burn day and night.
The exhaust from cars, buses and trucks measure high on lead content in addition to carbon dioxide. Recent research has established the irremediable nature of lead poisoning and one can only imagine the extent of damage done to a childs delicate system when the exhaust of a car, bus or truck blows directly on his/her face. Crackers used during festivals in India, also contribute to pollution. When we consider global warming, all factors such as various types of explosions in wars, thermal power plants, exhausts of cars, buses, ships, aeroplanes etc ought to be taken into account.
To control atmospheric pollution, the best solutions would be to: Replace almost all fossil fuel driven vehicles by electrically run systems. This is possible and certainly feasible. Restrict thermal power plants to the utilisation of solely non-depleting type power generation systems.
Have a system that precipitates pollutant material arising from the exhaust of factories.
Though all these do not sound feasible today, for starters replacing the power source in lighter systems could be an effective deterrent to further pollution and can also reduce pollution to some extent. Some researchers are looking for a fast chemical reaction mechanism by which CO2, NO and SO2 can be absorbed into the medium. Multiple connectivity, miniaturisation and fast moving information technology resulting in the concomitant improvement in the quality of engineering products is the focus theme of present research work.
But in India, in spite of having the largest amount of sweet water in the form of the Himalayan reservoir and with maximum water available as rain water in Western Ghats and Assam region, drought-like conditions still prevail in certain areas of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Orissa. India boasts of one of the largest deposits of coal, but these reserves are being indiscriminately burnt away to exhaustion in thermal power plants.
To tackle present day problems, it is high time that leading industrialists and government agencies pooled in their resources and arrived at mutually amiable solutions.
To start with, the following steps can be implemented:
- Start working on non-depleting type power sources such as hydroelectric power ; wind power using EFD process; solar power; wind power; use of manpower for power generation
- Running transport systems such as cars, buses, trains, aeroplanes, ships, submarines using batteries
- Many machine parts in factories can be run on electricity
- Start working on coordinated projects for disaster management, with new concepts and utilise information technology to the fullest possible extent.
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