Solaroad

I attended today a round-table conference on Improving Air Quality in Kolkata, an event at Hotel Hindustan International arranged jointly by the US Counsulate General, Global Change and Banglanatak. I learnt that the SOx and NOx levels in air of Kolkata was good but suspended solids were a problem. The problem aggravates during winter and improves during monsoons. It was agreed that awareness and co-operative efforts were necessary to combat the problem in the long and short terms. Mr Craig Hall, US Consul General, Prof Joyashree Roy, Greg Perdo and others spoke. Mr Hall spoke of the book Silent Spring (1960s) that triggered the environment movement in the US.

I mentioned about Amitava Ghosh's recent book "The Great Derangement". I also said that the State Government is launching a Green City Mission, that this had many components including plantation, energy positiveness, efficient appliances, green buildings, electrical mobility etc and that during a citizen feedback session in New Town, air quality came out as one of the top two concerns. I explained the measures taken since then and added that to rely more on solar energy, I was looking for technology that would allow solar panels to be toughened so as to be laid on city roads. After the meeting, a participant informed me that he had seen such experiments in Netherlands and indeed later sent me the following link http://en.solaroad.nl/ .  He promised me to get me more details later after his visit to Amsterdam later this year. I have told that Solar City New Town would try out a pilot project.
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Clippings:

Times of India dt 24 September 2016

Millennium Post dt 24 September 2016

 

Bartaman dt 24 Sep 16