1. WHAT IS GREEN TECHNOLOGY?

Green Technology is the development and application of products, equipment, and systems
used to conserve the natural environment and resources, which minimize and reduces the
negative impact of human activities.

Green technology is not a new technology; instead, it has picked momentum with the
introduction of sustainable development initiatives because it is an environmentally friendly
technology and hence known as environmental technology or clean technology. It uses
innovative methods to create environmentally friendly products. Moreover, Green technology
is known as sustainable technology as it takes into account the long- and short-term impact
something has on the environment.

The need for green technology arises because natural resources are declining and pollution has
increased due to the abundant use of non-renewable sources. Green products and creativities
are by definition, environmentally friendly, energy efficiency, recycling, health and safety
concerns, renewable resources, and more all go into the making of a green product or
technology.

Products, systems or equipment based on green technology satisfy the following features or
characteristics.

 It should reduce or minimize the degradation of the natural environment around us.
It should have zero or minimum emission of greenhouse gases.
 It should be safe to use and should promote a healthy environment for all the forms of life
including humans, birds, animals, etc.
 It should help in the conservation of energy as well as natural resources such as solar, water,
wind, etc.
 It should promote the use of renewable resources.
2. MAJOR APPLICATIONS OF GREEN TECHNOLOGY

• Energy sector: South Africa is the African continent’s leader when it comes to renewable
energy capacity, according to IRENA’s figures. It is home to several solar power plants,
including the 96 MW Jasper plant, a photovoltaic facility with 325,360 panels that can supply
power to 80,000 homes. When it comes to wind power, onshore installations in South Africa
amounted to 2,085 MW in 2018, according to the Global Wind Energy Council. The South
African Wind Energy Association states that wind power accounts for 52% of the country’s
renewable energy power supply, while the average size of a South African wind power facility
is 93.5 MW.

• Building sector: The applications of green technology solutions within the construction
industry are fast improving. For instance, buildings that incorporate solar energy systems use
up to 70% less electricity than conventional systems, according to the U.S Department of
Energy. Also, green technology helps reduce a business’ carbon footprint, reduces waste,
conserves water and consumes reduced energy as compared to traditional technologies.

• Transport sector: Here, it is commonly referred to as Green Transportation or

Sustainable Transportation which comprises those modes of transportation that do not depend
on diminishing natural resources like fossil fuels. These transportation modes rely on
renewable energy sources. They also have a very low impact on the environment as these
modes produce minimal or no greenhouse gas emission.

3. STRENGTHS AND ADVANTAGES OF GREEN TECHNOLOGY

The world has a fixed amount of natural resources, some of which have already been depleted
or ruined. For example, household batteries and electronics often contain dangerous chemicals
that pollute our environments. Green technology offers us the best hope to counteract the
effects of climate change and pollution. It would be productive to list all the benefits of green
technologies in a pointwise manner with examples.

