IIT Bombay – Build, Build, but Where is the Imagination?

Indian Institute of Technology, (IIT) Bombay, now Mumbai – my alma mater – has undoubtedly been a happening place, even when I was there some 25 years back. Still, I was quiet taken aback to see how much was “happening” when I visited it sometime last week.  This was not the usual campus sort of activity. Rather, what is happening is that the campus is in the middle of a construction boom. It is abuzz with the sounds of excavators (popularly called JCBs), bulldozers, concrete mixers and the likes. Mingling amongst young men and women wearing the characteristic look – half earnest, half I could not care less – of students on campus, are seen men in plastic hard hats and bright yellow and green coloured reflective jackets. Construction is on everywhere.

Excavator at a construction site near YP Gate

Now anywhere in the world, construction is a sure sign of progress – or, to use a more nuanced and lively word, construction is a sure sign of “vikas”. In the last few months, the word (and its more mundane sounding English equivalent, “development”) has been much thrown around as India witnessed an energetic and loquacious election campaign. While India waits for the new government to unleash vikas, the IIT Bombay campus – as always – seems to be miles ahead of the country. 

Naturally, all this must be great for the campus and its residents. But somehow I am left feeling just the opposite. Not surprising, of course, because I am amongst the minority which believes in such odd ball things like rivers should flow, and dams that stop the flow of a river are not exactly great news; that open spaces are nice, nicer than glass fronted tall buildings; that mountains are great, particularly when they are not hollowed out and cratered by mine pits; that if we need to forego some coal extraction to keep in place centuries old forests, that’s not a bad deal; that animals, plants, fish – in fact, the entire non-human biota, have a right to live and a right to an ecological space that will ensure that they live; and that such a right accrues to them not because they are useful to the human race, but rather because its intrinsic to their being on this planet.

So when I saw the campus last week, I was, to repeat what I said earlier, quite taken aback. I saw in the happenings on campus a microcosm of what is happening in the larger world out there, things that go against the grain of what I have outlined in the earlier paragraph.

But I must qualify my above thoughts. I am not an extreme ecologist nor, to use a word that has often been thrown at me and my friends, an eco-terrorist. If I think a river should continue to flow, I also agree that it’s okay to extract some of its waters for human use. But some, not all. How much, and how to arrive at this how much, is a complex interdisciplinary field of science, technology, social, environmental and political processes, called “environmental flows”. Similarly, I feel that we need to mine minerals, but “how much and how” remains the crucial question. This approach needs to be extended to all things described above.

So when I felt bad at what was going on at IIT campus, it was not because open spaces are being eaten away rapidly, but because it seems to be done in a mindless manner. I understand that IIT badly needs more hostels, residential quarters for staff, departments and so on. Yet, I wonder whether all this cannot be built without destroying open spaces, dumping muck in the lake and destroying the greenery? 

Old Hostel 10 makes way for a new high rise 16 storey H10

Indeed, if there was one place where one could expect an innovative answer to this question, which is a smaller version of the larger question confronting humanity – how can we meet the needs of human beings at the same time ensuring that we destroy the surroundings the least – then it could have been IIT Bombay. It has the brains, it has the talent, it has the funds; what it probably lacks is the interest to take a particular approach to developing the campus. Else, we would not have a flashy new air conditioned sports complex coming up on the gymkhana grounds – a sports complex that takes away significant part of the sports ground itself! (Alumni may be interested in knowing that construction is coming up on all three sides of the gymkhana grounds H1 to H3 side, H4-H5 side and H8 side.). Or muck being disposed into the Powai lake. And so on. When I asked around if there was indeed a master plan, several people – who I know are sensitive and concerned campus residents – said if there was one, they were not in the know of it. 

While walking along the lake side path from the (old) guest house to behind hostel 8, (hardly a lake side path, now that the lake has receded so much), I wondered aloud: With so many alumni donating generously to the Institute for a variety of causes, including for big new departments and buildings (sometimes named after themselves!), why has someone not thought of donating funds with an express purpose of preserving a part of the campus? A sort of a no-build fund, a modified version of “debt for nature swap”? My friend, an alumnus and a faculty, Prof. Milind Sohoni, immediately responded saying that apparently the batch of 1980 had done something like this, giving funds to preserve the very stretch of the path that we were walking on. I also saw a small park called Kshitij built as a part of this. But it seems the authorities have renegaded on the promise to preserve the area, as there is a new big multi-storey guest house being built next to this very path. 

