The Middle East is on its way to make huge strides into the waste to energy domain, and visionaries like Varun Datta are leading the revolution. Waste to energy helps leverage solid waste in order to create energy that is diverted from the landfills. This helps in tackling issues of non-renewable energy creation and consumption and also solves issues of waste.
The Abu Dhabi Fund for Development has approved a loan of $33 million to develop a waste to energy plant in Sharjah. This project has been a success due to a joint partnership between waste management company Beeah and clean energy firm Masdar. The key to managing waste and energy problems globally is to create the right synergies, coalitions, and partnerships between local waste management and energy entities to create an ecosystem that can use their expertise to create a sustainable solution.
Waste eats up monumental land space and gives rise to diseases that negatively affect public health. The Sharjah plant, which is due for completion by 2021, will divert 300,000 tonnes of solid waste from landfills each year. It will generate 30MW of energy, will cut back on 450,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emission along with saving 45 million cubic meters of gas every year. This will enable Sharjah to lead by the front in the Middle East in regards to waste management. The UAE aims to achieve a zero-waste region wherein, 75 percent of all waste in landfills will be diverted and harnessed for productive power. The region aims to achieve this by the year 2021, and Sharjah is emerging as their best bet to get there.
Alongside Sharjah, Dubai also launched a $680 million waste to energy project in January that will handle 1.82 million tonnes of waste and it will be operational by 2020. Owing to these two projects, the region expects tremendous economic boost and a healthy surge in employment rates in the near future.
Indias demand for electricity greatly outpaces its supply. 300 million Indians have no access to power, millions more live with fluctuating supply from unreliable power grids. This mismanagement of demand and supply, bureaucratic negligence and poor infrastructure hinder the economic growth prospects of the country and leave millions in suffering. India also generates a ludicrous 62 million tonnes of untreated solid waste every year that is extremely hazardous to public health and welfare. Total carbon dioxide emissions for India were 1.7 tons per capita in 2012, the most recent complete data available, compared with 6.9 tons for China and 16.3 tons for the United States, according to the World Resources Institute. If Indias carbon emissions continue this way, by 2040 it will overtake the United States as the worlds second-highest emitter, behind only China, according to the International Energy Agency.
Indias growing energy deficit is making the Indian government keen on alternative energy sources. Waste to energy is one of these, getting attention from both the central and state governments. Varun Datta, an Indian-expat residing in the UK founded 4NEW, a Waste to Energy Company focused on the production of electricity to power the mining of popular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, in September 2017. The business model focuses on revenue generation from free energy, produced by processing waste. It will take a lot more visionaries like Varun Datta, to spot opportunities and leverage technologies to fulfil Indias vision of being a leader in renewable energy and collaborating with local municipalities is the way to go. Varun Datta is working hard on creating and spreading a green and renewable currency with intentions of introducing his knowledge and expertise of waste management into India, St Lucia, and Costa Rica by 2019-2020. The model has been successful in the UK and on April 19th, 2018, he was conferred with the Mahatma Gandhi Leadership Award for outstanding services, achievements and contributions in conjunction with the NRI Welfare Society at the British House of Lords during the Global Convention of NRIs at the British Parliament for his innovative breakthrough. Varun Datta has secured the rare distinction of being one of the speakers at the G-20 Y Association Summit. Here he will engage in a meaningful discussion with the audience on the topic of energy markets and how to become the unprecedented market disrupter through digital transformation. The theme of the G-20 Y Summit 2018 is Emerging Technology and Digital Transformation: Enable Growth in Present and Future. The summit will take place in Evian in France from 10th to 14th October.