Paper Methanol

Plywood
Plastics
Particle
board
Wood/
turpentine
Fig. 2.12: Treessources of many important products
Thus the tree, with its 50-year services as above, costs
about Rs. 20 lakhs (1980 estimate) which at present market
prices will be around Rs. 40 lakhs. The public should be
made aware of the value of a tree and its services to man and
environment during its life time.
In India, 76 per cent of population lives in villages
almost all of them use wood as fuel for cooking. This is the
main reason for extensive deforestation in rural areas: each
Energy 53
year we are losing about 1.3 million hectares forests.
Deforestation helps increase in greenhouse gas, carbon
dioxide concentration. Hence for the welfare of the country
as a whole, it is essential to minimise deforestation by adopting
alternative resources of afforestation on a large scale to meet
the needs of domestic fuel.
2.6.8 Natural Gas
It is a better fossil fuel than coal and petroleum since
on burning, it produces less carbon dioxide. For production
of one unit of energy, mineral oil, coal and wood, on burning,
produces respectively 35 per cent, 75 per cent and 8090
per cent more carbon dioxide than natural gas. Hence, natural
gas is the obvious choice as a cleaner fuel. Its reserves,
however, are limited and can continue to feed only for the
next 7080 years. At present, in India the exploitable reserve
of natural gas is about 700 billion cubic metres.
2.7 NON-CONVENTIONAL ENERGY RESOURCES
2.7.1 Solar Energy
India, being a tropical country, is blessed with abundant
sunshine, 2,000 kilowatt hour/sq. metre (kWh/m2) per year
for about 200300 days in a year. The daily sunshine is
between 57 kWh/m2. This is an enormous and model energy
resource, which is clean, pollution-free and inexpensive. It
requires to be converted into other forms of energy by suitable
techniquesit can meet our energy demands forever. The
solar energy, incident on earth in one week, is equivalent to
the energy from the entire coal reserve of the world. Again
the solar energy available on earth for 45 minutes is enough
to meet our energy demand for one year.
However, the major problem is that sunlight is diffused
(widespread) in nature and difficult to be stored and utilized.
But with advanced technology, the present high costs may
be cut down so that solar energy can be utilized on a large
54 Environment and Ecology
scale in future. At present, solar energy is ten times more
expensive than thermal power. But with advanced
technology, it will be cheaper and will hold the key to meet
our energy demands in future.
Sunlight may be directly converted into electricity through
photovoltaic cell. The latter is a device for conversion of light