In India, well over a million people are estimated to die every year due to air pollution, making it one of India’s most acute environmental problems. In particular, pollution from agricultural residue burning can contribute to anywhere up to half the pollutants in the air at specific times of the year. Farmers have short windows of time between their two crops cycles to remove residues from the previous harvest, and often resort to burning it. But what if this so-called stubble could be quickly processed instead into a fuel or other commodity? That is the challenge taken up by Vidyut Mohan and the team at Takachar. In this episode, we speak to Vidyut about their affordable device for thermally treating the stubble on smallholder farms. He talks about moving to Europe and how a chance meeting with a fellow researcher in the United States eventually led to the manufacturing plant they have now established in Bengaluru. We get into what they have learned from on-the-ground projects in Delhi and Tamil Nadu, as well as how an unexpected development in the global climate discussion – mushrooming appetite for low-costs carbon removal solutions – has recently transformed the fundraising outlook for Takachar.

Further reading:

1. Takchar: https://www.takachar.com/
2. The Great Smog of India, Siddharth Singh 2018:https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/42422584-the-great-smog-of-india
3. Covid-19 slows progress toward universal energy access, IEA 2022:https://www.iea.org/news/covid-19-slows-progress-toward-universal-energy-access
4. Net Zero by 2050, IEA 2021: https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050
5. ETP Clean Energy Technology Guide, IEA 2021: https://www.iea.org/articles/etp-clean-energy-technology-guide
6. India Energy Outlook 2021: https://www.iea.org/reports/india-energy-outlook-2021

This episode is hosted by Siddharth Singh and Simon Bennett. It was produced by Rakesh Kamal (Suno India). Additional production help was provided by Rob Stone and Allison Leacu.

In climate discussions, India’s agricultural sector is often highlighted in terms of the likely climate impacts to the sector – due to heat waves and floods – but it is also a significant consumer of fossil fuels. Around 15% of India’s overall electricity demand comes from agriculture. Structural problems, including small land-holdings and a lack of adequate returns, make it hard to shift to cleaner sources of energy, even in cases where solar power could free up resources and improve livelihoods. Through Khetwork’s groundbreaking work on high-efficiency irrigation pumps, Victor Lesniewski is working to decarbonise agricultural energy use in the agriculture sector and also make farmers more productive to increase their revenues through the year. He and his co-founder Katie Taylor (who we also talk to in this episode about gender- and culture-related challenges for clean energy entrepreneurs) produce solar pump systems for smallholders that target the dry-season, when kerosene pumps are most costly. They share what they have learned about relocating a technology solution from Massachusetts to Maharashtra, why efficiency is key to reducing capital costs, and how to bring sceptical customers on board. When this conversation was recorded in May 2022 they had reached a production capacity of 120 pumps per week, and looking at financing options for further scale-up in an environment of rising input costs.

Further reading:

1. Khethworks: https://www.khethworks.com/
2. Managing the water-energy nexus is vital to India’s future, IEA 2021 :https://www.iea.org/commentaries/managing-the-water-energy-nexus-is-vital-to-india-s-future
3. Solar-power irrigation apparatus patent, Khethworks, 2019:https://patents.google.com/patent/US20190323508A1/
4. Solar water pumping for sustainable water supply, World Bank 2022:https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/water/brief/solar-pumping
5. Covid-19 slows progress toward universal energy access, IEA 2022:https://www.iea.org/news/covid-19-slows-progress-toward-universal-energy-access
6. Net Zero by 2050, IEA 2021: https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050
7. ETP Clean Energy Technology Guide, IEA 2021: https://www.iea.org/articles/etp-clean-energy-technology-guide
8. India Energy Outlook 2021: https://www.iea.org/reports/india-energy-outlook-2021

This episode is hosted by Siddharth Singh and Simon Bennett. It was produced by Rakesh Kamal (Suno India). Additional production help was provided by Rob Stone and Allison Leacu.