Pollution - Causes and Remedies. (An Effort to Cleanse Earth) :::: Exclusive Article

Today, the hottest topic in the world is Pollution. It is the main factor that has closed many factories in the world and also responsible fact in the floods of London. Pollution has created pollution in minds of people. Yesterday, while passing through an industrial area, I saw a huge cloud above a thin pipe raised in air. If such a thin pipe can create a havoc in air, then what about all the pipes in world. Man has learnt that nature cleans itself very wisely. As soon as we pollute a bit, it cleans off. This is like an automatic vacuum cleaner detecting and cleaning dust and various other dirt on floor. If it detects dust, it cleans off automatically. But what is we add heaps of sand? It will take time, but ultimately it will clean it off. And what if we go on adding the heaps of sand? It will also clean it but will take much more time. And if we repeat the process, it may take entire day to clean it off. Similar is the case with our earth. We are adding pollutants in the atmosphere, water and sand continuously without thinking of after-effects. The pollutants are polluting the atmosphere continuously. Nature is also continuously at it’s speed, but it is not able to cope up with our speed of polluting. As a result, pollutants are acquiring place in atmosphere till nature cleans it. When these pollutants are static, they create more and more destruction. Like, if the pollutants get concentrated in water, they harm the precious marine life. If they accumulate in soil, they harm the nitrogenous bacteria and plants and if they conquer atmosphere, they harm entire terrestrial life. I am not blaming factories here but I am pointing out at those industries who do not dispose their waste properly and especially the harmful ones. Right now, America is taking extreme precautions regarding the disposal of nuclear waste. But what about the dye and sulphur industries? Should not the country or rather world take extreme steps against them. And if they do not agree, they should be immediately stopped and their items or entire factory should be shut down. How can we betray nature, who has given us such a wonderful place to live? Man is making this wonderful nature dirty by his greed. Now, let us see, how can we stop this betrayal.

Petrol, diesel and vehicles running on kerosene have great contribution to pollution. They contribute quite a handsome amount in global warming. If we somehow stop using these vehicles, we might reduce the rate of increasing pollution to much extent. I do not mean that we must travel on horses or camels, but we must find some other means of transport. An electric car is a great advantage. In other way, it also contributes to pollution because of batteries and also electricity comes from thermal power stations which do pollute air but it does not pollute much. Also, noise pollution is reduced to much great extent. We can also use cars running on natural gas like CNG. We have CNG vehicles running on road in many cities of India. CNG pollutes the environment to very small extent. Use of Hydrogen as fuel will evade pollution by exhausting water. In hydrogen cars, water is released and not some poisonous gas. My opinion says, In India, we have lots of domestic animals. No, no, do not think of using bullock cart as transport, but we can use the gobar gas (Gas released from dung of domestic animals which contains mainly methane) as a fuel in cars. Gobar gas stations must be setup. It is not that smelly. The main gas is pure and gives out pure blue flame on burning. It is very similar to natural gas. Other alternative is use of solar cells in recharging batteries of electric cars. Solar energy is being wasted everyday. We are not utilizing the rays of sun. If we use solar cells, we can cut down the use of thermal power stations and hence reducing the load. Today, use of solar cells in generating power is already in practice like, you’ll find solar cells in calculators, wristwatches, and some of handy appliances also, but it has not got up to that extent to reduce pollution. Like, Solar cells have taken place in calculators where their place was not needed. Were calculators causing pollution? No. Were wristwatches contributing in global warming? No. Solar cells should be used in those areas who are contributing in pollution. Like in cars. Yes, I do agree that they are being used in handful of concept cars. Test models for cars using solar cells are being made but they are not taken into practice. Today battery operated cars are in use and you can see quite a few of them running on roads but still, it does not reduce pollution much. You see that the waste from car batteries do again the same amount of pollution that car exhaust does. But still that is considered as a nice alternative. In India, you can see quite lot of Electric bikes like Yo! bike, Ultra, hero etc running on roads. Those bikes are exhaust free and hence they do not create any kind or air pollution. And what’s the best thing? They also do not create noise pollution. When an electric bike starts off, you feel like you are starting a UFO. That sound startles me. If you are watching National Geographic then you might be knowing a show which shows two engineers creating eco-friendly devices. Out of it’s several episodes, there’s one episode where they had taken up the task of building a solar powered boat in Venice, Italy. It had solar cells on the top connected with batteries and those batteries were further connected to a motor which accelerated the boat. Batteries were previously charged by solar cells out in sun. They ran the boat in Venice surprising people out there because traditional boats would make a lot of noise where these solar-powered boat made no noise. Instead, it was thought that the boat was gliding in waters. That solar powered boat was a bit slower than normal but was a bit faster than the tourist boats. So, that boat was fit for tourists but what about daily commuters? So, they built a plan to create a battery-operated speed boat. That was faster than the previously built solar powered boat.

