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 Fashion Foldable Solar Led Table Light Reading Lamp US $9.99 |
 6 LED Solar Powered Desktop Lamp Table Light H65 US $7.99 |
 Portable solar LED Reading Lamp Table Foldable Light US $7.30 |
 NEW SOLAR POWER OUTDOOR TULIP FLOWER TABLE LAMP LIGHT US $19.95 |
 VINTAGE ANTIQUE TALL BRASS ORNATE TABLE LAMP THE SOLAR US $395.00 |
 Portable Foldable Solar Reading Lamp Solar Table Light US $20.90 |
 SOLAR Power Desktop Table LAMP Light 890B BRAND NEW US $35.33 |
 Solar Power Riesenrad Ferris Wheel Bed Table Lamp NIB US $79.99 |
 Smart Solar Outdoor Solar Table Lamp 10 LED Lights US $94.99 |
 Portable Solar Foldable Reading Lamp Solar Table Light US $10.99 |
 Smart Solar 3593MRM1 Aluminum Table Light Lamp NEW US $62.95 |
 Solar Table Light Lamp 16 LED 12 Hour on 5 H charge NEW US $22.95 |
 Solar Co Kerosene Lamp Oil Pottery Table Lamp US $32.50 |
 Foldable Flexible Solar LED Table PC Light Reading Lamp US $14.24 |
 Solar Power Outdoor Aluminum Table Lamp Bronze Finish US $119.99 |
 4 LED Table Flash light Lamp 2 AA Battery Solar Charger US $5.99 |
 New Solar Powered Wicker Table Lamp US $152.62 |
 Portable Solar Reading 4 LED Desk Table Lamp Light New US $20.90 |
 Orbit Solar Contemporary Table Lamp Chrome $279 NIB US $89.00 |
 Smart Solar Solar Table Lamp US $64.94 |
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Mark Feldstein & Associates Solar Mosaic Jar Globe ... |
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Home Hobby Table - Limited Time 20% Off Sale! Price shown reflects discount. $134.94 Completely supported laminated work surface set at a comfortable height of 36" with a sturdy, lightweight metal frame with locking casters. The steel legs and supports are electro-powder coated to provide a fine finish. Sides fold down for convenient storage. Table dimensions: Full: 59-1/2"L x 36"W x 36"H, Half: 36"L x 36"W x 36"H, Folded: 13"L x 36"W x 36"H. |
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Compact Lamp Carrying Case U62000: White w/Blue Trim - Limited Time 20% Off Sale! Price shown reflects discount. $14.94 A convenient carry case for the Daylight Compact Lamps. Features a 4-sided, zippered top, nylon exterior, padded side walls, and adjustable shoulder strap. |
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Cropper Hopper Wire Table Top Holder: 10.25x4.5x3.5 - Limited Time 20% Off Sale! Price shown reflects discount. $7.79 Store stamp pads and more right at your fingertips! Holds 12 stamp pads. |
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Hip In A Hurry Vinyl 22.75x23: Lincoln Round Table - Limited Time 20% Off Sale! Price shown reflects discount. $17.94 Vinyl by Hip in a Hurry allows you to create amazing borders, wall art, home decor, and so much more! HIH Vinyl is available in graphics, alphabets, word art, corner decor, and more. Vinyl sticks to most smooth, dry surfaces, including walls, ceilings, windows, and mirrors. Available in solid color silhouettes, full color printed graphics, borders, geometrics, patterns, and motifs. Many styles to choose from, and instructions and applicatorare included in every package. Approximate size: 22.75"H x 23"W. |
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Beyond The Page MDF Table Tidy - Limited Time 20% Off Sale! Price shown reflects discount. $3.94 Beyond The Page is a fabulous line of products that is made of quality press boards. Paint, ink, chalk, paper, and embellish your way to a truly unique piece of art. This little pre-assembled box is perfect for pens and markers, along with other tools you need handy in your work area. Box dimensions: 3-7/8" x 3-1/4" x 3-3/16". |
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Boutique Dimensional Stickers: Wedding Table Setting - Limited Time 20% Off Sale! Price shown reflects discount. $3.3 Mixed media dimensional self-adhesive embellishments by the industry's leading sticker designers. Size, shape, colors, and number of stickers per package vary by design. |
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Table Top Organizer 14x7x5: Purple - Limited Time 20% Off Sale! Price shown reflects discount. $23.94 Made of clear vinyl with canvas sewn seams and edges. A wonderful way to organize. For an added bonus, a strap is included so you can easily pick up the entire caddy and go in a flash. 8 small outer pockets and 1 large center compartment. |
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11x14 Format Frame $5.99 This Format Frame with front loading design is perfect for photos, certificates & prints. Ideal for the wall or the table. |
