Bio-energy is a renewable source of energy derived from organic materials such as plant and animal matter. In India, bio-energy plays a significant role due to its potential to address multiple challenges, including energy shortages, environmental sustainability, and rural development.
1. Renewable Energy Source: India faces increasing energy demands, especially in rural and remote areas. Bio-energy offers a renewable and sustainable energy source by utilizing agricultural waste, forest residues, and animal manure. This can help reduce reliance on fossil fuels, ensuring long-term energy security.
2. Waste Management: Bio-energy is produced from organic waste, which helps address waste disposal issues, particularly in urban and rural areas. By converting agricultural residues and other waste into energy, it minimizes environmental pollution and encourages recycling.
3. Reduction in Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Bio-energy is considered a cleaner energy source as compared to traditional fossil fuels. It helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions, thus contributing to India's commitment to combating climate change and promoting sustainable development.
4. Economic Growth and Job Creation: The development of bio-energy projects promotes local economic growth, particularly in rural areas. It provides employment opportunities in agriculture, technology development, and energy production, thereby enhancing economic stability in underserved regions.
5. Improved Energy Access: Bio-energy technologies such as biogas and biomass plants can provide clean and affordable energy to rural areas, where conventional electricity supply is often unreliable. This contributes to improving the quality of life by meeting basic energy needs.
Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:
Hunting and Food Gathering
The earliest human beings depended on their immediate environment for their sustenance. They subsisted on: (a) animals which they hunted; and (b) the edible plants which they gathered from forests in the vicinity. Primitive societies depended on wild animals. People located in very cold and extremely hot climates survived on hunting. The people in the coastal areas still catch fish though fishing has experienced modernisation due to technological development. Many species, now have become extinct or endangered due to illegal hunting (poaching). The early hunters used primitive tools made of stones, twigs or arrows so the number of animals killed was limited. Gathering and hunting are the oldest economic activity known. These are carried out at different levels with different orientations. Gathering is practised in regions with harsh climatic conditions. It often involves primitive societies, who extract both plants and animals to satisfy their needs for food, shelter and clothing. This type of activity requires a small amount of capital investment and operates at very low levels of technology. The yield per person is very low and little or no surplus is produced.
