From my recent experience, I have learned how easily our mind rejects ideas, without realising their true potential. Last Saturday, my boss called me in his chamber and told me, “Abhishek, you have to prepare a document for our client, highlighting how they have reduced their carbon foot print by changing their fuel from LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) to LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas).” When I heard this idea, the first thought that came to my mind was that both LPG and LNG are clean fuel, so replacing LPG with LNG as an industrial fuel will not reduce the carbon footprint to an eye-catching value.
But then I thought, If I tell this to my boss without doing any research work, he will surely get angry. So, I decided to do my research first and then think about what to do. I told my boss, “Okay sir, I will do it by next week.” I then heard the most obvious response from him, “A week of time is too much Abhishek, do it by day after tomorrow.” In every job, an employee gets used to such replies from their boss after some time.
So, without thinking much about the deadline, I started with my research and analysis work, and the same thing that happens to all of you happened with me also. Today, we have all the information available on Google, but when we start searching for a topic of our interest, we realise even Google cannot give us the desired answer to our questions. We have to extract our answer from all the relevant information available to us. I think this is the only reason why machines have not completely substituted human resource.
Coming back to the topic, after completing my research and analysis, the result I found in front of me was shocking. The number that came in front of me was really an attention gathering value. I realised how wrong I was in predicting the potential of a clean fuel (LNG) in changing the environmental condition of the world.
Our client had been using LPG fuel for their furnaces from so many years and decided last year to change their fuel to a cleaner alternative, i.e. LNG. I then finished my analysis by calculating the amount of CO2 emissions the company has reduced in this one year after shifting to LNG fuel. On the basis of the information I collected from various reliable sources such as US Energy Information Administration, IPCC Second Assessment Report, Life Cycle Assessment of LNG etc., I made my calculation by comparing the CO2 emission from LPG as well as LNG in producing same about of energy.
I calculated the quantity of energy that the company produces every year on the basis of the total LNG consumption of the company in a year. By replacing LPG with LNG as a fuel for their furnaces, our client reduced 683 Mt of CO2 emission in an year. This is equivalent to the CO2 absorption capacity of 31,373 mature hardwood trees.
It is true that planting trees is a noble cause and helps in protecting our environment, but making smart choices in our daily life will also help in protecting the environment to a great extent.
“Never judge an idea without proper research. Even a diamond becomes valuable after polishing.”