The United Nations has earmarked $ 48 billion reducing the greenhouse emissions in the world by 50 per cent by 2030. A lot of it would be utilised for development and installation of power conversion and energy technologies, said M. Ramamoorthy, former IIT Kanpur professor and chairman of the three-day international conference on ‘Advances in power conversion and energy technologies’ at the Lakireddy Bali Reddy College of Engineering here.
Talking to The Hindu Prof. Ramamoorthy said the world population would be 15 billion by the end of the 21 century. The available fossil fuels would not be enough. India which was 3 in the world in wind generation had dropped to fifth place.
The areas with high wind velocity were not many, so low wind velocity power generators need to be designed.
He said though it was costly the returns of renewable energy was quick and therefore beneficial in the long run.
India was facing the twin bottlenecks of power generation and power transmission. The transmission networks could have been developed and the kind of blackouts that occurred recently avoided, he said.
The cost of photo voltaic cells was expensive because of the use of silica. Alternate technologies should be developed, he said.
About the opposition to wind power in California Prof. Ramamoorthy alleged that the oil lobby was behind it.
