Energy is easily obtained from non-renewable sources such as coal and hydrocarbons. However, this form of energy uptake is not forever if you consider the long term sustainability of such energy resources. These sources are becoming more and more expensive by the barrell and the cost paid by the planet in terms of environmental degradation would only come back to haunt our healthy lifestyle.

Renewable sources of energy are the most sustainable in terms of both cost and the forseeable future. Especially for countries like my own India, renewable sources of energy offer an independence from relying heavily on oil-rich countries for oil and natural gases. Brazil has also broken new ground with it's revolutionary commitment to Bio-fuels ! So, in the future, we are going to see more and more countries, especially the ones from the developing world opting for renewable sources of energy which directly produce energy on site; reducing costs incurred in procurement, transportation and overall dependence and burden on the economy.

I was travelling from Thirunelveli, a town in Tamilnadu to Kerala when I noticed enroute that a village had a lot of windmills. It was a very windy village and all around, one could see windmills of all shapes and sizes rotating gently with the wind. I later learned that it was a village called Muppandal in Tamilnadu, India which was actually a model village for India's 2 billion dollar wind energy programme. It generates enough energy for the village's works. I was amazed to learn that the State of Tamilnadu alone has produced 3216 MW of energy from wind by 2006 !

In the future, no matter how glitzy it becomes with artificial intelligence or cyborgs and androids, we would still need energy. The most important criteria for the affordability of such technologies to the common people would be the energy required to power such technologies. It would be extremely important that we remember to develop technologies that can effectively make use of such renewable sources of energy. Automobiles being develped recently are extremely fuel efficient. I heard from a friend recently that an old car of the 60's used to run only for 5 Kilometres on a litre of Petrol. Compare that to an average family car which gives upto 18 kilometres for a litre of Petrol. A motorbike gives even more mileage. But, just imagine if we could have the option to switch from Petrol to say, battery power. In my city Chennai as in many others, that has also become a reality in the practical sense. There are many autorickshaws in Chennai, which commute passengers to and fro. Most of these "autos" now run on Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG). Most autos have a switch which the driver can use as an option to switch between his gas cylinder and his petrol tank. This to me is pretty amazing ! I like such options, and I know that most of us would have loved our very first electronic calculator that used to run on both battery and solar power. Let's just hope that we have more and more of such options.

To learn more about Renewable sources of energy in Tamilnadu, India, you could visit :
The Tamilnadu Energy Development Agency