A heap of excavated debris piled up. A common site at several places in the campus

Certainly, part of the reason for me to feel bad about the campus is because I spent five incredibly great years there, and have a residual attachment to it. But I don’t want to make too much of this attachment – I no longer live there, and have visited it probably all of 10 times in the 25 years since I left it. But my disquiet stems more from a sense of missed opportunity. IIT could have showcased a different way of doing things, an approach that would not only keep the campus as beautiful it was, but would have also been an inspiration and guide for how to do things in the larger world outside. 

But then again, may be IIT, and the world outside wants to do things in this very manner, and they are indeed showcasing and inspiring the world with an approach they believe in?

May be I am really in a minority?

27 May 2014

Article on Fly Ush Utilisation

My article, on the risks and problems related to disposal of fly ash from coal thermal power plants, now on India Together.

http://indiatogether.org/grave-threat-from-coal-ash-environment

COAL ASH MENACE
Ash everywhere; in your food and water, too?

Fly ash, the residue from coal used in thermal power plants, is not only a headache for plant operators; its use in agriculture and other sectors violates environmental sanctity and poses a serious risk to human health. Shripad Dharmadhikary studies a new CEA report to bring us more.

Fly Ash Pond of Ib Thermal Power Plant in Odisha, on Banks of the Hirakud Reservoir

Limitations of World Bank’s Thirsty Energy – Reflections on the Occasion of the World Water Day

World Water Day Focuses on Water Energy Nexus

22 March is world water day, and this year, the global theme for the day is Water and Energy. Global players are focussing on this theme, with UNESCO releasing on 21st March 2014, its latest World Water Development  Report 2014 with its central theme and title “Water And Energy” and the  International Energy Agency (IEA) making available free of charge a chapter titled “Water for Energy: Is energy becoming a thirstier resource?”from its two year old publication World Energy Outlook 2012.

Indeed, since last few years, much of the global water discourse has centred on the so-called “nexus”, that is, the Water-Energy-Food nexus. Continuing this focus, the theme of the World Water Day this year is “Water and Energy”.  

Well before today’s World Water Day, the World Bank has taken the lead in pushing this theme of Water and Energy through its initiative called Thirsty Energy. 

World Bank’s Initiative – Thirsty Energy

The initiative, with a theme of Securing Energy in a Water Constrained World, “aims to help governments prepare for an uncertain future, and break disciplinary silos that prevent cross-sectoral planning. With the energy sector as an entry point, thirsty energy quantifies tradeoffs and identi­fies synergies between water and energy resource management.”

However, there are serious limitations in the way the World Bank is looking at the Water Energy nexus. This is evident from a reading of its own working paper released in June 2013, of the same title, Thirsty Energy.

This document does highlight the large amounts of water needed to produce electricity, particularly coal-fired electricity, but it falls far short of understanding or revealing the full range of impacts of energy production on water. Let us look only at the example of coal fired electricity and water.

Coal and Water

The entire chain of coal based electricity production – from coal mining, transport, power plant and ash disposal – has huge impacts on water. These can be broadly categorised as follows.

(1)    Direct consumption of water for coal mining, thermal plants, ash disposal etc.

(2)    Disruption of both surface and ground water resources (e.g. coal mines will dewater groundwater aquifers around them, impacting local communities)

(3)    Pollution

Unfortunately, Thirsty Energy looks only at item (1) above, and completely ignores impacts of (2) and (3), which can be as big as or even worse than those of (1). 

Direct Use Underestimated

Even in the direct use of water, Thirsty Energy grossly underestimates the use of water by coal plants. It assumes that the biggest use of water in coal power plants is for cooling purposes. It says, “In a coal plant with cooling towers, it is estimated that 90 percent of the water is used in the cooling system and the other 10 percent is used in other processes (DOE, 2009)”. However, this is not true at all in the case of India. In India, in addition to water used for cooling – which is huge, massive quantities of water are used for ash disposal.

Ash Dump of HINDALCO Alumina Company at 

Hirakud, Sambalpur in Odisha.  Note Location Close to water body.

Ash pond of 2340 MW Chandrapur Thermal Power plant. 

The pond is spread over 2600 hectares. It is supposed 

to be lined with impermeable material, as are all ash ponds,

but is not.

