Action on 'Household energy audit'

G V Krishnan, in his previous post has suggested a household energy audit with the help of school children. I have acted on this and have started a small program for school children. Vidyavardhaka school in Kuvempunagar, Mysore showed tremendous interest in the energy efficiency education program and asked me to conduct a program for 7th grade. Today was the first class and the students seemed to take it really well. Here is the presentation on slideshare.

Energy Efficiency for school kids

View more presentations from Ashwin Upadhyaya.

More on this at the Sapgreen blog. Next week, I will be continuing this activity at the same school and also trying to get more schools to provide me this kind of an opportunity.

Household energy audit

Mobilising Mysore students for doing household energy audit in their neighbourhood during weekends is a good idea. But how do we make it happen? Or as Dr Bhamy Shenoy put it, who will bell the cat?

The Green entrepreneur Ashwin has offered to draft a project paper; and also conduct a pilot programme to give us a sense of its working - 'I know of a school (Vidyavardhaka, Kuvempunagar) which has many eco-conscious teachers'. He proposes to persude them to adopt energy audit procedure as part of extra-curricular activity of their students.

According to Ashwin, getting students to do energy audit in their own houses as a class project would would help us take the energy audit scheme forward.With a bit of publicity we could persuade more schools to adopt the programme.Rotary Schools and Kendriya Vidyalalya appear suitable candidates

Naveen, who has worked on projects involving students in his locality - Laughing Waters - suggests we focus on pre-defined areas,to start with, for tangible results. He has in mind apartment blocks, where kids can be put to work on collecting data on energy usage/wastage in apartments and the common areas in their residential complex.

A closer look at the use of household appliances - TV, washing machine/drier, water for bath/flushng,light bulbs - would help in drawing up a checklist for a comprehensive energy audit. Here is a link to a piece on energy saving tips.

Dr Shenoy reckons a household energy audit project ought to be promoted by Chesco. In the US,he says,the power supply companies are mandated to support such initiative. Dr.Shenoy says we can count on help and guidance from an expert in energy audit and BARC scientist,Dr D V Gopinath.

Students summer jobs

Read about a California non-profit that trains students to help neighbours go green. Training is offered to those who opt for summer vacation job,for which the
students get paid - $10 an hour. The students, after a crash-course in household energy audit, make house-calls. And each pair can do up to 12 households in a day, spending about 30 minutes going through a checklist of items that include water connections, electrical fittings, sockets used for household appliances.

Energy audit includes:
1) Checking water meter and water pressure;
2) testing faucets and toilets for flow and possible leaks;
3)suggesting installation of water-saving faucet aerators and high-pressure showerheads (done free under sponsorship);
4)replacing conventional lightbulbs with energy-saving compact fluorescent lightbulbs';
5)checking electrical wiring,notably,in the attic;and
6)offering guidance on energy-saving practices such as solar panelling, usage of recyclable items, and tree-planting.

Sponsorship for such programme could come from government agencies related to youth welfare, renewable resources;coporate social reponsibility projects of
companies, builders and architects associations and local chambers of commerce.

SAPLINGS AS THAMBOOLAM

The thamboolam is a mandatory take home at all Indian festivals and ceremonies, at weddings especially. The thamboolam bag (made of plastic, cloth or some polyester fibre, rarely of paper) contains a coconut or grapefruit, a couple of betel leaves, a packet of betel nuts – all auspicious tokens.

I don’t know what others do, but when I come home with the thamboolam, I put away the betel nut packet to be passed on, throw away the betel leaves which have started wilting, and use the coconut to cook. The bag if sturdy enough, will be reused as a carrier bag, that is if one doesn’t mind being the publicity person for the caterer. I have often felt that the fancy bags are a waste - especially when I see the grandeur of the bags – so much money spent on things no one really wants.



Long before the advent of plastic, the thamboolam was packed in ordinary paper bags on which the bride and groom’s names were printed. As plastic came into vogue, thin bags were used. Little by little the bags grew in size and show…….

So I was heartened when I read this news . Mayor of Chennai M. Subramaniam introduced an innovative concept at the wedding of his son recently, one that can be emulated by all. He gave away as thamboolam 3000 saplings to his guests to take away and plant. This delighted all environmentalists and eco-conscious citizens – zero pollution, plus greening.

The saplings are all avenue trees, and he had made arrangements with a nursery for the saplings to be readied by the time of the wedding.

I loved it, and I am sure GVK fellow blogger, who has been pushing for distribution of saplings on all possible occasions will too. Many of us can follow this trend.

Lisa's Bangalore connection

Tinu, 7, hyper-active; fond of chicken biryani; wants to grow up to be a policeman.
(below) Santosh,12, quiet; noodles; engineer.

