Wind energy - an unused option

by Patali CHAMPIKA RANAWAKA

When cyclone "Nargees" hit Myanmar in 2008, the entire world was shocked by the scale of the calamity it created. It caused the death of over hundred thousand and displaced over one million people in and around Irrawedi mega delta - estuary of Brahamaputta river. I could still remember this fateful day, as it happened to be the day, our President hosted a dinner at his official residence for the President of Iran - Mohammed Ahamadinejad. Among the invitees, after the dinner, Minister Douglas Devananda and I were the first to step out of the Presidential Palace to the accompaniment of some thunder and lightning. However, having noticed the significant intensity with which that natural phenomenon was acting at the time, jokingly, I told the Minister that it was the Sun God who was responsible for the loud explosion we had just heard and not Velupillai Prabhakaran. However, as anticipated, when the president of Iran was about to get into his vehicle, torrential rain started pouring down.

The following morning I saw on CNN television, the ferocity with which the cyclone "Nargees" had devastated the innocent Buddhists in Myanmar. It did not take much time for me to realize that what we experienced the previous night at the Presidential Palace was nothing but a primary air whirlwind of the cyclone "Nargees" which subsequently had entered the Bay of Bengal, precipitating huge volumes of water from the sea.

Wind energy: positive sign for the future

Just after the cyclone, many questions were raised in the UN inquiring about the manner by which the rulers of Myanmar were trying to handle the post cyclone situation. As usual the US Government charged the military rulers of Myanmar for having allegedly committed a crime against humanity by not allowing the international donor agents to help the victims of the cyclone. In reply, the rulers of the government of Myanmar accused the western governments for trying to use an environmental calamity, as an excuse to undermine the sovereignty of Myanmar and to further tarnish its image internationally. This unfortunate situation prompted me to make a statement at an official function at which I said that the real perpetrators of the environmental calamity in Irrawedi delta was the US and not Myanmar. In substantiating my accusation, I had to reiterate the fact that the poor countries like Myanmar are devastated by these cyclones due to the very high emissions of green house gases resulting from burning excessive fossil fuel by the so-called developed countries like the USA. The very day my statement was given some publicity in our national media, the US Embassy in Sri Lanka had contacted my Private Secretary seeking to have a meeting with its Ambassador Blake and myself to discuss current environmental issues and matters of mutual interests. At the very outset of the meeting so arranged subsequently, the Ambassador wished to know if I would stand by my previous statement accusing the US Government over the cyclone in Myanmar.

Without any hesitation, I not only confirmed my having made the relevant statement but also repeated it to refresh the Ambassador's knowledge about the subject. Hiding his displeasure, behind his professional diplomacy, he took objections to my statement.

It was his contention that the innocent civilians of Myanmar who happened to be the victims of the cyclone were killed due to unacceptable attitudes of its rulers. At this stage I had to remind him a factual revelation attributed to the former UN Secretary General, Koffi Anaan, that over 300,000 people were being killed annually, all over the World due to climate change related calamities.

Also, I had to point out that it was the IPCC, a scientific body and UNEP that had unanimously stated that over 70% of the environmental calamities like droughts, floods, cyclones and tornados are caused due to the affects of man-made global warming. Therefore, to avoid the entire mankind perishing in this planet due to the dangers of environmental calamities, a carbon budget for the whole century had been introduced.

Although, the environmental permissible per-capita emission quota for 2008 was 2170Kg, the average emission quota of a US citizen, including that of Ambassador Blake for the same year had been 24,000Kg, a figure ten times more than that of the global permissible average. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that the average emission of an innocent individual in Myanmar is less than 100Kg.

Although, this fact clearly proves that Myanmar is an environmentally friendly nation, it is very unfortunate to have been penalized, by way of cyclones and other disasters for an environmental crime they have not committed. So, who were the real culprits responsible for these serious crimes committed against humanity? I asked. For obvious reasons, although the Ambassador fell short of conceding my argument, to his credit, he admitted that I had provided him with sufficient food for serious thought.

