Intellectual Thoughts by Sanjay Panda: Enviornment


Showing posts with label Enviornment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Enviornment. Show all posts

Lithium finding in India , EV industry Charged Up..

As India gears up to boost electric vehicle (EV) adoption, the massive find of lithium reserves in the country has built up  excitement , hope of self-Reliance & brightened up the prospects for the country in the field of EV battery cell manufacturing. 

According to the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), the country will require USD 4.5Billion of investment to meet its domestic lithium-ion battery manufacturing target of setting up 50 GWh of lithium-ion cell and battery manufacturing plants. India's lithium cell production is projected to be 900 GWh by 2030.  

 "The 5.9 million tonnes of lithium reserves found in J&K, If completely extracted and converted into battery-grade Lithium  salts can support up to  great extent   though  the   details about quality, nature etc are yet to be fully established.

Lithium is  the lightest  metal & lightest  solid element . Being highly reactive   not found in its elemental form.  Mostly found in concentration with other materials in the form of oxides and carbonates. Extracting & converting the raw lithium to battery-grade lithium calls for a series of refining processes some of  technology are not available  in India. Very few Global companies  have  such expertise  and being doing this for decades.  

Though the EV penetration in India  till 2020  was very small , the EV penetration in India is slowly but steadily increasing, especially in the e-scooter segment. Now, the four-wheeler manufacturers have also joined the bandwagon,  specially Tata Motors  , M&M pushing India's aim to significantly cut the dependency on traditional fuels and internal combustion engine-driven vehicles by 2030.  

The slogan EV30@30  which means ,  the government expects the EV sales penetration to be 30 per cent by 2030. for private automobiles. 70 per cent for commercial vehicles, and 80 per cent for two and three-wheelers, which would not only reduce the country's oil import bills in the longer term, but also ensure a cleaner environment.  

The discovery of Lithium is vital as it comes at a time when India is going all out for a green transition in transportation,, where electric vehicle adoption has become a national priority..

India finds 5.9 million tonnes of Lithium deposits.




The Union Government of India on Thursday said that 5.9 million tonnes of lithium reserves have been found for the first time in the country in Jammu and Kashmir. Lithium is a non-ferrous metal and is one of the key components in EV batteries.

"Geological Survey of India for the first time established Lithium inferred resources (G3) of 5.9 million tonnes in the Salal-Haimana area of the Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir," the Ministry of Mines said on Thursday.

It further said that 51 mineral blocks including Lithium and Gold were handed over to respective state governments.

"Out of these 51 mineral blocks, 5 blocks pertain to gold and other blocks pertain to commodities like potash, molybdenum, base metals etc. spread across 11 states of Jammu and Kashmir (UT), Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana," the ministry added.

The blocks were prepared based on the work carried out by GSI from field seasons 2018-19 to till date.

Mumbai Police sets up Punishing Signal to stop unnecessary honking. (watch the video)



There is a truth universally acknowledged by drivers in India: Honk your horn loud enough and the traffic lights will surely change to green. 

How many times has it happened that you are standing at a traffic signal and people waiting behind you kept honking repeatedly, even when the light was red? 


Fed up of impatient drivers, police in Mumbai have come up with a new system to punish those who cannot wait at traffic lights in silence.


The new system, said the police, was quite simple: “Honk more, wait more.”

Known as “the punishing signal”, Mumbai police installed a rigged traffic light system to tackle the problem of “reckless honkers”, which resets  the red traffic signal to a longer duration,  every time the sound of horns goes above 85 decibels and  one need  to wait more.

Great Idea!!!!! This will surely  bring discipline  and responsibility among the drivers in Mumbai.


Please  see the video  which was released by Mumbai Police.


