How Do I Understand Biodiversity?

How Do I Understand Biodiversity?

India covers about 2 per cent of the land area of the world but possesses more than 8 percent of world’s biodiversity. This biodiversity is not evenly distributed in India. It is more concentrated in Western Ghats & in the north- eastern states such as Arunachal Pradesh & Assam. These areas are therefore, called “Biodiversity Hotspots.” Andaman & Nicobar Islands also have remarkable biodiversity.

Indian biodiversity is characterized by high endemism. It means a number of species have limited ranges, being confined to particular areas only & not found anywhere else in the world. Such species obviously have high conservation value, should receive highest priority in any conservation programme as their loss implies that the world heritage becomes so much the poorer.

But why should we care to protect and conserve biodiversity, many people would ask. The simplest answer to this question is this: the variety of species provides a gigantic gene bank which becomes an unlimited source of food & fibre, medicines, antibiotics & pesticides and raw materials for different industries, small & large scale. Wild genes are much stronger in resisting diseases & can impart this strength to domesticated plants such as crops to make them pest resistant. Forest food is an important supplement in the diet of many communities in India. Wild plants can also be an additional source of energy as Pongamia ( Karanj ) and Jetropha have shown.

If biodiversity is so useful, how do we account for it? Do we know how many plants and animals are immediately useful to human beings, how many are likely to be useful in future and how many are not directly useful? To account for each & every species of plants from lichens to trees and of animals from bacteria to larger animals like whales and elephants, is a mind-boggling task. No nation has achieved this feat so far. We have initiated an effort to document biodiversity as much as possible by preparing biodiversity registers for the countryside & for urban areas. But it is feared that a lot of biodiversity is going to be lost by the time we complete this task!

Why is this so? For biodiversity is not only the number & variety of species & sub- species of plants & animals, higher & lower, but also includes the variety of habitats & niches available in a particular area. Habitat is the address & niche is the profession of each species. It is extremely difficult to separate out & count each & every habitat & niche as they are connected to each other & to larger divisions like biomes in a maze of linkages. Our ecological knowledge is not adequate to understand all these linkages. In our precipitate haste to industrialize & urbanize, we may be unintentionally destroying a number of habitats & niches. The collapse of linkages must be having a devastating impact on biodiversity!

This way we are destroying forever not only the gene bank but also the verybasis of ecological knowledge & understanding.

The reasoning so far makes clear that biodiversity knowledge is not enumeration of species & sub species only. We must also try to understand what habitats & niches species & sub- species represent? The wonderful diversity of attractive flowers that adorns many a lateritic plateau & open area in Western Ghats, during monsoons, is a case in point. These areas are “open” because of unrestricted grazing & trampling by our domestic animals & cutting of wood by human beings. The character of biodiversity on these plateaus when they were not “open” must be quite different from what it is today. If we enclose this area & protect it from grazing & cutting, the present diversity of attractive flowers is likely to be replaced by some other set of plants. Which is important for us? The attractive flowers which is an expression of nature’s reaction to a variety of impacts? Or the more sedate variety of plants which emerges when these impacts are
removed?

Cast in this mould, the question of biodiversity enumeration & conservation appears to be quite an intricate one. We must understand that biodiversity is nothing but an expression of certain physical conditions. In a country like India, which boasts of human settlements dating back to thousands of years, human beings have been constantly modifying these conditions. Biodiversity must have been modifying too. In the name of preserving certain apparently “natural” areas, we have evolved a system of protected areas like sanctuaries & national parks. Yet they are not completely immune from human interference. It means that the biodiversity that these areas manifest must have been modified over the years. A study in Germany has shown that 65 % of biodiversity is found outside protected areas. It is likely that this biodiversity is the result of human modification of habitats & in a sense “man- made diversity, while the 35 % which remains within protected areas are an expression of physical conditions which existed some years ago.

The significance of biodiversity then seems to depend on decisions made by human beings in a particular country or nation. People must decide how much area they would continue to modify & how much they would leave to relapse into physical conditions that existed in the past. As such biodiversity is quite a dynamic concept. Enumeration of biodiversity cannot be once for all. Each time we enumerate or document we must put a date on it. We should repeat this exercise every 5 or 10 years. In fact we should have a census of biodiversity every 5 or 10 years, as we census human beings. If we can describe & quantify physical conditions of the area, each time we enumerate, we may begin understanding the linkages between biodiversity & physical conditions. An NGO from Pune enumerated the biodiversity of Metropolitan Area at the turn of century. In some cases as in birds, they were able to establish the change in the character of biodiversity as some older records were available. If they repeat the exercise, and also record modifications in physical conditions, linkages between these two can be established with much more certainty. Indeed if somehow the scale of human impact can be quantified, the character of biodiversity can be related to the scale of human impact. This is directly useful in restoration & conservation of biodiversity.

