Everything Environment by Mongabay India

The clean energy sector maintains that it is crusading the fight against climate change. But first, governments and companies have to fix the road to making clean energy technologies.

The supply chain to create clean energy technologies is riddled with issues. Unsustainable mineral extraction to make solar cells, wind turbines, electric vehicle batteries and other clean technologies pose high social and environmental risks. These scenarios are visible worldwide, especially in less industrialised nations.

A secure and sustainable supply chain can contribute to a clean energy transition.

In this episode of GigaWhat, Mongabay-India Contributing Editor and the podcast host, Mayank Aggarwal, speaks with Jessie Cato (natural resources programme manager, Business & Human Rights Resource Centre) and Saurav Goyal (founding member, Metastable Materials) about various aspects of the clean technology supply chain.

Guests:

Jessie Cato, Programme Manager, Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

Saurav Goyal, Founding Member, Metastable Materials

Links

The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions, IEA

Critical Minerals for India, Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP)

Securing Clean Energy Technology Supply Chains, IEA

Climate-positive, high-tech metals are polluting Earth, but solutions await, Mongabay

Corporate sustainability due diligence, EU

India's market regulator takes a step towards sustainable finance, Mongabay-India

KABIL Set up to Ensure Supply of Critical Minerals

GigaWhat episode 1: Clean Waste

Read the full Clean energy series on our website Follow us on Twitter and Instagram Subscribe to our newsletter

Credits:

Produced and scripted by Kartik Chandramouli

Edited and mixed by Tejas Dayananda Sagar

Copy edits by Aditi Tandon

Production assistance from Ayushi Kothari

GigaWhat artwork by Pooja Gupta

Lack of energy access limits the rural economy. But reliable electricity creates an infrastructure for rural entrepreneurs and gives people a chance to work on their aspirations.

In rural India, decentralised renewable energy options – primarily solar power – are creating livelihood and business opportunities. Decentralised renewable energy systems are primarily independent of the central power grid and the energy is generated close to its area of use. To address daily issues that arise out of lack of power, startups and organisations are creating and modifying decentralised renewable energy (DRE) solutions in India's villages, burgeoning towns and metros.

In this episode of GigaWhat, Mongabay-India Contributing Editor and the podcast host, Mayank Aggarwal, speaks with startup founders and managers to learn the innovations happening in the DRE sector that are helping to boost the livelihoods of people in India's hinterlands.

Produced and scripted by Kartik Chandramouli

Edited and mixed by Tejas Dayananda Sagar

Copy edits by Priyanka Shankar

Production assistance from Ayushi Kothari

GigaWhat artwork by Pooja Gupta

Guests:

Ananth Aravamudan, Sector Lead - Climate Action, Villgro (Powering Livelihoods

Kunal Vaid, Director, Resham Sutra

Abhishek Pathak, Founder, Greenwear

Manish Kumar, Staff Reporter, Mongabay-India

Links:

Mongabay series: Clean Energy

Solar mini-grids fuel women-led enterprises in Jharkhand's Gumla district

Decentralised solar setups give power access to small farmers, facilitate innovations

Framework to promote decentralised RE livelihood applications

Powering Livelihoods Globally through Clean Energy, a GCF-CEEW report.

The Future of Distributed Renewable Energy in India

Hydropower has been an old and reliable source of energy in India. Until a few years ago, India considered a hydropower project renewable only when the installed capacity was less than 25 megawatt (MW). But then, in 2019, the government of India decided to consider large hydropower projects as renewable projects too. This makes hydroelectricity a vital part of India's clean energy targets - installing 500 gigawatt (GW) of non-fossil fuel-based capacity by 2030.

However, activists and researchers who have been working on issues related to the displacement of communities due to dam construction, and ecologists who study the impacts of dams on aquatic species and the region's biodiversity, think otherwise. They opine that the terms' clean' and 'green' used to describe hydropower could be misleading, as it does not consider the livelihoods lost and the cost of biodiversity lost at stake.

In this episode, we'll hear about how dams are perceived as a more stable source of energy when compared to solar and wind. We'll also hear about the true cost of relying on this form of energy. Our conversations raise a contentious question: Can hydropower be considered clean and renewable? Or is it simply a case of clean-washing?

Listen to GigaWhat and explore some of the biggest questions, challenges, and opportunities in India's transition from fossil fuel to clean energy sources. Mongabay-India is an online publication dedicated to bringing you stories on science and the environment in India.

Read the full Clean energy series on our website

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Guests:

Ammu Susanna Jacob, Research Scientist, CSTEP

Shishir Rao, ecologist

Prakash Bhandari, environmental researcher and activist, Himdhara

Links:

A twin-state hydropower project could drown livelihoods and biodiversity

Fish & small hydropower projects in the Western Ghats biodiversity hotspot, India

The return of the mega hydropower projects across India

Credits:

Host: Mayank Aggarwal

Writer and producer: Kartik Chandramouli

Audio editor: Tejas Dayananda Sagar

Copy editor: Aditi Tandon

Podcast production assistant: Ayushi Kothari

GigaWhat cover art: Pooja Gupta

What are the high hurdles for India to uplift its people and realise its potential on the world stage? Two of the most significant ones are securing food for its large population and providing enough energy to power homes and industries.