Burning of coal leaves behind ash, which is particularly high in India as domestic coal is high in ash content. While ash is supposed to be reused (the various reuses are fraught with risks, an issue we are not dealing with here), vast quantities still are being disposed in the form of dry ash dumps (see photo), or in ash ponds in the form of slurry (see photo). The latter requires massive quantities of water. For example, data obtained by us (Manthan Adhyayan Kendra) under the Right to Information Act showed that in many thermal power plants, water used for ash disposal ranged from 25% to 40% of total water use, and on a per unit basis was between 0.7  to 2 litres per unit (KWh) of electricity generated. But water for this need, for ash disposal, does not figure anywhere in the estimations of Thirsty Energy.

It’s claimed that newer plants will use much lesser water for ash disposal, and any such development will be welcome. But there are serious questions about these claims which still need to be proved on the ground. Till then, ash disposal remains a huge water guzzler in India.

               

Disruption of surface and ground water resources

Coal mines, both open cast and underground, can severely disrupt the groundwater flows, aquifers and also impact surface water. When one digs a coal mine, in essence one is digging a big pit, which cuts across ground water flows. These can lead to drying up of wells and even surface water bodies in the vicinity.

Our visits to various mines in different states show that the impact of groundwater dewatering is felt up to distances of 4-5 km. A study by Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) of the Padampur-Durgapur coal mines in Chandrapur district of Maharashtra noted that effect of mine dewatering was seen upto distances of 3 km.  (See Photo , dry well in Sinala village).

Dry well at village Sinala, near Padampur-Durgapur mine. 

Local people talked about how earlier this and other wells

used to supply water well past the monsoon, but now dry up soon after.

In quantitative terms, the above mentioned CGWB studies note a dewatering of 10.89 million cubic meters (MCM) per year for Kamthi-Inder-Gondegaon mine, and 7.76 MCM per year for Padampur-Durgapur mine. By rough estimates, this amount of water can irrigate 2200 ha and 1500 ha of land respectively. This is the water that is lost to the local communities. Some of this – mine drainage - could potentially be supplied back to the local communities – but this has the risk of being contaminated and would need treatment before returning back. The experience so far of pollution control and proper treatment of water is not at all encouraging in this matter.

It is not only groundwater, but also surface water bodies that are affected. (See photo). This entire aspect, which affects thousands of people from communities in vicinity of coal mines,  is overlooked by Thirsty Energy.

Dried surface pond near coal mines in Angul district in Odisha.  Local people told us that this pond used to supply water to irrigated fields of people till February, but now does not retain any water post monsoon. They link this to the mining activities. Coal mine EIAs mostly do not look at the impacts on surface water resources.

Coal and Pollution

There are many sources of pollution in the coal – electricity chain. For water, some of the important issues are the mine drainage, water pollution due to oil and grease and coal dust, contamination of ground and surface waters with ash, which has presence of heavy metals, overburden draining into water sources etc.

Lahiri Nallah in Lahiri Opencast mine area of
Mahanadi Coalfield in Jharsuguda, Odisha,
contaminated with grease and coal dust.

One of the serious pollutants is acid mine drainage which occurs when mine drainage interacts with sulphides, if any, present in the ore or rock.

The mine drainage, even if not acidic, has other pollutants, mainly in the form of suspended solids, and settling in a settling tank is projected as an adequate method of treating it. We are still studying this aspect. However, our field visits have shown that often mine drainage is discharged onto local water bodies without even this basic treatment.

Another serious source of pollution is the ash. The un-utilised ash is being dumped in fly-ash dumps or fly ash ponds from where risk of contaminating water is very high, through leaching, through spilling and through ash dyke breaches (not to mention illegal discharge of ash into nallahs and rivers). It may be mentioned that it is only in recent years that the authorities are taking some cognisance of the pollution from ash, and are calling for monitoring of heavy metal in ash and also presence of radio-active elements. However, ash continues to be dumped into, and contaminate land and water.

Thirsty Energyignores entirely this aspect of pollution of water, which is a significant part of the (coal) energy – water nexus, and on occasions could be even more of a threat than the large quantities of water which are consumptively used.

Limited Understanding Limits Solutions

Thus Thirsty Energy  reveals a very limited understanding of the  impacts of (coal based) energy production on water. This in turn affects the solutions it offers. It is no surprise then that the solutions presented by Thirsty Energy are mainly technical and managerial in nature – more efficient water use, air cooling, integrated energy-water modelling etc. While all these are important, one critical element that is missing is the participation of local communities – who are the most impacted by the water-energy nexus – in planning, monitoring and regulating the impacts of energy on water.

22 March 2014

Manthan Adhyayan Kendra

 www.manthan-india.org

manthan.shripad@gmail.com