Together with physical conditions, biodiversity also helps to define the character of nature’s services. If in an area atmosphere, soil and water are polluted, nature’s services such as providing atmospheric balance, soil formation & self- cleansing ability of flowing water, will be affected. The existing biodiversity will be an indicator of such disturbed conditions. The linkage between the degree of disturbance & the character of biodiversity can thus be established.

If the restored area is monitored annually we will understand how physical conditions & biodiversity begin to “relapse” to conditions that existed before they were modified by human beings.

Some people have differentiated between the “natural” & “domesticated” biodiversity. In the above sense, it is extremely difficult to locate & define natural & pristine biodiversity. The better differentiation would be between biodiversity that is only indirectly useful to human beings and has more or less intrinsic value and biodiversity which is directly useful & is associated with them.

How then do I understand biodiversity? I feel biodiversity is one of the components of Nature. If we single it out, accord it greater value, try to glorify it, we obtain a distorted view of nature. Biodiversity should be cast in its proper perspective: the time scale, physical conditions & most important, the character & intensity of human impact.

If conservation of biodiversity through protection & elimination of human impact, is planned, one must accept that it will mean a kind of relapse into conditions that existed sometime in the past. If biodiversity is to be taken care of in a human milieu, we must minimize human impact in certain natural processes such as the drainage pattern, the balance of erosion & deposition and stepping stones & corridors for the movement of life forms.

Prakash Gole

Riddle of Energy Part 3

ECOLOGICAL MACRO ASPECTS OF ENERGY

PART III – POST MODERN LIFE-STYLE (SUSTAINABLE ENJOYMENT)

Girish Abhyankar

girish.abhyankar@gmail.

Phone: +91 9860547471

INTRODUCTION

Using solar radiation energy plant kingdom synthesises carbon dioxide, water and salts into biomass, the only source of low entropy energy for the animal kingdom on earth. Animal kingdom uses free biomass energy and enjoys! Micro-organisms completely decompose biomass back to carbon dioxide, water and salts by chemical processes and render reusable to plant kingdom. Synthesis-decomposition cycle is sustainable if the overall rates, the biomass creation and the waste disposal, are generally matched. Animal kingdom, including human society, has only role of enjoying free services – free energy and free disposal of debris. (Then why am I slogging?)

I and many others could not be socially engineered to accept concepts of enjoyment set in the industrial world. We can not enjoy work load of employment (loss of freedom) and insecurity (loss of peace of mind) caused by using energy technology excessively (industrialisation). We want net security, comfort and enjoyment from the use of external energy and so we develop post-modern life styles. These life styles are based on the scientific knowledge of energy usage: capabilities and limitations - soft technologies -, natural services and local ecosystems. These life styles are specific to geographical area, community and individuals. They are practicable any time, today and compulsorily in post industrial era.

SOFT TECHNOLOGY

Soft technology is a technology that creates very few new problems and most of them can be left to nature for recovery without accumulating harmful effects on the ecology. Soft technology, thus, ensures net security, comfort and enjoyment by matching the rate of problem creation and the rate of its natural solution/disposal.

Soft technology applications depend on user’s requirements, life style ideas, resources, social commitments and surrounding conditions. Hence, there cannot be standardisation.

Soft technology developments are individualistic and situational. If many models are developed, and they are developing, choice is easier. I present below my model.

Factors for my soft technology applications

• Total energy input making the equipments, maintaining and running them: low
• Energy input based on coal and crude oil as original source: minimum
• Energy input based on local biomass: preferred
• Self generated energy use: equivalent to my daily exercise necessary for fitness

(No drudgery, no toiling)

• Technology: simple, based on local skills and material (Ridiculed DOMBAL or Dombalachi life-style but the acronym represents the underlying principle and the spirit. Direct and Obvious Methods Based Applications for Living/Leisure).
  