As it has always been, land, as a resource, is a precious commodity for both farming, and energy production. On the one hand, it is estimated that nearly 58 percent of India's 1.2 billion people are engaged in agriculture, which occupies 60 percent of its total land area.

On the other hand, to generate electricity, the country requires thousands of square kilometres of land for coal mines, thermal power plants, and renewable energy projects to meet its energy needs.

A 2019 study noted that fulfilling India's 2022 goal of 175 GW of renewable energy could impact agricultural areas nearly the size of Himachal Pradesh.

Solar power projects that will contribute to more than half of our 450 GW renewable energy target by 2030, require a lot of land for its most popular form of large solar parks. In places where a solar project eyes fertile and cultivated land, it could lead to social unrest from people directly or indirectly losing livelihoods. This, in turn, means delays and financial losses for energy companies.

What is the solution to this complex challenge? Agricultural and energy researchers are turning to one design-based solution to optimise land usage. The idea is to use the same plot of land to harvest crops…and energy by placing solar panels over fields. The system is called agrivoltaics.

In this episode, we will hear from some of the forerunners in agrivoltaics in India. They'll speak about the potential and roadblocks in the field. We'll discuss what this new way of looking at farmland could mean for a key stakeholder in agrivoltaics - the farmer.

Listen to GigaWhat and explore some of the biggest questions, challenges, and opportunities in India's transition from fossil fuel to clean energy sources. Mongabay-India is an online publication dedicated to bringing you stories on science and the environment in India.

Read the full Clean energy series on our website

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Guests:

Nutan Kaushik, Director General, Amity Food and Agriculture Foundation

Maximilian Vorast, Research Assistant, Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems

Shravan Sampath, CEO, Oakridge Energy

Links:

Agrivoltaics in India: Fertile Ground?

Agriculture in India

Agrivoltaics in India: Overview of operational Projects and relevant Policies

Renewable Energy and Land Use in India: A Vision to Facilitate Sustainable Development

Credits:

Host: Mayank Aggarwal

Writer and producer: Kartik Chandramouli

Audio editor: Tejas Dayananda Sagar

Copy editor: Priyanka Shankar

Podcast production assistant: Ayushi Kothari

Episode cover art: Mohit Negi

GigaWhat cover art: Pooja Gupta

The loss of biodiversity, the sixth mass extinction, high chances that you would have heard these terms. It's clear what pushed us into this situation - overexploitation of natural resources, pollution, the way we farm, climate change and more.

One big reason is that plants, animals and all other life forms on Earth that we collectively term as biodiversity are losing their natural spaces. Human activities have destroyed or degraded habitats such as forests, deserts, rivers, et cetera, making it hard for living organisms to survive.

But why are we talking about biodiversity loss in a podcast about renewable energy?

Shifting to clean energy is one of the world's solutions to climate change. So it's getting a massive push and investment. India has set up large-scale solar and wind farms in many states, and some are in the works. These projects stretch across acres of land equivalent to the size of a village or a town. To set up these projects and meet the country's net-zero emission goals, India needs an area almost equal to the size of Bihar.

From an energy developer's point of view, there are specific kinds of landscapes that could meet their needs and be selected for large clean energy projects. But when these landscapes are not understood well, and environmental safeguards towards them are weak or absent, renewables can go reckless. In this case, the local communities, the flora and the fauna pay the price.

In this episode, you'll hear about these unique landscapes, their non-human inhabitants and how solar and wind projects could decide their survival.

Listen to GigaWhat and explore some of the biggest questions, challenges, and opportunities in India's transition from fossil fuel to clean energy sources. Mongabay-India is an online publication dedicated to bringing you stories on science and the environment in India.

Read the full Clean energy series on our website

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram

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Guests:

M.D. Madhusudhan, Senior Scientist and Co-founder, Nature Conservation Foundation

Sumit Dookia, wildlife biologist

Parth Jagani, farmer, project coordinator (ERDS)

Show notes:

Open Natural Ecosystems map Great Indian Bustard

Power lines and bird mortality (WII)

Tackling Biodiversity & Climate Crises Together and Their Combined Social Impacts

Credits:

Host: Mayank Aggarwal

Writer and producer: Kartik Chandramouli

Audio editor: Tejas Dayananda Sagar

Copy editor: Aditi Tandon

Additional voiceover: Hagen Desa

Podcast production assistant: Ayushi Kothari

GigaWhat cover art designer: Pooja Gupta

Let's visualise the sheer expanse of one of India's largest solar parks, the Pavagada Solar Park in Karnataka. An aerial view of the site shows a never-ending sea of glass panels and wires spread across 13,000 acres. That is about 1/4th of the size of Kolkata city.

