Green Technology

by Patali Champika RANAWAKA

In 2008, I attended the convention on Bio Diversity (CDB) Annul General meeting known as conference of parities (COP), held in Bon, Germany. That meeting held in the German Parliament was considered to be an important event. It is a unique building designed to symbolize the concept of transparency where glazed and steel cladding and partioning play a prominent part in its design.

However, glass panes that were being extensively used in the building industry in the past, are now being replaced with solar panelling to facilitate the generation of heat and energy. At the conclusion of the opening ceremony, we were hosted a lunch at the famous “Napoleon Hotel” located in the mountain forest near the river Rhine. After an informal discussion I had with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her dynamic environment Minister Sigmar Gabrial, as suggested by our consular General Buddhi Seneviratne - son of our Minister of Labour, Hon. Athauda Seneviratne, we set off to visit an energy farm near Frankfurt on our way back. At the farm, we were guided by the relevant officials of the local authority and it was an interesting place for us to have visited in Germany.

This is situated in an area earlier occupied by the US Army and some nuclear arsenal and missiles can be still seen located there, directed towards East Germany (where Angela Markel was coming from) and the former USSR. With the collapse of the Berlin Wall the US had reduced its military presence in Germany and the abandoned military base had been subsequently converted to an energy farm.

Almost all kinds of Green Energy is produced there. The perishable house hold waste, agricultural and forest waste collected there are being used to generate bio gas and it in turn heats the township. Huge solar panels - actually solar farms covering several hectares are there whilst tall and giant wind mills producing wind energy are also conspicuously being located. In addition, mini hydro plants and plants to produce bio diesel are also available there. All these energies are collected and fed into the national grid and it in turn supply energy to the entire local council area. According to available data their energy farm generates “net” energy output, which means they are self sustaining the energy needs.

The Western countries, specially Germany developed eco friendly technologies and they naturally offered those technologies to the US. Because of the climate change these countries are now spending billions to improve these technologies.

According to Bali action plan on climate change (2007) one of the main pillars of the solutions to the climate change was technology transfer. The others were mitigation (developed countries), adaptation (developing countries) and financing mechanisms.

When I was actively participating in some of the climate change related meetings, I was encouraged by the pledges made by developed countries in offering clean and Green technologies to developing countries like Sri Lanka. However, my subsequent close studies on the subject has revealed that direct technological transfer from these “developed” countries will not help us as envisaged by many. It is my conviction that these direct technological transfers done without due consideration to the ecological and cultural environment of the beneficiaries, it would create much worse problems than that it creates from the use of fossil fuel based technology.

The clean energy generation technologies like solar, wind, biomass and even tidal waves, clean industries and equipment, clean buildings and vehicles are now being spread all over the world. Some of these technologies and techniques are already being introduced in our country as well. But it is very prudent to identify the limitations of these green technologies.

Firstly these technologies could not be simply imported and applied because they were tagged with intellectual property rights (IPR), international conventions and world trade regulations are also being applied and it would be both a costly and cumbersome affair to use these technologies directly.

Secondly these technologies are very much capital intensive and their maintenance cost too is very high, which compels us to go in for loan schemes to buy them. It may definitely create vicious cost cycles very much similar to that of the vicious debt cycle. If we are not fully aware of the international pricing and trading conditions we may simply become trapped in these “Green new deal” as well.

The third factor is that most of these technologies are not “Green” as per with the meaning of the word “Green”. The nuclear power is considered as zero emission (CO2) energy but it generates nuclear ashes which will not decay within a period of 25,000 years. On the other hand extraction, purification and enrichment of nuclear fuel and building and maintaining power plants would need enormous energy which could be supplied from fossil fuels. It was estimated that 5-30% of energy generated by nuclear energy is actually coming from other sources like coal plants.

Similarly, we need energy to build solar panels and wind panels etc., and one of the reasons that they are costly is that they need a huge amount of other energies to manufacture the required hardware and as a result the embedded energy cost becomes very high. It was estimated that 15-35% of the energy generated by solar or wind is actually coming from fossil fuels. So we are unable simply to produce these technologies without spending energies from fossil fuels. That is why some scientists call these technologies as “brown” technologies. I agree with them and it could be identified that the main reason would be that they produce these technologies based on fossil fuel based social - technological structure. In these western countries everything is driven by fossil fuels. That is why you cannot produce anything without using it. However, these technologies are improving the technological status.

So, what we should ask from these developed countries is the know how or empirical and theoretical knowledge of these technologies. Then we could be able to manufacture these technologies locally. That way our financial and technological dependency too could be minimized. So, every country like Sri Lanka should have a separate institution for research and development of Green appropriate technologies.

The other very important philosophical concept we should remember is that all sciences and technologies are based on cultures. That means there exists many sciences, many scientific methods and outlooks to gather knowledge. Although, pre industrial Europe is indebt heavily to Asia for having plundered the knowledge and techniques from Asia they developed their own sciences and technology based on European culture.

They called it modern science and Universal but in real terms modern science had been evolved in European culture and thereby a euro centric world view was embedded in this science. Famous French Philosopher Derrida showed that the world that Europeans are naturally attracted to “logos” or absolute categories. They believed in absolute things and reduce other things to this primary thing to explain the phenomenon. Paul Feraband in his famous thesis “Against Method”, clearly stated that there exist no single science or scientific method. There are many medical practices in the world. Allopathy and Homeopathy based on western tradition, Unani based on a Muslim culture, Ayurweda based on Hindu culture, Sinhala Vedakama based on Sinhala culture, Acupuncture based on Chinese culture etc are some examples. All are equal and different and have their own limitations and no method could be regarded as superior. So it is now high time we explored our traditional knowledge system and used it in this modern context with proper innovative recreation.

In our language practices we simply follow three principles when we are encountering the foreign languages. If we take words, sometimes we reject it creating new words, some other times we simply change it phonetically. Sometimes we simply use it as it is.

In the same way we should reject and create new technology based on know how we gained, for some other technologies we should simply change and localize the entire thing. Some other times we should simply use the technologies as it is. With these limitations in our mind we would simply redraft the principles of new Green sciences and technologies.

The first principle is that we should accept the scientific diversity as a prerequisite for any knowledge system like bio diversity and cultural diversity. Based on that we could produce multiple solutions and knowledge systems based on different cultures which could be termed as “many thousand sciences blossoms”.

The Second principle is that the technologies should not exploit or over consume the resource base of the ecological system and planet earth. Resource reuse, recycle and reduce would be the guidelines. No ecological deficit could be allowed and resource usage should be sustainable.

The Third principle is that waste could be reprocessed and it generates zero pollution. Here we should emphasize that zero emission of carbon dioxide is not sufficient. Land, water, air, heat and other living beings dynamic equilibrium should not be disturbed.

The Forth principle is that these technologies should be eco friendly and human friendly as well. Building, operating and maintaining principles should be simple so that everyone can use these mechanics and techniques. There should not be any wealth age or gender barriers.

The Green should be adjustable and adoptable. So that they could be used in variety of cultures and societies.

The very important aspect of this human friendliness is that technologies should not alienate individuals or societies in which they are used. Mental pleasure and physical labour should be inseparable with the technology we used.

Otherwise we would be prisoners of own creations. Fossil fuel based “black technologies” imprisoned us creating mental frustration, depression and alienation Green technologies will definitely liberate the humans from these bonds and attachments.

(The writer is the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources)