Mineral And Energy Resources

With over 100 oilfields, Assam leads as the state with the greatest number of oilfields. It also has major oilfields like Digboi, Naharkatiya and Moran-Hugrijan.

Bihar hardly has any oilfield; Tamil Nadu has a coal mine at Neyveli and reserves of natural gas and nothing else. Rajasthan, like Bihar is yet to discover whether it has any oil deposits.

Tarapur Atomic Power Station (T.A.P.S), started in the year 1962 (operational in 1969) was the first nuclear power plain in India.

The construction for Kalpakkam Atomic power station begain in 1970, Rana Pratap Sagar is a dam and Noara was operational only in 1991.

Lignite is known as ‘brown diamond’ since it is coal in brown colour.

Thermal source of energy comes from heating up of water to run a turbine to produce electricity. This heating up of water is achieved with the help of coal, which is a non-renewable resource. Hence, thermal energy is a non-renewable source of energy.

Mica is produced in Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Rajasthan followed by Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh.

Jharkhand: high quality Mics is obtained in a belt extending to the lower Hazaribagh plateau.

Andhra Pradesh: Nellore district

Rajasthan: belt extends from Jaipur to Bhilwara and around Udaipur.

Tamil Nadu: districts of Coimbatore, Tiruchirappalli, Madurai and Kanyakumari.

Nuclear power is a recently discovered non-conventional source of energy, which is produced by either combining lighter atoms or by bombarding heavier atoms. These reactions (fusion or fission) produce enormous amount of heat energy.

Important Nuclear Power Stations in India are:

• Tarapur (Maharashtra)

• Rawatbhata (Rajasthan)

• Kalpakkam (Tamil Nadu)

• Narora (Uttar Pradesh)

• Kaiga (Karnataka)

• Kakarapara (Gujarat)

Non-ferrous metals found in India are Bauxite and Copper.

Odisha is the largest producer of Bauxite, and the cities of Kalahandi and Sambalpur are the leading producers. Besides, Lohardaga in Jharkhand, Bhavnagar and Jamnagar in Gujarat have major deposits. Other producers are: Katni-Jabalpur and Balaghat areas of M.P., Kolaba, Thane, Ratnagiri, Satara, Pune and Kolhapur in Maharashtra, and the Amarkantak plateau in Chhattisgarh.

Copper deposits occur in Singhbhum district in Jharkhand, Balaghat in M.P. and Jhunjhunu and Alwar districts in Rajasthan. Other minor producers are: Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, Chitradurg and Hasan districts (Karnataka) and South Arcot district (Tamil Nadu).

Non-Conventional sources of energy, as the name suggests, are sources of energy different from the earlier energy sources, in the sense that these are more equitably distributed, sustainable, eco-friendly cheaper energy after the initial cost is taken care of.

Eg: Nuclear energy, Solar energy, Wind energy, Geothermal energy, energy from biomass, etc.

Petroleum is a commodity that can influence geopolitical events as it is so required for survival in the 21^st century. Petroleum is used not just as a fuel, but as raw material in the production of other numerous essential commodities including food preservatives, parachutes, shoes, guitar strings, shampoo, anaesthetics, artificial limbs, yarn and many more. Thus, presence of petroleum is an indicator of prosperity of the region. No wonder petroleum is referred to as liquid gold, as it has diversified uses and is scarce just like the metal. Entire wars have been fought over control of this liquid gold.

Crude petroleum occurs in sedimentary rocks of tertiary period. Oil exploration and production, in India, was systematically taken up after the Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) was set up in 1956. Till then, Digboi in Assam was the only oil producing region. After 1956, new oil deposits have been found at the extreme western and eastern parts of the country.

In Assam, Digboi, Naharkatiya and Moran are important oil producing areas. The major oilfields of Gujarat are Ankaleshwar, Kalol, Mehsana, Kosamba and Lunej. Mumbai High which lies 160 km off Mumbai was discovered in 1973 and production commenced in 1976. Oil and natural gas have been found in explanatory wells in Krishna-Godavari and Kaveri basin on the east coast.

India is the 7^th largest producer of hydroelectric power in the world. Producing over 13% of India’s requirement, hydel power constitute a major source of power in India. The hydel power generation, in India, began in the year 1897 with establishment of hydropower plant in Darjeeling district of West Bengal, with an installed capacity of 130 KW. The hydropower potential of India is around 1,45,000 MW and at 60% load factor, it can meet the demand of around 85,000 MW. As of now, around 26% of hydropower potential has been exploited in India.

A hydroelectric power plant consists of a high dam that is built across a large river to create a reservoir, and a station where the process of energy conversation to electricity takes place. The first step is the collection of run-off of seasonal rain and snow in lakes, streams and rivers. The run-off flows to dams downstream. The water falls through a dam, into the hydropower plant and turns the turbine. The turbine converts the kinetic energy of the falling water into mechanical energy and into electricity. This electricity is transferred to the communities through transmission lines and the water is released back into the lakes, streams or rivers. Since, no pollutant is added to the water nor is it used up in the process, hydropower generation is a renewable source of energy.

Of late, the growth of hydel power has been the slowest in India. The installed hydro capacity at the end of 2018 was around 45,000 MW, an annual growth of just 1%, the lowest since 2009. Moreover, between 2008 and 2019, hydel power’s share of India’s total installed electricity capacity has halved from 25% to 13%. While hydropower is renewable, its social and environmental impact means that big hydel projects are no longer equated with solar, wind and biomass energy. Consequently, the government has stopped categorising hydel projects larger than 25 MW as renewable.