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Westcott 12 Wood Base Guillotine Paper Trimmer: Stainless Steel Blades - Limited Time 20% Off Sale! Price shown reflects discount. $47.94 This paper trimmer has some weight to it so it will not slide around on your table or counter when being used. Comes with an adjustable paper guide and a built-in handle. |
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Light Box Electric 6x9 - Limited Time 20% Off Sale! Price shown reflects discount. $9.85 The small size of this light box makes it easy to take along anywhere. It is ideal for embossing and tracing projects. The bulb included with this light table is a great value. Use 15 watt replacement bulbs. |
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Silk Baby Blooming Lotus Solar Table Lamp (Vietnam) $84.99 Made with a durable steel frame, this high-quality silk table lamp is perched on an ebony wood base. This Om Gallery silk blooming lotus table lamp is the perfect complement to any room in the house or as a gift. |
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Desert Sun Tiffany Table Lamp $109.99 Shade contains pieces of stained glass, each hand-cut and wrapped in fine copper foilLamp features a metal base with a bronze finishLamp measures 25 inches tall x 18 inches in diameter at shade |
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Tiffany-style Sun Rays Mission Table Lamp $103.99 Add an elegant touch to your home decor with this Tiffany-style mission table lamp. This lamp features a sun rays design. |
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All-weather Wicker Espresso Solar Lamp $125.99 This all-weather wicker lamp features an espresso finish and convenient solar powered lighting. This wicker lamp is the perfect accessory for your outdoor living space. |
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Tiffany-style Sun Design Bronze Table Lamp $94.99 A colorful stained glass shade with a sun design highlights this Tiffany-style table lamp. This light features a bronze finish. |
Solar power is the best bet
Recently we in Bhopal had a 16-hour power outage commencing from midnight until 4.00 next afternoon. The inverter saw us through the hot and stuffy night but it, too, lost its energy by the next afternoon. There was no alternative but to bear the acute discomfort of an air-less hot afternoon. Outages are frequent but this was out of the ordinary.
Lazing around through the day drenched in sweat in the sweltering heat my mind wandered and sauntered down the years that have gone by. In the early 1940s I used to be a child in Gwalior which was the capital of the eponymous princely state. Although we had electricity in our rented house there were many others in the neighbourhood, including that of a minister, which did not. Apparently, even then it took quite a bit to have one's house electrified. Living off the arterial road, we still had gas lamps to light up our rather broad, generally, deserted lane. Every evening a man would trudge down the lane with a ladder on his shoulders to light up the lamps mounted on somewhat low posts. He would repeat his trip in the early mornings to put out the lights. The lane got its electric streetlights much later.
Apart from lighting up the houses and streets electricity had very little non-industrial use in those days. Hardly any electrical appliances were available for domestic purposes except, of course, fans – table or ceiling. Right through the ‘40s, I recall, we managed the hot Gwalior summers with two Table Fans in combination with thick khas curtains with water dripping on them through perforated pipes. Radios, symbol for the well-to-do then with their roof-top antennas, were very few. The per capita carbon footprint was, naturally, negligible
As I grew older radios became ubiquitous, so much so that they would be raucously blaring out film songs from paan shops. Even during the first few post-Independence decades of "Hindu rate of (economic) growth" (of around 3%) the middle classes were inflating, though tardily, and electrical equipment and appliances appeared in the markets to feed their demand. Soon electric kettles, hot plates, mixer-grinders to refrigerators made their appearance for making things easier in the kitchen. For the living rooms there were radios, of course, followed by electrically operated turn-tables, record-changers, even radiograms and tape (spool) recorders. To meet the exigencies of the weather there were either heaters or coolers, even an occasional air conditioner.
