Phantom Menace of Carbon Credits

 Last year Channel 4 made a major exposé on the Biomass Stove Carbon Credit scam specifically naming US based C-Quest Capital and detailing how most of their distributed stoves in Malawi were out of commission, but still accruing phantom Carbon credits. As someone who's been deeply involved in developing high-efficiency, low-smoke Biomass Stoves with a patent-pending design, I am not surprised.

Having seen many of the stoves distributed by these so-called Carbon Credit companies, I can tell you first-hand that the claimed efficiency figures are laughable. Most of these stoves are poorly made, flimsy, and to put it bluntly, absolute garbage! Worse still, their methods for calculating carbon credits? Accountant meets the Phantom Menace, in other words a spreadsheet fantasy.

Last year, C-Quest Capital's Indian subsidiary approached me for my patent pending biomass stove design. Long story short, they wanted a few units for testing, made me jump through endless hoops for their paperwork, and even had me sign NDAs with their U.S. office, then again sign a contract and submit a quote to their Indian subsidiary in Delhi. The order finally came from some shady firm registered in Bangalore. They also gave me an impossible deadline, which I told them right away that it was not possible to meet, but they implored that I give it a shot and promised an advance.

I ended up wasting two months—one in paperwork, the next trying to get the prototype done—cancelling two flights only on the insistence of one of their top Delhi executives, a fellow Assamese. I never received the advance, but instead, got an obnoxious chiding WhatsApp message from some HR flunky, while their top guy who first contacted me and was responsible for pushing me, started ghosting. I dropped the project and cursed the day I agreed to work with them, but never regretted my decision, despite the loss of time, effort, and money.

It didn't take much time to deduct that their whole operation was a sham and as translucent and smokey as their supposedly 50% efficient stoves, which they were handing out to rake in carbon credits. The more I learned, the less I wanted anything to do with them.

Now the icing on the cake? The same top executive— the fellow Assamese—who later left the company, is the same Tridip Goswami who now being dragged to the Supreme Court with criminal charges by the US government for fraud along with his former Boss.

It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person.

As insipid as the episode was, I guess not all bad things happen in vain.

It's a shame that something that had the potential to genuinely helping poor communities and the environment by reducing deforestation is being exploited in this cynical way. But isn't everything these days?

Fill her Up..

 When I first dipped my toes into inland navigation, I once embarked on a few zig-zagging trips aboard the local country boat ferries, known as “Bhutbhuti,” on the Brahmaputra in Guwahati. After my earlier failed attempts to engage with country boat operators and nearly getting tossed out by hostile crews, I took a different approach. I played the role of a clueless NRI( Indian residing abroad), out on a nostalgia trip in my hometown. With a big, stupid grin, obsessively clicking everything with my mobile, I asked the most naive questions, looking every bit like a harmless tourist.

 

 

A new government subsidized marine engine in a Country Boat Ferry,

but it still doesn't plug the leaks 

 

 What I saw on those trips wasn't eye-opening as I had seen it all before. The boats were all flooded up to the floorboards. Their propeller shafts, connected to old lorry engines serving as power plants, were so poorly sealed, that they practically poured water into the hull. When I innocently asked, “Why not pump the water out?” I got a surprising answer: “The water toughens up the wood!” 

The reality, of course, is quite the opposite. Constant exposure to water rots the wood, and that's why these boats crumble like matchsticks in every riverboat accident. These boats are made with reverse clinker hull constructions, where planks are nailed atop one another with an overlap, and the gaps are filled with rope and tar. Keeping the wood damp is part of their sealing process — the wood swells, closing the gaps. However, these boats leak at virtually every joint due to poor craftsmanship. But, it took me another half-decade of working in this field to understand why they keep their boats flooded. Most of the reasons are unknown even to the operators themselves.

1. Their design is inherently flawed, making the boats unstable. The water load inside acts as ballast, somewhat improving stability. But it comes at a huge cost — increasing the boat's weight, reducing speed, lowering the waterline, and making them prone to capsizing as the water inside shifts when the boat tilts.

2. There's a deeply ingrained belief that a heavier boat is a more stable and safer boat, a belief that has persisted for centuries. This thinking has even carried over to metal ferry builders and many naval architects. The result? It's not only the Country Boats, but inefficient steel monstrosities, consuming insane amounts of fuel, that continue to dominate our waterways for decades.

 

Water up to the floor boards, a characteristic 

of all wooden country boat ferries.