I do really appreciate such programs who strive to create eco-friendly alternatives for mankind to avoid pollution. Enough of discussion for solar energy, let us move on to hydro power. Solar Energy is obtained from Sun while Hydro energy is obtained from water. It is not such that you put a wire in water and you’ll get lots of energy. No, You can only obtain energy from moving water. In this condition, kinetic energy of water is converted to mechanical energy or the turbine and then this mechanical energy is then converted to electrical energy. Don’t think that this is this much small process. If you do it actually, it is small process but if you precisely examine it, it is very long one. So, the electricity obtained from hydro energy is called Hydro Electricity. If you have a running water source besides your house like some sort of river or something like that, then you can surely obtain hydro electricity. Do not take tap water in consideration because that will only help you obtain very little amount of energy. If you put a tough turbine below a waterfall, huge amount of electricity can be obtained. I don’t remember sharply but I think Chinese used this technology before decades.  This energy source is absolutely pollution free and is also pure and easily available energy source. I’m sorry, it’s not that easily available because some regions may have rivers while some may not. In regions with rivers or waterfalls, this energy source can be used extensively. Today in India, quite a few cities have Hydro Power Stations. These power stations are perfect fit for replacement of thermal power stations in areas having rivers and waterfalls. And yes! one thing is most important. Rivers on which these Hydro power stations are built up should have water flowing through them. And also water level of rivers should not differ at large or else water will just flow below the turbines without even touching them. I suggest that as river sabarmati is holding narmada waters, Hydro power stations should be setup as much as possible so as to reduce load of thermal power stations. And if possible, thermal power stations should be shut down in replacement of Hydro and Solar power stations. See, Our goal is to eradicate the devil of Global warming. So, in order to win the war, we need to work everywhere. Replacing three or four thermal power stations with Hydro and solar power stations won’t make some great change in the effects of global warming but we need to work in all over country and if possible all over the world. Consider a situation where we have lot’s of dirt on road. Cleaning dirt in just a foot area won’t make any difference to the smelly road. We need to clean off as much dirt as we can from the road. The global warming will be reduced a bit only after we replace 50% of the total thermal power stations. See, Thermal power stations are at root level. We also have industries working on coal. Mainly casting industries work on coal. We also need to replace those factories working on coal with electric furnaces. That will reduce the pollution to much great extent. This what we are facing right now is just the beginning of global warming. Ok, enough of hydro energy and let’s discuss about Gobar Gas.

It’s not that smelly as you think. Neither will your food smell if you cook things on that. Aren’t you curious to know about Gobar gas? Ok, let me tell you that this gas is made out of all the waste material obtained. First of all a huge pit is made in ground having nice cover. Then all the dung matter of domestic or non-domestic animals is added in the pit including compost matter like leaves, dry grass, paper and so on. Then, the pit is covered. Everyday, new waste is added along with some water and the pit is stirred using a pole. Sounds pretty smelly, isn’t it? Then, when the waste level in pit reaches up to 60%, addition of new materials is stopped and the pit is closed for a week. Then, you get a typical gas consisting of mainly methane. This gas is filled in a gas container. When you put flame to this gas, the flame turns to Blue marking the complete combustion of gas. Think of using a gobar gas power station. Or still we might be able to use that gas in or cars in distant future. You might be thinking of hydrogen as a fuel but I tell you, hydrogen does not support combustion but it combusts itself. Into a flame, when you supply oxygen, the flame turns to blue but when you supply hydrogen, the gas itself explodes and then the combustion takes place. In such cases use of hydrogen in cooking or other purpose may result lethal damage. Imagine of using hydrogen in your cooking stove. As soon as you start the gas supply and you lit the lighter, the gas explodes and if that’s big enough, it might take you in flames. But thanks to out hard working researchers that they are working pretty hard for it. Also don’t think of using oxygen as fuel because that’s quite expensive. I don’t know much about CNG, LPG and PNG but I think that they are obtained from petroleum wells itself as a product of petroleum. That’s too is an exhaustible source of energy but it is predicted that it won’t get exhausted as early as petrol and diesel and so we are having it in our cars.