Self generated energy

I list my capabilities and limitations so that I can design my working environment for effective throughput (similar to work study or industrial engineering practices but with focus on self) and minimum inconvenience.

My capabilities and limitations on every day working basis are:

(Self weight 60 kg, BMI between 20 and 25, age 15 to 45 years).

I can easily and comfortably

• Make natural, non-straining body movements such as walking and climbing.
• Use hands for tensile load and legs for compressive load.
• Carry load on shoulders up to 20 kg (one third of self weight).
• Work 180 kJ per day on every day working basis (3 kJ per kg of self weight)

(180 kJ is equivalent to climbing 300 m or 1700 steps of a 30 storey building. Limited by food intake, digestion efficiency and Carnot cycle efficiency: 3.7 %.)

• Work 600 kJ maximum (40 km walk/50 km cycling using stored energy).
• Work at rated power output of 60 W (as many watts as self weight in kg) and deliver 10 times the rated power output (up to 600 W) momentary.
• Work at limb movements in tune with my normal pulse rate that is when rate of work done by muscle cells and energy supply to them are matched.
• Work in standing position for shorter duration and work sitting on chair/stool for longer duration. (Sitting on ground necessitates lifting self weight consuming my 600 J energy every time I get up).
• Work with 50% duty cycle (equal periods of work and rest).
• Work in ventilated environment around 25⁰ C ambient temperature and 50 % RH.

I can not and I am not for

• Impact load delivery.
• High speed operation.
• Carrying heavy load on head.
• Often bending and holding.
• Working in direct IR radiation (hot sun).
• Cumbersome, repetitive work requiring attention for long periods.
• Working under supervision.

Information in brackets is for reference. Capabilities are down rated with age and health.

I have developed few soft technologies for

Domestic water management, Cooking on any available biomass, Cleaning,

Protection from IR radiation (hot sun) when working in open, Heavy load management.

Also reviving/modifying existing soft technologies to suit my capabilities and limitations.

Riddle of Energy Part 2

ECOLOGICAL MACRO ASPECTS OF ENERGY

PART II – Convenience VERSuS ENERGY efficiency

Girish Abhyankar

girish.abhyankar@gmail.

Phone: +91 9860547471

PREVIEW

We are the only one in animal kingdom using external energy (energy besides food generated energy) through medium of equipments – hardware and software – to derive following conveniences.

1) Security - shelters and storages,

2) Comfort - tools and machines,

3) Equipment aided enjoyment - toys and communication gadgetry.

Constructing, making tools, machines, and equipments is a process of decreasing entropy. A lot of low entropy energy is necessary in deriving the above mentioned conveniences for constructing/making, maintaining and running of structures and equipments.

Building shelter for security is beneficial only if low entropy embodied energy in stones and biomass is used and not beneficial when high entropy sand and mud is used because then, more energy is spent building shelters than the body energy consumed living without a shelter. Energy required in cooking food (10000 kJ per person per day) is more than the energy necessary digesting the uncooked food. (Total food intake itself is only 8000 kJ per day). Eating cooked food is beneficial only if heat by burning low entropy chemical energy in biomass is used and not beneficial when heat is generated by high entropy frictional energy or solar IR radiation.

Net convenience is possible only if the external energy resource is of low entropy.

Technology is the art and science of using external energy and its role is limited to changing the form of the problem, to one, better in respect of human capabilities of using external (low entropy) energy. Technology changes problem of “protection from the environment” to a problem of “building shelter”, a problem that can be addressed better than facing the environment. Similarly, the problem of “cooking food” is better than digesting the uncooked food. Converting a problem into another, better addressable problem, and also reducing effort (labour) due to external energy inputs, is the comfort.

Since accessing external energy and constructing/making, maintaining and running of structures and equipments requires energy, low input energy for the same benefit or higher efficiency is necessary for achieving convenience.

Net convenience is possible only if the external energy is put to use very efficiently.

Overall energy efficiency of direct and simple methods is better than that of complex methods because input energy in complex methods is high. Complex methods are adopted for perceived short term convenience - saving on labour at that time but net convenience is not achieved.

More convenience means lower efficiency resulting in lower net convenience defeating the very purpose of using external energy by technology.

