In recent times you would be often listening to words like carbon dioxide and global warming. The leaders of the world are much worried about the raise in carbon dioxide level and are framing many policies and goals to reduce it. If you are curious to know what carbon dioxide is and how it changes everyone’s life and why solar dryers are important in carbon mitigation, this article helps you to get informed.
What is carbon dioxide?
It is a gas which is emitted by burning fuels containing carbon. Carbon containing fuels are coal, lignite, wood etc.
What it does?
It absorbs and emits infrared radiation due to which the temperature of Earth’s atmosphere raises. This heating up of the Earth due to raise in carbon dioxide level is called as global warming.
What is the impact of global warming on human life?
If the Earth’s temperature raises, there will be change in weather patterns, sea levels will raise which will result in natural calamities and will eventually affect the people’s life tremendously.
Why the level of carbon dioxide is raising in the atmosphere?
Industrialization and deforestation are the two important reasons for the raise in carbon dioxide emission. The increase in the industries demand more energy which in turn demands more fuel burning. A tree can absorb 1 ton of carbon dioxide in its life time and so cutting down trees leads to boosting the level of carbon in the atmosphere.
Why it is important to reduce carbon dioxide emission?
The socio-economic loss due to the emission of 1 ton of carbon dioxide is $50. It is estimated that 34 billion tons of carbon dioxide is emitted globally in the year 2019. So, the loss due to the emission of carbon dioxide is roughly 34 billion dollars and it is increasing every year rapidly. So, do you think it is important to reduce the carbon emission? If yes, how?
How carbon dioxide emission can be reduced?
Shifting to renewable energy resources like solar and wind energy can reduce the emission of carbon dioxide. The United Nations Sustainable Developments Goals proposed 17 goals to be achieved by 2030. The 7th goal is to afford clean energy to all. It is recommended to raise the share of renewable energy in all departments including electricity, heating and transport. At present the renewable energy share in heating sector is only 9.2%. So it is advised to take accelerated action to increase the renewable energy share in heat sector especially. Installing renewable energy based heating technologies is one of the ways to reduce considerable amount of carbon emission. Solar dryer is one such technology, when installed can run for more than 20 years without maintenance and with zero carbon emission.
How solar dryers can reduce carbon dioxide emission?
Solar drying is a technology that uses energy from the Sun to dry food products which can be stored for longer duration. The conventional methods of drying are vacuum, freeze and hot air drying. These highly sophisticated drying methods require high investment which consumes more energy resulting in tons and tons of carbon emission every year. Open Sun drying is another option for farmers which is a traditional drying method which has demerits of excess food loss due to weathering, improper drying and insect invasion. Solar dryer is a better alternative method combining both tradition and technology. Since the fuel to heat up the air is extracted from the Sun, the solar dryer works independent of electricity for its entire lifetime.
The energy requirement and carbon emission varies for different food products. It is estimated that, the average carbon emission on drying one ton of fresh fruits/vegetables is 0.5 ton. The socio-economic cost of 0.5 ton of carbon dioxide is $25. Let us find out how much one can save if solar dryers are used for drying products.
Consider the life time of a 1 ton capacity solar dryer to be 20 years and the time taken for drying one ton of fresh product in solar dryer to be 3 days. It is calculated that, one can save up to $50 per weak and $2600 per year which otherwise using conventional dryer will cost as a socio-economic loss due to carbon emission. In its lifetime, a solar dryer can mitigate 1040 tons of carbon dioxide that engulfs $52000 of money and natural resources. Using a solar dryer one can produce high quality dried products that can be sold at very high price compared to open sun drying.
Solar dryers are a boon to farmers and small scale industries to dry their products at affordable price and can sell at a branded product rate and a single dryer can save approximately $52000 in 20 years in terms of carbon emission.