Groundwater/Energy Nexus: A discussion paper with request for comments
July 4, 2009
Secunderabad
Sub: Discussion paper - 'Evolving an integrated approach for improving efficiency of ground water pumping for agriculture using electricity: A few pointers from the field'
View discussion paper: energy-water-action-study-discussion-paper-june-2009
Dear Sir / Madam,
Ground water pumping using electricity is a complex issue, leaving all actors - the farmers, distribution company, State government and environment conscious analysts - frustrated and dissatisfied. Farmers are frustrated with the poor quality of electricity supply, distribution companies with the low revenue, State government with the high levels of subsidy and the environmentalists with inefficient water use resulting in falling water tables. Level of mistrust between actors is also quite high. The process of evolving a sustainable solution is not clear.
This discussion paper is an attempt towards working out some ideas to address the issue. It is based on grass-root level study in 2 villages in Andhra Pradesh and discussions with various actors. Activities included field level measurement of pumping efficiency, installation of capacitors and presentations to State power companies as well as the Regulatory Commission.
We look forward to your comments.
Thanking you,
Yours truly,
Rama Mohan RV Sreekumar N
(Centre for World Solidarity, Hyderabad) (Prayas Energy Group, Pune)
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View discussion paper: energy-water-action-study-discussion-paper-june-2009
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Comments
1. Dear Sreekumar and
Dear Sreekumar and Ramamhan,
Congratulations on the excellent work. The NRAA seems to have a position paper on food security, energy and water nexus. The context is largely about Punjab but I think connections can be made with your study in AP as well. It seems to talk more of water management rather than energy management given the situation of water and energy stress.
http://nraa.in/FoodSecurityWaterAndEnergyNexus.pdf
Such cross sectoral connections do need to be made to better appreciate problems and seek solutions and your study indicates how.
Shambu
2. Dear Colleagues, I went
Dear Colleagues,
I went through the paper on energy-groundwater nexus. The topic is very relevant.
The suggestions you have provided for improving energy use efficiency are rather technical recommendations, which have long been suggested by many.
Further, you fail to distinguish between energy use efficiency and sustainability of energy use. Better quality of power supply (without electricity pricing or restrictions on volumetric pumping) only leads to higher pumping, with much higher crop outputs. It does not save electricity or groundwater.
Also, energy use efficiency does not lead to improved water use efficiency unless farmers do not pay for electricity on the basis of consumption. In fact, in this particular case, improved efficiency of pump sets would only help farmers pump out more water from wells with the same level of electricity supply. Hence, inefficiency will be more.
The only way to create economic incentive to improve energy/groundwater use efficiency is through pro-rata pricing of electricity with better quality power supply, and not just through improved quality of power supply. This will be through physical efficiency of water use (MI systems & pipe lines for water conveyance etc.), and cropping pattern shifts..
Well, we need to find out at what level we can do it (at individual farmer level or DT level), without increasing the metering costs.
There are many recent research papers (published) which you may like to refer for enriching this discussions.
The feeder line separation does not help in case of states like AP, as there isn't much water there in wells for which we need many hours of power supply! Seven hours of power supply is a lot to extract water from underground in the hard rock areas at least. Neither has it helped Gujarat farmers and electricity board!!!
In hard rock areas, from agriculture pumping point of view, we really need to understand what good quality power supply is. In many areas, wells might go dry if pump is continuously run for 6-7 hours. So, farmers might like to have it in two schedules instead of one.
Regards,
Dinesh Kumar
3. Farmers water needs must be
Farmers water needs must be met by cloud seeding.
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It is surprising why Indian NGO's refuse to help farmers by making genuine attempts to augment water supplies by following the advice of Dr.K.L.Rao,former Union Minister for Water Resources who warned that irrigation Engineers must not only depend upon the surface and ground water resources but when these conventional sources get exhausted due to rapid growth in population,agriculture and industries,they must tap the third resource in sky-water resource that contains ten times more water than available in all fresh water sources on Earth.
Are not Indian Intellectuals wise enough to visit China which is employing 37000 technicians and farmers and 500 Meteorologists to seed the clouds to produce additinal annual rainfall of 1800 TMc,almost equivalent to the annual flow in a major river like Krishna?Let NGO's first browse through the following web sites to understand how they can atleast help the poor people to get their drinking and irrigation water supplies at a cheap cost.China takes up cloud seeding to produce extra water at a cost benefit ratio of 1:27 and in Texas,it is 1:200 foer SOAR farmers who use more ground water by using pumps.see webs
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-06-29-china-rain_x.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/content/2007/s1920342.htm
http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/ho/20070509.shtml
http://www.indiawaterportal.org/blog/2007/11/16/cloud-seeding/
http://shivajirao.cloudseeding.googlepages.com/scienceofcloudseeding
http://gitam.edu/cos/env/English-Book.pdf
Shri Panchappa kalburgi is one eminent NGO of Bijapur who is genuinely fighting for water for the farmers of North Karnataka and Mr.H.K.Patil,former Minister of karnataka was coming forward to take up cloud seeding with the help of state and central Governments.,but to no avail.It seems to be true that as written by Rural Editor of THE HINDU,Mr.Sainath,EVERY BODY LOVES A GOOD DROUGHT and One can understand if officials ,engineers and politicians fish in troubled waters by promoting droughts by preventing the augmentation of water resources by cloud seeding.But NGO's must debate as to why they should refuse to help the farmers by exerting pressure over their elected representatives to visit China and Texas and prepare reports on how to copy their successful cloud seeding technologies to help Indian farmers who expect the educated citizens to help them as part of their share of gratitude towards the Tax payers for ensuring sustainable development
4. Dear Sir, The problem has
Dear Sir,
The problem has been formulated well-but no solution is coming out don't you think rain waters can solve the problem both of energy; which shall not be required then for pumping ground water- for proper rains we need forest which is depleting very fast under population load-so the only ecological solution to the problem is reduction of population of this country.How can this be achieved in a positive way??If solved most of the problems India is facing today will be solved.
5. Dear Ram Mohan and
Dear Ram Mohan and Sreekumar,
Your's discusssion paper is one of the need of the hour. The water is being pumped with high H.P pumps beyond the bearing capacity of the borewells
and more than to that of the water requirement for the crops cultivated. There are several ocassions where in the farmers never knew the time of the electric supply in the night for irrigation purposes and all the pumping systems were kept on for the whole night so to say that the water is being pumped from the bore well beyond the requirements for the crop and the electricity/Energy are wasted along with the precious water. Also, As there is a subsidy/free electricity is offered to the farmers, things have become still worse. Further, water use efficiency and conservation aspects never trickled down to the present level farmers context. Though the traditional system of farming practices in India is a lesson in itself, our present mordernized farming practices have forced our farmers to adopt bore well culture and have spoiled the traditional water harvesting system and its appropriate usage. If the traditional water harvesting bodies are revived and various other conservation aspects are practized, the utilization of water from the bore wells will be controlled and over exploitation will be curtailed to an optimum level. Once, the water use efficiency is enhanced, the amount of power consumption will be reduced automatically. To achieve this various line department need to join hands and work for a common cause rather then a seperate entity.
Murali Kochukrishnan.
AFPRO, Bhubaneswar.
6. [...] supply motivated KICS
[...] supply motivated KICS members Ramamohan and Sreekumar to undertake the study on water and energy (click here to read the study) to try and demonstrate savings to the exchequer if only the state treated farmers as proper [...]
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