Hey, India, Check This Out

India and Britain consider themselves close allies. They ought to work on using the huge amounts of sewage in India to run better public transport. Whoever manages to do this, will also become very, very wealthy, as sewage is a constantly renewable resource. With the strong rapport between Prime Ministers Narendra Modi of India and David Cameron of the UK, this is a technology that both Britain and India should try to implement as quickly as possible. I lived with my parents at the Old Tower Block in Madras for many years, and remember watching in despair as the Adyar River became a sewage carrying, stinking mess. Madras also has the Cooum, aka the Buckingham Canal, which is even filthier, though there still were benches along its banks in Egmore along Commander in Chief Road, to remind us of a time when people took boats down it for pleasure. All that poop could power a lot of buses and save huge amounts of foreign exchange for India. Hopefully, someone in New Delhi and London is watching this new technology, and planning to do a lot with it. Do check out the fantastic Geneco UK website. And, do subscribe to their Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook pages.

India's First Net Zero Energy Building - I Am Not Convinced

India's "The Hindu" newspaper has a story about what is claimed to be India's first Net-Zero Energy Building. While I am not clear if the building in question has been certified by an external and independent agency to be Net-Zero, if, indeed, this is truly Net-Zero, then it is a remarkable achievement. I am not entirely convinced that this is the case, though, when you have a 930 kW peak power solar generation capacity in a 31,488 Sq Meter building with "robotic parking" and central HVAC system. Something, somewhere, is amiss. That said, if this does spark off an interest in actually building net-zero structures in India, it would be fantastic. Right now, I do think this is hype, not fact. I shudder to think of how this will end up making India a butt of jokes for a while, when experts investigate this and find the claim to have a lot of Blue Sky to it.