Pages

Showing posts with label energy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label energy. Show all posts

Thursday, 5 July 2012

Urgency over efficiency - A cause of Stress

Human beings, irrespective of their profession have always been affected by trends from various echelons of society. Reading news articles, especially from Scientific sources that are on the lines of "We probably found the Higgs Boson" (ref: CERN press release today)  or "We have evidence of extraterrestrial microbial life" (ref: Mars Mission) has been quite frequent of late. Scientific method demands verification, the possibility of an antithesis and the dismissal of the antithesis based on facts or conjectures that can be repeated.

The new trend is not restricted to scientific articles, but also to Consumer Electronic products, the arena of Embedded Software Systems I work on. The pressure today is to deliver solutions to customers almost at 1/3rd the duration they were being delivered in the prior year.

This is a clear indicator of the aggressive motivation of growth. This "unhealthy" phenomenon is further exacerbated by economics seemingly inclining in favor of asymmetric or asymptotic growth patterns of material value generators in society.

In this world, where the everyday rush is not unlike a gold rush, it has a significantly "unhealthy" effect on both the perception of services provided and products delivered. A new acceptance of the 'incomplete' solution has began to dominate sectors including the automotive sector. Telecom companies have resorted to solutions like Android, where the com.phone.android (the core phone application is bound to restart, and is not as rigorously tested as prior.)

On the one hand we have a lot of momentum on increasing our awareness to the Environment and the Hazards we generate. Yet, the root cause of this lies in the want and the need to deliver ahead of the prior benchmark, oftentimes without sound reason or at times against reason.

Having been a hyper-workaholic, I can easily associate my habits with the work culture that has impinged our society. I have grown to understand that a calmer, consistent, measured and sound approach based on factual reasoning has a higher probability to succeed than a quick hack. This is something that has to be imbibed by entire companies as part of their culture and thereafter entire societies or groups of associated people.

An approach combined with commitment and the ability to reason and resolve the root cause of issues can benefit everyone in the long run and relieve several people in the chain of work from unnecessary stress. This also has to be done with the understanding that we, humans, are not machines, and have our biorhythms that are not always aligned with the day/night or a company's working hour routine. A solution that benefits both can easily be worked out considering that the result will always be a win-win.

I would personally be interested in hearing different thoughts on the same, especially on methods to curb the 'urgency' syndrome in the larger part of our responsibility to society and the environment itself.


Saturday, 10 March 2012

Unpredictable Wind Power: No help to Power Cuts

The daily power-cut status changed as Wind Power changed the schedules for one day. Wind power showed how undependable it is, as two days of wind, and then a lull starved the grid almost immediately.

Sun 4 Mar 2012 - Sat 10 Mar 2012 (Thanjavur, TN, India)
Wind power in this part of the Indian peninsula has been undependable. Even monsoon winds have not been predicted with sufficient accuracy, hence usage of wind during non-monsoonal periods for energy would be the last possible resort and subject to randomness as we have not yet modeled it.

Wednesday, 7 March 2012

Power Demand and Production in South India

Summer is nearing which might lend us a drop in Hydel power as well as Wind power being produced in the Southern peninsula.


USA, Nellis AFB, Solar Power Plant (13GW Operational Capacity)
Tamil Nadu, may end up being most affected as it already is bearing the brunt of lack of electrical energy to meet demand.  The above image is most alluring of 13GW of actual production from 18GW of installed Solar Production capacity in the USA at the Nellis Airforce Base with over 56 hectares of sun-following panels.

I have earlier discussed the capability and scope of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in my blog-post. I have also reviewed the total power production potential in Tamil Nadu (that caters to neighboring states as well.)
Ref: http://betasector.blogspot.in/2012/02/understanding-kudankulam-technology-and.html

The present electric power cuts have been partly induced by an acute shortage of coal. As the Telengana agitation begun, India's production of over 400 million tonnes of coal (annually) dwindled as some of the open mines suffered flooding while supply routes were cut. This was the first sign of major power cuts which began during the DMK regime in a 2hr quantum. These have suddenly increased due to a further shortfall of coal. Further drops in Wind power production and Hydel power drops have left most parts of Tamil Nadu with over 8 hours of power cuts each day. (I write this from Thanjavur where 9 hours of power-cut each day is a regular feature.)

In part private operators have not received over 25,000crores in payment for power supply from various sources. The total quantum of loan that has been left unpaid is over 35,000crores for which the present government led by the AIADMK has also not been able to work any remedies in time.
(ref: http://www.bellona.org/imagearchive/India1.jpg )

Monday, 27 February 2012

Forecast: Power Cuts (Mon, Feb 27, 2012)

Here's the power-cut FORECAST for Monday, February 27, 2012. The total power cut timing should be reduced to 5:30 hrs during business hours. Here's when it would be happening.

This, I am told is common for "Arulananda Nagar, Yagappa Nagar, Nanjikottai Road, MC Rd/Easwari Nagar" - someone please confirm by giving a comment here.

From To
08:00 10:00
12:00 14:00
16:45 17:30
20:15 21:00
Forecast for Monday, 27 Feb 2012
More data follows, if you want it.