Clean Energy

Making the most of natural sources

There is so much discussion about going green, whether it is technology or day-to-day activities which could pollute the environment.  Most of our toxic chemical pollution comes from fossil fuels. Seventy per cent of the power produced in populous countries like China or India comes from coal.

Nuclear power which in any case account for only a fraction has its own toxic residues. Solar power also involves photovoltaic cells which use harmful trace metals (Arsenides, Selenium, etc.) Again, production of drugs, chemicals, for various purposes like plastic bags, synthetic dress materials, etc, all involve processes using and producing toxic compounds. Union Carbide and Bhopal is an extreme example!
Again in this context, much of our technology is imitative, adopted not adapted.

Any country should make maximum use of its assets.  The Arabs have their oil, which they copiously export. What do we have? The Arabs with not much arable land or greenery have their oil. We have our cow dung, a natural viridescent green, a unique shade: cow dung green. We have the world’s largest cattle population. (Six hundred million: coincidentally the same number as that of young people who are by and large milk-starved despite the white and green revolutions!) Cow dung has been traditionally used as fuel in our villages.

Bio-gas plants based on cow dung have been in operation for long. One can estimate the amount produced per day by all our cattle, about two million tons daily; this implies a potential to export a billion tons annually. The production is also green.


The cows just have to munch all the greenery around and in pure (non-polluting) green metabolic phase is converted in their complex alimentary to green cow dung which can be straightaway used without any further toxic processing.

The dung can be regenerated by using it as manure to nourish the green plants which is then consumed by the cattle to produce more dung.
There are also several other uses for the cattle products. So, right from production of the green fuel to its disposal as manure to produce more greenery, the whole technology is as green as it can ever be!