At the conclusion of the meeting, he gave me a Wind Energy Resource map of Sri Lanka developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) of the United States. Having thanked him, I glanced through the wind map and found the availability of nearly 5000SqKm of windy areas with good to excellent wind resource potential in Sri Lanka (NREL had mapped out our solar resource Atlas as well.)

As far as the naval or aviation routes are concerned, Sri Lanka is a country blessed with its geological positions, specially due to the fact that these important positions are also being located within the so-called "wind belt". Having gone through NREL - USA report, I noted that, based on very conservative estimates (4Mw/Km2), Sri Lanka had a wind capacity of 20,000Mw. This is comparatively a very significant amount as it accounts for 8 times the total electricity consumption of Sri Lanka (appx. 2500 Mw).

It is estimated that the earth wind energy capacity is technically five times more than the energy that it consumes. During the past five decades the wind energy generation had taken a leap forward and now it is estimated that more than 120,000 Mw are being produced by windmills. The world's worst polluter, the USA could take the largest contributor generating 25,000 Mw from wind energy farms and it is a positive sign for the future to note that the new Obama administration is promoting this sector and it is rapidly developing in the USA.

Germany and Spain are the next good developers (23,000 Mw and 17,000 Mw respectively) and China and India too are showing strides in producing wind energy (12,000 Mw and 10,000 Mw respectively). Denmark would be the leader for wind power, where it generates more than 21% of its electricity from wind power. They too are the pioneers of windmill technology, since the second world war, they installed their first large scale wind mill with the help of a marshal plan. It is very interesting to note as to how we generate the wind energy. Two types of windmills are currently being operated. They are horizontal or vertical axis turbines which depend on their installed lines or axis. A horizontal turbine with three blades is the type mostly used, while the vertical turbine is less efficient although it could collect slower wind and wind from all directions enabling it to rotate its blades comparatively faster. However, it could be used for small scale operations only.

Generally, a windmill is three bladed with a horizontally mounted turbine mounted atop a tower (sometimes it goes up to 100 m) why they use three blades is also interesting. Like the way we use three phase power, we could use any number of blades. However, resource optimization clearly shows that a three blade turbine is most efficient like three phase electricity generation. When we arrived at the Copenhagen, summit COP meeting venue - Bella Centre - in December 2009, a huge wind blade which was over 40 m in length, was on display. It was a marvellous engineering showcase. When one of my accomplices whispered that the blade on display resembled the wing of an aircraft, I had to explain that it was the same principle - Bernoullies - aero dynamic principle that applied in both cases. One of the problems encountered with windmills is its efficiency, which is called "the plant factor". Although, wind is freely available and no running cost is involved, it cannot be made available continuously. So in order to get one megawatt continuously at least a 2-4 Mw plant should be installed. In Sri Lanka, a pilot project has been launched at Hambantota of which the plant factor is 14%.Unfortunately as it is not commercially viable it is considered to be a failure. In order to make it commercially viable the windmill plant factor should be kept over 25%. Although, the wind energy is available in abundance, for better results, its proper sighting and analyzing is found to be of paramount importance.

As far as the carbon emission or contained carbon is concerned, for wind it is 9-10g of carbon dioxide for Kwhr, whereas, Solar PV emits 32g, natural gas emits 443g and coal 986-1050g. So it is cleaner and greener than most of the large scale energy sources and it needs no water, whereas the other power generation methods have to use water extensively.

Experiments clearly show that birds are not being killed by wind blades as it is wildly believed. One estimator in the US showed that 550 million birds are being killed by skyscrapers and 130 million by power lines whereas by wind turbine it is only 28,500. So whatever the means are, harvesting of wind energy could be the most sophisticated solution for generation of electricity as it needs less capital investment when compared with that of solar PV.

As an island nation, we could very well harvest wind and generate our own clean - green energy.

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