Few examples from recent past:

Direct and simple method - efficient	Indirect, Complex method - inefficient	Considering energy inputs to…
Food gathering	Farming	Operations in farming
Self labour with appropriate tools	Animal labour †	Tame/breed; train and maintain animals
Grain grinding by stoned hand wheel	Wind mill operated grain grinder	Make, install and maintain the wind mill
Walking #	Bicycle*	Make and maintain bicycle and the path and carry weight of the bicycle

† Animal energy is for the animal’s own survival and reproduction and not for the master’s energy needs. Animal energy is, therefore, high entropy energy for the masters.

* Animals have no wheels. # walking on 4 legs requires less energy than walking on two.

Sources of external energy

Solar, wind and geothermal energy are high entropy sources. They can be used efficiently as free natural services only in the direction of increasing entropy: drying/germicide, separation of light and heavy particles, cooling by ventilation and local hot water usages.

Local biomass is a low entropy energy source when used as embodied energy making equipments. Low entropy coal and crude oil is used as heat source for thermal processing, warming and illumination. Few examples of harnessing wind and solar energy efficiently and conveniently using local biomass and thermal energy are: Sail boats driven by wind energy, water warmers by solar IR radiation, grain grinder or water lifting wheels by natural low entropy hydro energy such as high altitude waterfalls or tap able lakes.

CURRENT ENERGY USAGE TECHNOLOGY

Thermal energy released from coal and crude oil is converted to low entropy energies. On providing energy of activation fuel molecules burn and liberate heat. One part of this releasing thermal energy is used in lowering entropy of the other part - such as concentrating chemical energy (pyrolysis, cooking) or conversion into embodied energy (material processing - metal refining, heat treatment) or converted into work - mechanical energy (heat engines). Larger part of heat is thrown out in open in the form of exhaust - increase of entropy. Thus, only less than half of the released heat energy is transformed into embodied or mechanical energy.

Conversion to mechanical energy is geometrically represented below.

When heat is being released, gas molecules start travelling at high velocity in all directions. They act on total area of 4(pi)r² inside a sphere of radius 'r'. To convert this kinetic energy of molecules into constrained mechanical energy, we can place maximum two pistons (all molecules forming a piston, moving in the same direction with the same velocity - constrained energy) of radius less than 'r' each, for the random gas molecules to act. Their area is less than 2(pi)r². Molecular kinetic energy components in the directions, in which the two pistons can move, will only be useful for conversion into constrained mechanical energy. The ratio of “area available for random gas molecules to act" to “total area” is less than half. Thus only less than half of the thermal energy released can be converted into the constrained mechanical energy, more than half goes in exhaust, heat dissipation and entropy of the system increases.

Maximum achievable conversion efficiency

If Q₁ is heat taken at temperature T1°K,

Q₂ is unconverted heat thrown out as exhaust at temperature T2°K and

W is the work done, then

W = Q₁ ─ Q₂ (The law of conservation of energy)

W <>2 (The law of increasing entropy).

From the above expressions maximum achievable conversion efficiency W/Q1 is < style="position: relative; top: 12pt;">

Maximum achievable efficiency in terms of temperature (T1-T2)/T1 is also < style="position: relative; top: 12pt;">

And so, T2 is always < T1/2

Maximum achievable primary (thermal à constrained energy) conversion efficiency is always less than 50%.

Conversion efficiency in practice

The lower the temperature and the slower the speed of the process, the higher is the efficiency. But temperature depends on fuel input. Fuel input and speed depend on load, a varying parameter related to the usage. Efforts in improving efficiency necessitates controller for synchronous matching of parameters. Considering embodied energy inputs in controller overall efficiency may not improve. Efficiency reduces with aging, increasing energy for maintenance and deteriorating environment. Very little overall efficiency improvements have been possible on heat engines.

Overall efficiency

Mechanical energy is also further converted to electrical energy to be converted:

Back to mechanical energy (motors, compressors),

Back to thermal energy (heaters),

To chemical energy stored in batteries à electrical à mechanical (in electric vehicles) and to radiant energy (lighting, microwave oven à heat).

Electricity is only a transitory form of energy in all applications except in data processing and transmission.

Since energy is 1) lost at every conversion, storage, transportation, 2) consumed in making equipments 3) lost in maintaining the equipments, the overall efficiency of energy service is very poor.

Heating by electricity requires many times more coal than heating directly by coal. Motion by electric motor requires many times more fuel than motion by fuel run heat engine. Similarly, illumination by electricity takes a lot more fuel than illumination directly by the fuel.