How do you feel when you are on a beach facing the cool breeze? Or how do you feel standing in strong wind on a mountain top? Pretty pleasant isn’t it? Almost all people have this experience at least once in their life time. In spite of having such pleasant experience we never thought of generating electricity until somebody; I do not know the name or date; invented a way to generate electricity out of wind. Wind is a free source of energy and is being wasted since thousands of years. Now, we’ve got a way of utilizing it to it’s full extent. Wind mills can generate electricity and they can also do mechanical work like grinding of grains and so on. Let me explain you the mechanism. When the wind moves through the rotary blades of Wind Mill, these blades create a pressure difference among the blades and in order to fulfill that pressure difference, the blades rotate. The blades are designed to create pressure difference continuously and so they continuously rotate until the wind flows through them. As the wind is having kinetic energy, that gets converted to mechanical energy of blades and this mechanical energy is then converted to electrical energy with the help of generator. Electricity generated from a single wind mill is very less. Hence several wind mills are connected and are concentrated in a small area and that area is called wind farm of wind field. Wind farms can create a lot of electricity. As wind farms and wind mills completely depend upon flow of wind, these farms are placed on areas where there is continuous flow of wind and not only that, the flow of wind should have speed of at least 25 km/h. Where do you get this speed? Of course on hill stations and beach. Yes, Wind farms are usually placed on beaches and hill stations. They are placed on high elevation areas so that continuous flow of wind is obtained. Wind energy is absolutely pollution free and hence it can be used as an alternative to traditional power stations. Flow of wind is never going to stop on earth and so is the wind energy. When I was small, I had a great insane plan in my mind. I never told anybody about that but as I recall my memories now, I am laughing at that plan. My plan was to run a space shuttle absolutely free. Yes, you would require fuel to just run the space shuttle on the runway but then you won’t require it any longer. I thought of affixing wind mills over the surface of space shuttle. When, the space shuttle would move, that would create a low of wind and so, the rotor blades would move very fast. As the space shuttle takes off the runway, the rotor blades would move very fast as the wind flow is very high. As a result, very high amount of electricity would be generated. Now, with that electricity, engine having much higher capacity would be powered and with that the space shuttle would slowly exit earth’s gravitational field. Laughing aren’t you? This idea is worth laughing because, I can’t even imaging a space shuttle having wind mills on top and moving. How insane. If space people see my idea, then they would also burst out laughing. Anyways, We have yet another alternative called tidal energy.

Tidal energy as it’s name suggests is obtained from tides. Forget about using the sea as Voltaic cell because that energy won’t be able to power your iPod also. We are dealing on large scale, so we will be considering of using energy of tides and not of sea water. I don’t believe that tidal energy would yield much results because the entire plant which is in contact with sea water will surely get corroded in a month. Secondly tides don’t generate large amount of energy. In tidal energy, the tidal plant is places on the sea shore itself. That’d ruin your beach fun but that’s better than living in a polluted environment. In that plant, because of force, water enters through a huge gateway where it fills a pit and when it reaches to certain level, the water enters another pipe having turbines in it. Water passes through turbines and comes out of plant. That is what all about tidal energy and the power plant working on tidal energy. This energy is of course free of cost but would be very expensive to setup that plant. Moreover, maintenance would also be very expensive as entire plant would get corroded quickly. Such plants can only be setup on areas with ports and beaches. There’s no chance of generating electricity from tidal energy in middle areas.

These are the remedies which work at large scale. What you can do against pollution? Well, you can at least grow trees to increase the oxygen level and reduce carbon dioxide. You know that in a forest it rains heavily. Do you know why? Well, trees are great attraction for water loaded clouds. Trees attract clouds so they can rain. Almost all living things inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide except trees. Trees inhale carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen and as you see that’s exactly opposite process. This helps in maintaining the carbon dioxide – oxygen level in atmosphere. So, we can at least grow trees to eradicate harmful gases from the atmosphere. Trees are greatest purifiers. Please spread this message to everybody so we all can unite and make the earth GREEN again. Or if you can’t afford to grow trees in the dense cities,we can at least stop disposal of harmful waste like plastic in soil. If you watch somebody disposing polythene bags in ground, you can stop him telling the harmful effects about it. If you can’t, just tell him to visit my blog, and our posts would handle the case. Today, man is planning to leave earth and settle in space. How selfish he is. He says it is a part of development. But the real factor is pollution. We are planning to leave earth, our very own mother because she is polluted. Will you leave your mother who is bed ridden in cancer or any other awful disease making some excuses forever? You can’t even think of this. You won’t even leave her for a minute also. Man is sensitive at heart towards his mother but not towards mother of mother, the nature. Should we be too ungrateful towards our mother and leave her dirty? We should not go like this. We can’t leave our mother like this. Let us unite and make this earth a better place to live. We are exploiting the resources from nature like anything. Trees are being cut ruthlessly and what’s more, we are pulling out poisonous substances, which our mother nature has dug deep in earth for our safety, and we are polluting the nature and ourselves. Do you know how many diseases have been invented? If you make the list, then you will be afraid that it would go over a mile. These diseases are a result of poisonous substances being pulled out of earth. We should not exploit the earth like this. We need to understand that the only way to save the earth is by acting united. We all should have the feeling of being one. We all have the same blood, same organs and same brain. We should make them work positively towards the care of earth and nature. Why didn’t mother nature made plastic grow on trees? Because plastic is harmful to us. Why petrol is not found naturally in lakes and oceans? Because it is harmful to nature and environment. Nature has tried it’s best to save us from all possible threats. It has put a thick airy layer and a strong gravitational force to save us from meteors and comets. Though some of them manage to come across the field, but the arrangement is such that these comets fall in oceans only. If we consider all the examples, this article would go a hundred miles.

I have just one plea to all of you. Please do not take the pollution for granted. Do not think that the government is there to save us. Government is going to do it’s best to avert all kinds of possible threats but we will have to take the preventive measures against this pollution. So, let’s take vow to save this earth from all possible threats. Let us save our very own house from being destroyed. Let us hope that in the coming years we will face no threat for pollution and next coming generation will have a cleaner air to breathe.