 It does not emit or emit less harmful substances into the environment. For instance; the solar
cell, which directly converts energy from natural light into electrical energy via the process
of photovoltaic. Generating electricity from solar energy equates to less consumption of
fossil fuels, as well as the reduction of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
 Rejuvenating Ecosystems. Green or Clean technology is also being used to breathe life into
ecosystems that have sustained a lot of damage due to human involvement. Through the
use of this technology, trees are replanted, waste is managed and recycled. This ensures
that the affected ecosystem can start again, and this time remains conserved. This helps to
ensure that a lot of plant and animal species don’t go extinct.
 It has become popular as consumers of technology are becoming more environmentally
conscious. This will give benefits to investors in the long run in certain areas. A country
 like Uganda has favorable solar irradiation of 1,825 kWh/m² to 2,500 kWh/m² per year.
Small solar applications are often used in rural electrification projects such as Solar Home
Systems or solar water heating. Over 30,000 solar PV systems have already been installed
in rural areas. This brings more applicability of renewable energy technologies as well as
bringing profits to the investors. This had major impacts on rural electrification as well as
investment benefits to the private sector.
 It requires less cost for maintenance. This reduces operating costs and hence overall cost in
the long run. For instance, Solar panels generally require very little maintenance. They are
very durable and should last around 25-30 years with no maintenance. The only
maintenance one needs to perform is to wash them clean of dirt and dust two to four times
a year. This basic cleaning routine ensures that the sun can shine brightly on the panel,
maximizing the amount of light available to turn into electrical power. It is the contrast to
oil refineries or other non-renewable energy sources that require too much maintenance
and constantly, that if not done can lead to major destructive accidents.
 As it uses renewable natural resources and hence we will never run out of vital resources
such as water and electricity. With renewable energy sources, such as wind power and solar
power such problems will be less likely to encounter the problem of fuel getting vanished.
Energy is being conserved through the use of such technology. Alternatives to devices that
use a lot of electricity or fuel are being introduced to the public. The use of electric cars is
on the rise, especially in the UK. People are using environment-friendly devices and
appliances. While installation of such devices, namely solar panels, might be expensive for
some people the benefits it offers with regards to reducing bill expenses are tremendous
Green technology purifies the air, hence it will slow down the effects of global warming
due to a reduction in CO2 emissions. Generating electricity from solar and wind energy
means less consumption of fossil fuels and a reduction in pollution and greenhouse gas
emissions. Reducing and recycling of plastic waste is advantageous for the environment.
Hence, trendy reusable water bottles that can be refilled are health-promoting, eco-friendly,
and green.
 Creates new avenues and Employment. Green technologies have the potential to give birth
to sectors that were previously not thought of. In this 21st century, we need to create paths
that can improve the economy and the environment at the same time. Green Technology
allows us to combine the two. We can see a very relevant example of that of waste disposal.
Earlier waste management was only limited to waste dumping; today waste management
 is a $25 billion industry in South Asia alone. The green energy sector is responsible for a
host of job opportunities on the market today. As a result, many employment options come
up for people, and some of them include environmental managers, solar energy experts,
and efficient lighting experts as well.
 Recycling. Green technology helps manage and recycle waste material. It allows it to be
used for beneficial purposes. This technology is used for waste management, waste
incineration, and more. A lot of recyclable material has allowed individuals to create plant
fertilizer, sculptures, fuel, and even furniture.
 Purifying of Water. Green technology purifies water. The scarcity of pure drinking water
is a major concern. Through the use of various technologies, a lot of campaigns have been
successful in providing people with clean drinking water.
 Green Farming: Green approaches to farming have been proven to be not only healthier for
humans but also productive for the soil. It leads to higher productivity over sustained
periods contrary to the inorganic farming practices which lead to a decrease in yield after a
certain period. Inorganic farming methods have had a very bad environmental impact and
have resulted in degradation of the aquatic life of surface water bodies; it has also stripped
the earth of the various insects and worms which helped in crop production. Fortunately,
the effects of inorganic farming are yet to be seen in a big way but they are inevitable.
Places, where organic (Green) farming is practiced, are already showing that it is a better
approach in the long run.
 Green Buildings: Green construction technologies are also coming up and are being
encouraged in a big way. They have high initial investment but have a minimal
environmental impact and are energy efficient. Because office and residential buildings
consume a large share of the energy pie of any country they are certain to have significant
benefits in the future over conventional buildings. Since they reduce energy consumption
and wastage; these buildings can recover their cost over an acceptable time frame. Such
constructions prove economical and eco-friendly in the long run and thus are beneficial to
the individual and the society as a whole (Zohoori, 2017)
 A benefit to the urban areas: Taking into account the current chaotic situation of the cities
of the world one can easily argue that they need to take urgent environment improvement
measures. Cities that actively pursued their environmental concerns in the last ten years are
showing a marked improvement in their environment quality parameters. For example,
Delhi launched CNG fuelled public transport in a phased manner and in December 2002,
 the last diesel bus was flagged off. This was done as a measure to improve the air quality
of Delhi where the toxic gas levels were off the charts, sometimes exceeding 5-12 times
the normal values. Since then Delhi has shown steady improvement in the air quality. The
annual average level of restorable suspended particulate matter (RSPM or PM10) in
residential areas was 143 micrograms per cubic meter. It dropped to 115 micrograms per
cubic meter by 2005.
 Benefits to the Rural Areas: Green technologies involve humans in a much bigger way
than conventional technologies and thereby empower them by giving them responsibilities
and avenues to gain, learn and progress. Green technologies have had a great impact on
communities of the areas where they have been implemented. The provision of biogas
plants to rural households has empowered communities and has increased their
productivity. The same has been the case with the distribution of solar lanterns through
certain programs.
 Similarly, Green technology requires more involvement. Hence it empowers people. It
(green technologies) helps people as it can be diffused much more easily in remote areas
due to its discretized nature.
4. WEAKNESSES AND DISADVANTAGES OF GREEN TECHNOLOGY

Green technologies have been applied in many sectors however they have not been put into
complete use e.g. in the energy sector they are still “alternate sources of energy”. Since we
have not seen them in usage full time we cannot observe what are their disadvantages. However
certain concerns have been already raised, these are related to the reliability of these
technologies, convenience of their usage, the investment required, their hypocritical use, ethical
and social issues, etc. We will discuss these issues one by one.