Many human societies are marching towards greater and greater inefficiency.

SOCIAL EFFECTS

Overall efficiency of energy usage by technology is very low and therefore it gives rise to many new problems such as requirement of new skills (training and employment), exchange media (monetary systems and host of regulatory/monitoring systems), infrastructure, etc and also huge waste. Addressing new problems by technology again, increases energy usage, compounding the effect, generating more problems and more waste. Rate of waste generation then exceeds the natural disposal rate, accumulating the waste harmfully.

Energy efficiency and conveniences

Better convenience – security, comfort and equipment generated enjoyment - is the reason for opting energy inefficient methods. The convenience of using electricity is: button start, no noise and pollution at the place of usage, door delivery, available on demand, etc. Since coal and crude oil energy is readily available to many human societies energy intensive technologies are on the rampage for more and more conveniences – security and comfort. Even enjoyment by status is linked to use of energy, the more the energy use the higher is the status.

Overall energy consumption increases with inefficient and extravagant usage with effects:

1) High energy consumption systems – industrialisation - need reliably uninterrupted supply, in turn, control over resources, logistics and prices - matters raising conflicts. Every kind of pollution increases with energy usage. Both factors lower security, defeating the very purpose of using external energy.

2) Coal and crude oil reserves are available for free in nature but their processing, transportation, storage, etc and their usages by building equipments and maintaining them etc, including those for enjoyment, remain human functions - work load (work denotes “loss of freedom” and not “labour” in industrial world). Efforts to reduce human functions by automation technology actually increase the energy consumption and related effects - increased insecurity and increased work load. Thus, human society has to work to avail benefits of free energy. Work increases with energy consumption and increased work load lowers comfort (freedom), defeating the very purpose of using external energy.

3) Basis of enjoyment is peace and freedom, adversely affected by insecurity and increased work. Inevitably, largely energy dependent societies evolve “progress, success and status” as enjoyment (development is physical but progress, success and status is only psychological). Societies socially engineer following concepts of enjoyments, storage of enjoyments (by holding/saving money) through education, media and policies.

a) Competition, accessing power, hard work and “no time” (insecurity built-in).

b) Complex, fast, large, tall/high/deep, hi-tech, automatic, latest (inherently inefficient).

c) Artificiality-continuous growth, rising numbers, grand structures, clockwork discipline (heavily consuming energy, thereby reducing security and comfort).

d) Technology can solve problems by research and development, mass production, etc.

Nurturing such concepts result in rampant energy consumption, rapidly increasing, till the self limit is reached due to various reasons.

Perceptions

Perception of security, comfort and enjoyment varies with individuals and communities. Perception of local biomass generated and food generated energy usage (self labour) efficiency is obvious. But, when coal and crude oil energy is converted into high energy density fuels and electricity, overall energy efficiency and side effects thereof are not perceivable due to complexity of transformations and the time gap or the delayed effects.

Human sensory system is designed to responds to radiant, thermal and mechanical energy, required to face in nature, and hence effects thereof are perceived by us naturally. But since humans did not have to deal with electrical energy in the past effects thereof are not naturally perceived. (Perpetual motion machines involving mechanical, thermal or radiant energy are seldom but those involving electrical energy are very often).

It is not perceived that energy embodied (in equipments) also disperses, whether used or otherwise, and therefore, everything including all living matter come with an expiry date.

Perception of pollution by local thermal and mechanical energy usage (smoke and noise) is perceived but pollution by electrical energy usage is not perceived because power plants damaging ecology and polluting environment are located away from end user of energy service. Efforts are centred on improving energy efficiency of electrical equipments but such an effort is like attending a leaky tap of a broken water tank.

Efforts to clear/treat pollution (using energy) creates more pollution is not perceived. Individuals can not perceive that working more and working hard reduces their security, comfort and enjoyment in future.

Human society, neglecting/overriding the law of entropy, is in a trap of external energy.

Observation

Availability of free coal and crude oil energy should have reduced total work load of the human society, but the total work load and insecurity is increasing with the energy use.

Industrial technology has failed in providing net increase in security, comfort and enjoyment to the human society.

CONCLUSION

Conveniences - security, comfort and enjoyment - are derived only if the external energy usage is limited to the extent: no new greater inconveniences are created.

PART III – POST MODERN LIFE-STYLE (SUSTAINABLE ENJOYMENT)