Energy Conservation —Immoral electricity in Manipur—

Manipur is no more a mythological country that had initially been lit up by the gems in Serpent Ananta’s hood (the Nair clan of Kerala is known as its descendents). Manipur, which is the home of many indigenous peoples like the Meiteis, Nagas, Kukis, Kabuis, Mao-Marams, Koms, Marings and others - altogether 36 tribes, is real and suffering in the eternal darkness – a legacy of a corporate owner of energy in Manipur, the National Hydro Power Corporation Ltd (NHPC), under the Government of India., with their headquarters at Faridabad in Haryana.

The present buzzword, “conservation of energy” comes handy in my endeavour to make science popular as a sure way to God. “Conservation of energy” means in practice, changing of incandescent light bulbs to low energy ones.

Most people do not realise that all living things have come to rely upon science for energy because of changing rhythms of climate while they continue to pay attention to their spiritual energy.

I have an open mind and I would put it to you that science is the best way to reach God. As a paragon of truth, without the electric/electronic incubators and expensive treatments all the prematurely born babies would have been dead. We need energy, not God for this.

Having died so early, these immature babies could not have gone to God as they have not had time to do God’s will. However, science can fill in what is left unfinished by God.

Some 15million babies are born prematurely every year in the world and 1 million will die while many others are disabled. But 75% of these deaths could be avoided if electrictity and expensive drugs that only science provides, are available in both the developed and developing countries (WHO).

Science is never quickly appreciated. Everybody can admire the beauty of the sunset in the Mandovi River in Goa; the sunrise at the Tiger hills in Darjeeling; or the sunrise and sunset about the same time at Kanyakumari at the southern tip of Tamil Naidu, but cannot quite appreciate the scientific reasons behind them.

By energy we mean “the ability to do work”. When someone says he has no energy he means he is not capable of doing much work. Electricity is an energy that does all kinds of work. The car you are driving runs because of electricity generated by petroleum.

All the living things need energy to perform work, which comes from food. Those who watch tennis matches at Wimbledon will notice that between the matches the players drink fluid from two bottles. One is water to prevent dehydration from sweating and the other is high energy liquid food that gives instant energy.

Conservation of energy is necessary as we are losing energy that is irreplaceable, though scientifically speaking, Nature never loses or gains energy. When we dry our bodies after a bath with a ‘khudei’ (towel), the water that is wiped off from our bodies are transferred to the towel, and when the towel is dried in the sun the water disappears as vapour and enters the atmosphere. When the vapours condense they fall down as rain water, which we use again for bath.

But the energy available to us is limited as many sources of energy in the universe are not available. For example: the vast energy of the sea or the thermal vents and currents at the bottom of the ocean cannot be harnessed as yet.

The whole world is gearing up for saving energy without plunging itself into darkness except in Manipur. While there is no complete ban to the use of incandescent lamps in India, the plan

is to replace 400 million incandescent light bulbs with complex fluorescent lamps (CFL) by 2012, and later by light emitting diodes (LED).

“Energy saving” means less use of electrical energy. Modern living requires a lot of energy, which in Manipur is immoral to use though the energy supply, plentiful at the source, is forcibly minimised to only a few hours a day.

To generate electricity we rely on the fossil fuels such as coal, liquid petroleum, petroleum gases and more recently nuclear fuels (Uranium). Natural gas is currently the most important non-renewable single fuel. Nuclear energy is bountiful but it is generated from uranium in the mines, which will gradually get depleted. Besides, it is highly hazardous.

Nuclear chain reactions of heavy atoms in a nuclear plant produce an insane amount of heat. The heat is carried out of the reactor by a coolant, which is most commonly, just plain water. The coolant absorbs the heat and is converted into steam that runs through a turbine to operate an electric generator (dynamo or alternator) just like a steam engine train.

Likewise, coal, gas, petrol, diesel etc can heat water to produce steam that turns the turbine, while hydro-electricity is produced by water power alone. Speaking graphically, I remember as a little boy, how the Hydroelectric Power House at Sanahal Lokchao in west Manipur, worked.

It was run by my father before, during and after World War II. I used to go there a lot during my childhood. The water from a source high up in the mountain was carried down by a chain of semicircular culvert made of galvanised iron sheets, across a ravine that was bridged by a small swing bridge, to a small concreted reservoir tank at a lower level, still high up the hill.

From this tank water runs down at high speed, through a closed concrete tunnel for a distance about 1000 yards to a lower level, which then goes through a turbine to operate a medium sized power plant to generate electricity. This power house supplied electricity to Imphal town. Unfortunately, a few years after the War, it was destroyed by a land slide.

Apart from water there are other renewable resources that can generate electricity such as solar, geothermal and wind technologies, but they form a very negligible portion of energy the world needs at the moment.

To save energy there are also efforts to harness energy from ocean sources: from tides by capturing water at hide tides and releasing it at low tide; wave energy generation device ie the oscillating motion of an incoming an outgoing wave to drive turbines; and ocean thermal energy conversion that uses the difference in temperature between warm surface of water and cold deep ocean water to make electricity.

Pilot technologies are now available to use saline water (sea) for energy production. These include solar ponds and algae (kâng in Manipuri) production. Solar ponds with salt water trap the heat from the Sun that can be used to generate electricity. Salt water algae can be cultivated and can be pressed to extract biodiesel feedstocks or dried and burned for power production.

In Europe and in the UK since 1910 wind turbines have been used to generate electricity. These turbines can be used to produce electricity for a single home or they can be connected to an electrical grid for more distribution.

For Manipur, water is a very important source for producing energy because of the terrain. There are many rivers, lakes and waterfalls, which could be utilised to generate electricity.

Sadly, in Manipur, despite the production of a vast amount of electricity by the Loktak Hydroelectric Project, there are more dark nights than not.

Years ago, I took my father to see the Loktak Hydro Electric plant. A young Meitei engineer explained that its three units generate 3x35 = 105 MW of electricity. Each unit generates an annual energy of 448 GWh and thus (448x105 kWh) 47040 kWh in total per annum.

According to Indian Government figures (2012) the annual per capita consumption in Manipur is 207 kWh. India’s average annual energy consumption is 571 kWh as against say, 5,692 kWh in the UK and 12,914 kWh in the US.

The Loktak Powerhouse supplies power to Nagaland, Assam, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Tripura and a few units to Manipur. The maximum power should be utilised to electrify the villages in the plain and the hills of Manipur.

NHPC should be paying Manipur handsomely for the enormous profits they are making from supplying energy to so many states outside of Manipur, in the way the West pays oil producing Arab countries (80% of the Profit oil for the government and 20% for the company). On the contrary, in Manipur, the company’s generous profits are at the martyrdom of Manipuris.

There must have been Production sharing agreement (PSA) contracts signed between the Manipur Government and the resource extractor company (NHPC), which in theory should have been immensely beneficial to Manipur.

Thieving of power supply by some unscrupulous people is no excuse for drastic power cuts. There are shop-lifters (thieves) in every massive supermarket in the UK. That does not cause the supermarkets to open a few hours a day only. They find ways to catch the thieves.

Now that oil and gas drilling operations are about to begin in Manipur, the PSAs should be well scuritised by experts and made known to the public before signing.

The writer is based in the UK

Email: imsingh@onetel.com

Website: www.drimsingh.co.uk

14-Oct-2012 / 01:23 AM / Dr Irengbam Mohendra Singh / 1 Comments