The initial investment or implementation cost is very high. For instance; India's upper limit
of the installation cost of a 1 MW photovoltaic solar power plant is roughly Rs 300-350 million
(discounting the government grants). On the other hand, the installation cost of a subcritical
coal power plant (Ultra mega power plant 4000MW) is roughly Rs 184,736 million. i.e. Rs
46.184 million per MW. The difference is extremely large and quite unaffordable for many
developing countries; large investments in green technologies by the government would
effectively slow down the cash flow in other important sectors e.g. health care and
infrastructure.
Social downside: Socially green technologies are still to become popular. This is more
connected to the technical assistance and incentives of usage. Social downsides are extremely
area specific. For instance in rural areas; people lack expertise, they also lack the proximity of
servicing as well as sensitization and awareness creation opportunities. For urban areas,
sometimes; the solar water heaters fail to work due to week insolation like in winter seasons
hence people opt for electrical heaters which are always active as long as there is power supply
constantly.

The technology is still evolving and many of the products are at the R&D stage. Hence
people are unaware of performance results. For instance; today solar panels are being
manufactured at a prolific rate, however, it is not certain what will happen to the panels once
they finish their life cycle. The disposal of solar panels is still in the R&D stage. Many solar
panels contain toxic matter which can be dangerous; this problem will surface after two decades
if we are not prepared by then.

Technical Downside: To be popular any technology has to be reliable. Some green

technologies have severe drawbacks in this area. For instance; solar power plants work fine on
a sunny day but their performance becomes miserable the moment solar radiation on the surface
drops, this cannot be afforded in today’s competitive world. Similarly, solar air conditioning
fails in the rainy season when there is a lot of humidity and low solar radiation. These
drawbacks push a person to install conventional technologies for his/her usage. We can hope
that these flaws will be removed once these technologies mature with time. Power savers meant
to improve the efficiencies of tube lights etc. themselves fail very early giving the use of little
incentive to use them. This causes significant operational discomfort to the user.

Ethical Downside: Today the world is in a very complicated state where ethics have started
clashing, many times environmental ethics clash with general human ethics. A very relevant
example is when USA started to use corn to make ethanol for bio-diesel. How ethical is it to
use food to create fuel for cars when millions are hungry no matter how environment friendly
the technology is? This argument effectively stalled this project. Green buildings, solar power
plants all are currently very expensive; how justified is their implementation when it is more
necessary to feed a hungry population? Can a poor person be forced to purchase new fuel-
efficient kitchen equipment when he barely makes his ends meet? There are umpteen ethical
issues that spring up and are mostly related to cost versus survival questions. Prices of green
technologies will go down in the future, but the basic problem is that their prices will go down
once we make the initial investment but doing the initial investment is not easy. This is a vicious
circle and is perhaps the biggest difficulty in the implementation of green technologies.

Land use: A lot of green energy sources use more land than other non-green sources, which is
a big negative if land use, space available, and arable land are important (depending on the
location). For instance, A 12 KW home generator is only like 28 inches x 26 inches…a similar
sized solar panel would only generate like 100 watts (0.1 KW) (Alice, What is your view on
the conversion of land from food production into energy crop production?, 2014)

Green energy is still focused on fixed base consumption. By this I mean its common
applications are residential and commercial power. Green technology in the transportation
sector is less mature. Although this is changing rapidly, battery technology still has a ways to
go down the technology evolution path. Fuel cells are a potential solution, but the energy trade-
offs to generate the hydrogen for the cells still need some efficiency improvements. If it comes
in greater availability it will allow greater ranges for electric vehicles (stevens, 2019)

Along with any energy solution(fossil or green) that we use in the future, we will require a
‘smart grid’ or electrical grid that allows the more efficient transmission of power over longer
distances, as well as, storage of excess power during periods of low demand. With a smart grid,
any limitations of generation points vs. consumption points disappear. This is still lacking
hence hindering green technology’s applicability.

We might end up seeing many effects that we cannot think as of now because we still have not
experienced green technologies in a big way. We cannot say for certain that green technologies
will be good for us in all ways in the distant future, but one thing is for certain that we will be
risking the fate of mankind if we do not adopt them in the present. Today green technologies
are the need of the hour without any doubt as they are most appropriate to our current world
needs.
References

Alice, S. (2014, Feb 14th). What is your view on the conversion of land from food production into
energy crop production? Retrieved from ResearchGate:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_your_view_on_the_conversion_of_land_from
_food_production_into_energy_crop_production

stevens, P. (2019, December 30th). The battery decade: How energy storage could revolutionize
industries in the next 10 years. Retrieved from CNBC:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/30/battery-developments-in-the-last-decade-created-a-
seismic-shift-that-will-play-out-in-the-next-10-years.html

Zohoori, M. (2017, September). Advantages and Disadvantages of Green Technology; Goals,

Challenges, and Strengths. Retrieved from ResearchGate:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320745975_Advantages_and_Disadvantages_of
_Green_Technology_Goals_Challenges_and_Strengths