Then there are smaller solar and wind power plants too. Some are even a fraction of the Pavagada solar plant. These power projects that harness unlimited sunlight and wind need another critical resource, a limited one… land.

Land is essential to install solar panels, wind turbines and transmission lines. And in a country such as India, land is scarce. Most of the land has a human footprint. It could be private or community farmland. Or it could be the village pasture where cows and sheep graze, or it could be a parcel of land that's considered sacred for centuries and worshiped by communities.

In the race to achieve clean energy targets, the pressure falls on such land parcels beyond city boundaries and the people who depend on them. It's well acknowledged by the government, renewable energy companies and all stakeholders in the sector that land availability and acquisition are critical challenges in renewable energy projects.

On the other hand, communities risk losing rights and access to land with unfair or no compensation. So how sustainable and just are clean energy projects in their current form?

Listen to GigaWhat and explore some of the biggest questions, challenges, and opportunities in India's transition from fossil fuel to clean energy sources.

Mongabay-India is an online publication dedicated to bringing you stories on science and the environment in India.

Read the full Clean energy series on our website

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram

Subscribe to our newsletter

GUESTS:

Karthik Ganesan, Fellow and Director of Research Coordination, Council on Energy, Environment and Water

Mrinali Karthick, Database and Collaborations Lead, Land Conflict Watch

Leo Saldanha, Environment Support Group

Sikari Rongpi, farmer, Mikir Bamuni

Kawe Ingtipi, resident, Mikir Bamuni

LINKS:

Land Conflict Watch database

The Anatomy of A Solar Land Grab

Letter from the solar company

CREDITS

Host: Mayank Aggarwal

Writer and producer: Kartik Chandramouli

Additional reporting: Nabarun Guha

Audio editor: Tejas Dayananda Sagar

Copy editor: Priyanka Shankar

Additional voiceover: Saumitra Shinde

Podcast production assistant: Ayushi Kothari

GigaWhat cover art designer: by Pooja Gupta

The world is looking towards the sun, wind, and other alternatives for energy, and so is India, as a way to tackle climate change and other environmental issues. The sight of solar and wind farms, rooftops lined with solar panels, and electricity-powered vehicles might soon be common.

For the first episode of GigaWhat, we begin at the end.

Where do solar modules go when they are no longer in use? What happens when a wind turbine finishes its lifecycle? Or when an electric car battery stops working? What happens to the materials that remain after a piece of equipment dies, breaks, or malfunctions? In a world already staring at a giant waste management problem, where will all this new kind of waste go?

In this episode, we will understand why this discussion about waste is vital at the start of the clean energy boom.

Follow GigaWhat to explore some of the biggest questions, challenges, and opportunities in India's transition from fossil fuel to clean energy sources.

Read the full Clean energy series on our website

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram

Subscribe to our newsletter

Guests: Subrahmanyam Pulipaka, CEO, National Solar Energy Federation of India Akanksha Tyagi, Programme Associate, Council on Energy, Environment and Water Kush Madan, Founder, UrSolar Satish Sinha, Associate Director, Toxics Link

Show notes: PV Management in India (EU-India TCP)

National Statement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at COP26 Summit in Glasgow

2020 report by the Central Pollution Control Board

How India can Manage Solar Photovoltaic Module Waste Better (CEEW)

Credits: Host: Mayank Aggarwal

Writer and producer: Kartik Chandramouli

Copy editor: Aditi Tandon

Audio editor: Tejas Dayananda Sagar

Podcast production assistant: Ayushi Kothari

GigaWhat cover art designer: by Pooja Gupta

GigaWhat will explore some of the biggest questions, challenges, and opportunities in India's transition from fossil fuels to clean energy sources. As countries commit to cutting their carbon emissions to tackle climate change and other environmental issues, there's growing attention on the clean and renewable energy sector. And there's a lot of money behind it too. It's a sector evolving every day, right in front of us.

India is the world's third-largest energy consumer. Its clean energy dream is one of the most ambitious and the biggest in the world. On GigaWhat we'll explore the environmental, social, and infrastructure challenges the sector is facing: not enough electric vehicle battery charging stations, the absence of a recycling policy for handling discarded solar panels, and so on.

We'll also explore how clean energy has the potential to lower India's air pollution levels - one of the worst in the world. We'll also discuss the reckless side of renewable energy projects and inspect how 'clean' they really are.

You will hear Mayank Aggarwal, Contributing Editor at Mongabay-India, interacting with experts, researchers, policymakers, on-field journalists, and people on the ground to bring you insightful discussions about India's clean energy journey.

Explore the full Clean Energy series on our website.

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Credits: Hosted by Mayank Aggarwal Written and produced by Kartik Chandramouli Copy editing by Aditi Tandon and Priyanka Shankar Edited by Tejas Dayananda Sagar GigaWhat artwork by Pooja Gupta