All these were confined to a very thin upper crust of the society – the rich and upper middle classes. Liberalisation of the economy in the early 1990s brought about a sea change. Not only MNCs descended in the country in large numbers, transfer of modern sophisticated technology also took place. The rapidly expanding middle classes accessed a whole new range of electrical appliances known as "white goods" and luxury items at prices that were competitive owing to the phenomenon of "globalisation". What were confined to a small segment progressively came within the reach of a much larger section of the population. As a result, electricity today doesn't simply light up the houses; it runs kitchens, helps in washing clothes, crockery and utensils, cools and heats the houses, entertains the family and provides 24X7 connectivity. No wonder, the per capita carbon footprint rose from 0.8 in 1990 to 1.3 in 2006 and yet nowhere near the footprint of giants like US which was 32.8 in 2006.
The veritable explosion of the middle classes and the accompanying growth of industry and commerce preordained a rise in demand for power. The supply, however, could never match the demand making shortages endemic. The country currently lives through a regime of extensive power cuts and prolonged outages. All talks of sufficiency in the near future are misleading as, firstly, there are not enough power projects in the pipeline and, secondly, in the current times of faster economic growth demand is always likely to outstrip the supply.
The problem is likely to get compounded as environmental considerations may inhibit the country's efforts to install many more coal-fired power plants unless it is able to, miraculously, find a cleaner thermal power technology. Similar considerations may hamper development of hydro power. Already there are protests, for example, against proposals for scores of hydro-power projects in the states of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh. The current government seems to be banking on nuclear energy. That too carries its own rather heavy baggage. Apart from the long gestation, not only there are concerns relating to security of the plants, there would also be difficulties in locating safe sites for disposal of the nuclear wastes.
So far coal has been the main source of our energy. Evidently the country has to now go after renewable energy in a big way. Among the renewables are solar, wind, tidal and biomass. However, for reasons that are obvious, solar power holds the key and could be the best bet for India. With about 300 clear and sunny days in a year India's theoretical solar power reception just on its land area is enough to produce energy that could be a thousand times greater than the likely demand in 2015, even if conversion efficiency of photovoltaic modules is pegged at a modest 10%.
Currently solar energy in the country works out to merely 0.4% of the total energy produced. The grid-interactive solar power as of June 2007 was merely 2.12 MW. Government-funded solar energy in India in 2005 accounted only for approximately 6.4 megawatt. However, the generation is disintegrated for applications that are mostly off-grid and petty in nature like street-lighting, water-heating, solar lanterns and so on.
Since the potential is enormous what is now required is a huge push for solar power generation that can be integrated, at least, with localised and regional grids. It is said that more energy falls on the world's deserts in six hours than the world consumes in a year. Africa's deserts receive enough power not only for Africa and Europe, but for the whole world. Hence, the Thar Desert with its locational advantages could become India's solar-energy hotspot.
Instead of entirely depending on the photovoltaic technology, which proves to be costlier unless subsidised like in Europe, concentrating solar (thermal) power needs to be given a big push. There are varied technologies that produce energy by concentrating the light rays onto a small surface to generate heat and use that heat to drive a turbine, which in turn drives a generator. Experts believe solar thermal power can play a significantly important role in meeting the yawning demand-supply gap (claimed to be 12% but actually is much more) for electricity.
While the Clinton Climate Foundation is mulling huge solar power initiatives of around 3000 MW each in the Rann (Gujarat) and Thar (Rajasthan) the Centre has launched the Jawaharlal Nehru Solar Mission. Mercifully, the Mission proposes, apart from striving for global leadership in solar manufacturing, to launch a major R&D programme in solar energy – a crying need for the country, given the availability of surfeit of knowledge-workers.
According to Americans, solar power is no longer an "eco-fantasy". One wishes we Indians could ape Americans, especially the Californians, at least in respect of production of green energy. Power-starved as we are, like the Californians were in 1970, we need to act like the state by inducing the consumers to use less power, legislating for energy-efficiency in buildings, appliances or whatever, to foster entrepreneurial spirit among the industrialists and require the utilities to provide one-third of their power from renewables by 2020. Given the circumstances, that shouldn't be too much to ask for!
About the Author
I am a retired senior civil servant of the Government of India based at Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh. I do free-lancing writing mostly on topical and environmental issues.