India's big leap in World Bank's Ease of Doing Business rankings


India leapfrogged to the 77th rank in the World Bank's latest Ease of Doing Business rankings, jumping 23 notches from last  year.    This is a  significant achievement  in short term  as India has improved its rank by 53 positions in the last two years, and 65 positions in the last four years (2014-18)

In    dealing with construction permits, India has implemented an online single window system, introduced deemed approvals and reduced the cost for obtaining these permits. In the electricity sector, the time taken for obtaining a new connection has reduced from 105 to 55 days. For resolving insolvency, India has put in place a new Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and time bound reorganization procedure for corporate debtors. 

India did make starting a business easier by integrating multiple application forms into a general incorporation form. It enforced GST, for which the registration process is faster. Abolishing in Mumbai  the practice of site inspection   under the Shops  & establishing act.

As many nations have cut down on procedures to improve their rankings, India needs to make   further drastic changes to rank higher. World Bank factors in cost of starting a business as a percentage of income per capita. India’s low income per capita makes the cost look higher





In the World Bank Group’s annual ease of doing business rankings, the top 10 economies are New Zealand, Singapore and Denmark, which retain their first, second and third spots, respectively, for a second consecutive year, followed by Hong Kong SAR, China; Republic of Korea; Georgia; Norway; United States; United Kingdom and FYR Macedonia.

Dukhi (Unhappy) India drops further on World Happiness Index



India is among the world’s least happy nations, and became even less happy in the last year. India ranked at 122 out of 155 countries in the World Happiness Report 2017, four notches below its previous rank of 118.  
 India was behind the majority of South Asian nations, apart from war-ravaged Afghanistan, that stood at 141. Among the eight South Asia  nations, Pakistan was at 80th position, Nepal stood at 99, Bhutan at 97, Bangladesh at 110 while Sri Lanka was at 120. However, Maldives did not figure in the World Happiness Report.


After ranking fourth for the last two years, Norway emerged at the top, displacing three-time topper Denmark for the first time. Denmark dropped to second place, followed by Iceland, Switzerland, Finland, the Netherlands.

The bottom five countries on the list where people are the unhappiest are Burundi (154), Tanzania (153), Syria (152), Rwanda (151) and the Central African Republic (155).
Studying happiness may seem frivolous, but serious academics have long been calling for more testing about people’s emotional well-being, The entire top ten were wealthier developed nations. Yet money is not the only ingredient in the recipe for happiness, the report said.

In fact, among the wealthier countries the differences in happiness levels had a lot to do with “differences in mental health, physical health and personal relationships: the biggest single source of misery is mental illness. Income differences matter more in poorer countries, but even their mental illness is a major source of misery,”  the report said.

The happiness rankings are based on six factors: GDP per capita, healthy years of life expectancy, social support (as measured by having someone to count on in times of trouble), trust (as measured by a perceived absence of corruption in government and business), perceived freedom to make life decisions, and generosity (as measured by recent donations). 

The United States meanwhile slipped to the number 14 spot due to less social support and greater corruption; those very factors play into why Nordic countries fare better on this scale of smiles. China, making  major economic strides in recent years, but its people are not happier than 25 years ago, it found.

INDIA Aims For World Record With 100+ Satellite Launches In One Go.



“We are making a century by launching over 100 satellites at one go,”  said  the, Director of the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

 If successful, India will set a world record as the first country to launch the most satellites in one go and leave behind Russia, which launched 39 satellites in a single mission in June 2014.

The space agency had earlier planned a launch of 83 satellites in the last week of January, of which 80 were foreign ones. But with the addition of 20 more foreign satellites, the launch was delayed by a week and will now take place in first week of February.

As India looks to grab a larger slice of the lucrative commercial space market,   this step will be a significant milestone. Launching several satellites at one go reduces cost and India has been trying to position itself as a key player as an effective but low-cost operator.

In June,2016, India set a national record after it successfully launched a rocket carrying 20 satellites, including 13 from the US.

In May, it successfully launched its first mini space shuttle as it joined the global race to make reusable rockets.

It sent an unmanned rocket to orbit Mars in 2013 at a cost of just $73 million, compared with NASA's Maven Mars mission which had a $671 million price tag.

India  is also mulling the idea of missions to Jupiter and Venus, according to PTI.