They are among Lisa Morais' 39 children she came to 'adopt' during her volunteering stint at a Bangalore orphanage last summer. Her work triggered the spirit of giving in the public-spirited Suresh, who messaged Lisa, saying he had decided to donate part of his pay for the uplift of the orphans and the disabled.
Other messages : 1) I am relocating to Bangalore and interested to do some voluntary work for children and senior citizens - Nash.

2) I am a montessori teacher;want to help disabled children...to work for them. Where I can go for this, in Bangalore - Shanthi

3) I want to stay with and teach orphanage students,doing a day job to earn my living - Kamal

Who is this Lisa ? A New Hampshire school teacher who did four months of volunteer work at an orphanage in Bangalore. The experience so impacted Lisa that, on her return to the US, she organised fund-raising events, made slide-show presentations, and set up a blog to spread community awareness about the orphanage.

Vincy (eight months)
The senior most, Sugandhi,16

Bangalore-based Grace Fellowship Charitable Trust runs a home for 39 orphaned and abandoned boys and girls. The youngest is Vincy, eight-months; and the senior most is sixteen-year-old Sugandhi. Lisa lists them all in her blog, with photo and thumb-sketch of their personality traits, their likes, interests, and aspirations. Sugandhi, described as calm, caring and helpful, loves noodles, and wants to be a teacher. So do eight others.

Mini,12. abhi,11.

Others in the orphanage wish to be doctors, engineers, pastors and policemen. Maybe, their exposure to a host of other professionals, such as scientist,aviators,techies and fashion designers, would widen their worldview. Kamal, Nash, Shanti and Suresh would do well to mobilise their professionl contacts to visit the orphanage and interact with the children.
The Bangalore-based Volunteers could work with the orphanage trustees to orgnise group visits of these children to offices and factories to give them a feel of various workplaces. Periodical visits to old people's homes can widen children's horizons.

How we connected with Liza

Are we really world's largest democracy?

Two news items around the same time should make every Indian feel ashamed.

First, an international study shows that India ranks fourth corrupt country in Asia which is headed by Indonesia followed by Thailand. This is a matter which shames a Nation, but need not, as one of our Prime Ministers once said famously, as corruption is a universal phenomenon and one need not feel ashamed about it!

Secondly, as part of ‘Declaration’ of their assets, most of our politicians have made their wives ‘super- duper’ rich, after a short span in power. No matter which party they belong to, some of the candidates are either ex- convicts or have cases pending against them. But candidates of all parties without exception, have assets disproportionate to their known sources of income by at least, a mile, add or take away a furlong or two! That during the period involved in ‘public service’ they have amassed so much wealth, which, they have coolly transferred on to their wives’ names, who most of times are either illiterates or have hardly involved in any job or vocation .This is the real shame of democracy which our media have largely ignored or have not shown the interest to question these so called ‘Leaders’ how they amassed so much wealth in so short a time. It is so disgusting and amusing to read, some of them with crores as their assets, claim they do not even own a car!

What kind of leadership these selfish, corrupt ‘leaders’ can provide to the Nation? Are we really the worlds’ largest democracy or the world’s largest rogue’s gallery?

………….
ERR

A rajpal's plug for Reva

Arunachal Pradesh Governor, General (retd) J.J. Singh drives a Reva on the Raj Bhavan estate at Itanagar. The Raj Bhaven maintains two electric cars. And they have done 20,000 km each.

Though the Bangalore-based car makers have been in business for nearly a decade there are less than 3,000 Revas on road worldwide. The car, they say , can do 80 km on a charge - suited for today's city mobility. It doesn't pollute; it is sized small enough to work its way through Bangalore's traffic jam; has space enough to fit in a family of four - two kids,mom and dad. Reva has an onboard charger, for easy plug-in into any 15 Amp socket at home or at work.

And yet, the urban middle-class hasn't taken to it. Reva is seen, not so much a utility vehicle, as a fashion statement by green-minded freaks . Bangalore, they say, has fewer Revas than London. The car is sold in United Kingdom, Italy, Malta, Cyprus, Norway, Spain, Ireland, Japan, Srilanka, and it has been test marketed in Australia, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and Nepal. Marketing the car in India is about changing middle-class mindset. Besides, Reva remains positioned as the second car in a two-car family.

China, they say, is poised to develop its electric car; and they do things on a massive scale. This development has raised the question whether mass marketing electric car is indeed a green option. In China, 80 percent of electricity comes from coal-driven power plants. And putting electric cars on road would only shift carbon emission from city roads to the areas where power plants are located . Besides, China is associated with dumping its products, cheap in foreign markets.

Where does this leave Reva, which has plans to step up its production to 36,000 cars a year, from its current level of 6,000 cars? Reva can find its future in a solar-driven hybrid car, with provision to plug-in when it gets cloudy. Maybe they are thinking in these terms. Reva's CTO Chetan Maini, in his university days at Michigan had raced a solar electric car from Florida to Michigan. He was also in the General Motors sponsored World Solar Challenge, a 2000-mile drive from Darwin to Adelaide, Australia.