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Northern India has undergone intense urbanization since the middle of the 20th century. The impact of such drastic land-use change on the regional weather and climate remains to be assessed. In this work, we study the impact of the modification of land use – from vegetation to urban – on the Indian summer monsoon rainfall as well as on other meteorological variables. We use the regional Meso-scale Non-Hydrostatic (Meso-NH) model coupled with an urban module (the Town Energy Balance model) to perform monthlong sensitivity simulations centered around Kolkata, the most urbanized area in northeastern India. Paired simulations, one with and another without urban settings, have been performed to identify the impacts related to urbanization through both thermodynamic and kinetic effects. We find that the perturbation induced by urban land use enhances the mean rainfall over the model domain, principally by intensifying the convective activity through thermodynamic perturbation, leading to a 14.4 % increase in the monthly mean rainfall. The urban area also induces a 15.0 % rainfall increase during two modeled periods of heavy precipitation caused by low-pressure systems. In addition, the modeling results demonstrate that the urban area not only generally acts as a rainfall enhancer, particularly during nighttime, but also induces the generation of a specific storm in one modeled case that would not have formed in the absence of the urban area. The initiation of this storm over the city was primarily due to the urban terrain's disturbance of the near-surface wind flow, leading to a surge in dynamically produced turbulent kinetic energy (TKE). The thermal production of TKE over the nighttime urban boundary layer, on the other hand, serves as a contributing factor to the storm formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northern India has been subjected to an intense urbanization since the middle of the twentieth century. The impact of such a drastic land-use change on regional weather and climate remains to be assessed. In this work, we study the impact of the modification of land-use – from vegetation to urban – on the Indian summer monsoon rainfall, as well as other meteorological variables. We use the regional meteorology model Meso-NH coupled with an urban module (the Town Energy Balance model) to perform month-long sensitivity simulations centered around Kolkata, the most urbanized area in Northeastern India. Paired simulations, one with and another without urban settings have been performed to identify the impacts related to urbanization through both thermodynamic and kinetic effects. We find that the perturbation induced by urban land-use enhances the mean rainfall over the model domain, principally by intensifying the convective activity through thermodynamical perturbation, leading to an increase of 14.4 % of the monthly mean rainfall. In addition, the modeling results demonstrate that not only does the urban area act in general as a rainfall enhancer, particularly during nighttime, but it also induces the generation of a specific storm in one modeled case that would not have formed in the absence of the urban area. This storm initiation over the city was done primarily by urban terrain's disturbance of the near surface wind flow, leading to a surge of dynamically produced turbulent kinetic energy (TKE). The thermal production of TKE over the nighttime urban boundary layer, on the other hand, serves as a contributing factor to the storm formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ultra-low mass primordial black holes (PBH), which may briefly dominate the energy density of the universe but completely evaporate before the big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN), can lead to interesting observable signatures. In our previous work, we studied the generation of a doubly peaked spectrum of induced stochastic gravitational wave background (ISGWB) for such a scenario and explored the possibility of probing a class of baryogenesis models wherein the emission of massive unstable particles from the PBH evaporation and their subsequent decay contributes to the matter-antimatter asymmetry. In this work, we extend the scope of our earlier work by including spinning PBHs and consider the emission of light relativistic dark sector particles, which contribute to the dark radiation (DR) and massive stable dark sector particles, thereby accounting for the dark matter (DM) component of the universe. The ISGWB can probe the non-thermal production of these heavy DM particles, which cannot be accessible in laboratory searches. For the case of DR, we find a novel complementarity between the measurements of ∆Neff from these emitted particles and the ISGWB from PBH domination. Our results indicate that the ISGWB has a weak dependence on the initial PBH spin. However, for gravitons as the DR particles, the initial PBH spin plays a significant role, and only above a critical value of the initial spin parameter a*, which depends only on initial PBH mass, the graviton emission can be probed in the CMB-HD experiment. Upcoming CMB experiments such as CMB-HD and CMB-Bharat, together with future GW detectors like LISA and ET, open up an exciting possibility of constraining the PBHs parameter space providing deeper insights into the expansion history of the universe between the end of inflation and BBN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thermal power generation is economical in the current scenario, but it is a water-intensive process, resulting in a high-water footprint. In this research, life cycle water use (LCWU) was assessed for three coal-based thermal power plant in India. The LCWU was found to be in the range of 2.5 to 3.5 L-kWh−1. The results of the LCWU of coal-based thermal power plants in India are higher than the global average of 1.75 L-kWh−1. In order to reduce the dependency on water, air-cooled condenser (ACC) with a novel approach of reducing temperature of air before entering into condenser is purposed using vapour absorption chillers. A 300 MW thermal power plant located in the South India region is chosen to illustrate the application of the proposed system. Initially, waste heat from flue gas is used to run a vapour absorption chiller, and finally a solar-assisted vapour compression chiller is used. Also, in order to utilize large coastal lines in India, an alternate approach of sea water cooling-based thermal power generation is investigated. A 2 MW steam turbine plant utilizing deep sea water is designed and analysed. In seawater cooling system the condenser temperature is reduced, increasing efficiency by 1.9% and power output by 133 kW. It resulted in power generation with multiple benefits, including