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Electricity Generation from Bio Pellets
This article discusses the possibilities of using agricultural residues in power generation. It traces the evolution of the use of bio pellets in thermal power plants and the pilot projects implemented by the National Thermal Power Corporation that led to the successful roll-out of the new technology. Finally, it enumerates the advantages and disadvantages of using bio pellets and the emerging challenges.
Air pollution is the presence of toxic chemicals, dust particles and gases in the air that are harmful enough to degrade the quality of life and pose health risk. The air pollution can be both indoor and outdoor, and is measured by the Air Quality Index (AQI). The AQI measures how much polluted or clean the air is. Experts analyse the quantum of air pollutants by particle pollution, often known as “particulate matter (PM),” which are combination of extremely small particles and droplets. PM is categorised as PM 2.5 (fine particles with diameter ≤ 2.5 micrometres) and PM 10 (coarse particles with diameter ≤ 10 micrometres) (Pant et al 2015). Ordinarily, 40 fine particles can be easily placed on a human hair.1
Air pollution is a serious issue in India. India stands 177 among 180 countries in terms of the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) (Wendling et al 2018). The country is the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases (Babajide 2018). Moreover, 140-plus million people are breathing air which is 10 times above the safe limits described by the World Health Organization (WHO). Historically, China was the worst pollution emitter, but in the last 20 years, the situation has changed. India has now emerged as the worst polluter (Bernard and Kazmin 2018). Indoor and outdoor air pollution in India has led to over 1.24 million casualties in 2017 (Balakrishnan et al 2019). Figure 1 (p 28) shows the concentration of air pollution in India vis-à-vis other countries.
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