cooling, desalinated water, and increased plant efficiency. The outcomes of this study provide information on water use in Indian thermal power plants along with its comparative assessment. A study of ACCs and seawater-cooled condensers is also an opportunity to reduce the life-cycle water use in thermal power plants in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrating renewable resources with existing power system are rapidly increasing day by day, becoming an effective way to rural electrification where distribution system extension is not economically feasible. This research aims to design such an optimal grid-connected hybrid renewable energy system (HRES) modelled using solar, wind energy, diesel generator, battery storage, thermal loads, thermal load controller, and boiler. This system is designed to meet the load demand requirement of chintalayapalle village, Andhra Pradesh, India. The techno-economic, sensitivity analysis and cost-effective optimal configuration of this system have been performed using HOMER software. Totally eight configurations have been designed here and the optimal configuration have been identified based on the minimum net present cost (NPC), lowest cost of energy (COE), and the highest renewable fraction (RF). Results obtained shows that the optimally configured system is more environmentally friendly because of less carbon emission. Also, it would be more cost-effective when wind power becomes the main energy source and combined with moderate capacity of solar photovoltaic and battery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tapping the full potential of clean, renewable energy resources to effectively meet the steadily increasing energy demand is the critical need of the hour and an important proactive step towards achieving sustainability. India's solar energy consumption has witnessed a nearly twofold increase from 6.76 GW in 2015–16 to 12.28 in 2016–17. Since India enjoys the advantage of high solar insolation, increasing the efficiency of solar power systems can tremendously boost clean energy generation. The escalating energy crisis currently faced by India has compelled scientists and researchers to focus on identifying novel economical and efficient technologies for large-scale energy production. Direct utilization of solar energy for fuel conversion has attained greater importance. In this context, generation of hydrogen from industrial wastewater by using solar energy offers significant economic as well as environmental benefits. This investigative review paper focuses on the importance of the solar photocatalytic process to recover the clean energy H2 from sulphide containing industrial wastewater. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Observations from the Cloud-Aerosol Interaction and Precipitation Enhancement Experiment-Integrated Ground Observation Campaign (CAIPEEX-IGOC) provide a rare opportunity to investigate nocturnal atmospheric surface-layer processes and surface-layer turbulent characteristics associated with the low-level jet (LLJ). Here, an observational case study of the nocturnal boundary layer is presented during the peak monsoon season over Peninsular India using data collected over a single night representative of the synoptic conditions of the Indian summer monsoon. Datasets based on Doppler lidar and eddy-covariance are used for this purpose. The LLJ is found to generate nocturnal turbulence by introducing mechanical shear at higher levels within the boundary layer. Sporadic and intermittent turbulent events observed during this period are closely associated with large eddies at the scale of the height of the jet nose. Flux densities in the stable boundary layer are observed to become non-local under the influence of the LLJ. Different turbulence regimes are identified, along with transitions between turbulent periods and intermittency. Wavelet analysis is used to elucidate the presence of large-scale eddies and associated intermittency during nocturnal periods in the surface layer. Although the LLJ is a regional-scale phenomenon it has far reaching consequences with regard to surface-atmosphere exchange processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eurasian Geopolitics as explained in the Heartland model has been reincarnated as Energy Geopolitics. Germany and India are the two strategic economies of the Inner Crescent of Mackinder's 'Heartland' Model and are largely similar in geopolitical focus to the rest of Eurasia. The article argues that in the coming decades at least, Russia will play an important role in these countries' energy vision. A similar unique convergence of goals regarding energy technology requirements will also be seen in the coming decades. India cannot abandon the developmental needs of its one billion plus people to the energy monopolies. Neither does Germany as a significant global economy wish to hang its globalisation efforts on similar energy uncertainties. Both countries therefore seek to spread their energy security through technology-centred geopolitical pluralism. Central Asian energy resources thus seem to be a geopolitical temptation that both nations find hard to ignore. Geopolitical contingencies, it is argued, might bring them together to explore a mixed set of options under some kaleidoscopic combination of an altogether new energy vision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India accounts for six per cent of the world's primary energy consumption. Rapid urbanization and rapid urban population growth have had a serious impact on energy consumption and subsequent carbon emissions. In particular, cities face a complex and interrelated set of challenges across different sectors (building environment, mobility, water and waste management and public services). Re-examining these challenges by integrating smart energy management (SEM) principles is critical for sustainable and low-carbon urban development. In addition, managing energy footprint is one of the most challenging goals for cities, and as existing cities evolve and transform into smart cities, SEM becomes an integral part of the urban transformation. This article comprehensively reviews the different SEM technologies for different sectors (construction, transportation, public services, water and waste), the policies, and the current challenges and opportunities for SEM policy governance in India. Making urban energy smart can manage a city's energy footprint and have a positive impact on future carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the plan of Reliance Industries to set up a gas-based power plant in Uttar Pradesh in India as of February 2004. Capacity of the planned power plant; Expectations on the power plant project; Description of the construction process.