Tuesday, July 28, 2009

BMP Property Tax

Last week I paid the property tax for the assessment year 2009-10 via online. Its so cool. All you need is last year's application number (that you paid under new UAV scheme) and you are all set to go. Once you give the application number, the system shows how much you owe and just pay that amount online. This site also gives you the facility to inform BMP of any mis-calculations that occured during previous filing. I found it very cool and convenient. Just search for BMP Online in google and click on Online Tax Payment.

Air Express: Document Carrier

Another post in my 'Did you know' series. Air Express service, in other words the courier service that air ships your documents or non-documents which weigh below 50 KGs check in the collected consignments as excess passenger baggage. :-) In a normal case, any cargo beyond 50KG goes as air cargo in cargo planes. But this has certain limitations such as timing, synchronizing flight connections, safety of documents etc. So, courier companies became innovative and they actually carry your documents or small boxes that you want to ship by air, either domestic or international with the help of passengers. There are some intermediate companies that are into this business of 'supplying' passengers who just tag along the baggage of courier companies and 'travel' with them. Once they reach the destination, the courier company's baggage is taken over by the respective local office. The passenger has absolutely nothing to do with the baggage.

Now do you know how Scotty and his friend Cooper flew from Ohio to England for just $18? ;-)

Carbon Capture

We all know how serious the threat of green house gases (GHG) these days is. There have been considerable discussions, awareness and activities worldwide to reduce carbon emissions and to look for alternate energy sources more actively. Many nations are planning to cut their carbon emissions or GHG emissions or try to offset them by purchasing carbon credit. One way to reduce carbon emissions is not to use fossil fuel like coke or oil. But the problem is for the industries to switch to alternate energies, it would take sometime (could really be a decade or more). This is not an immediate solution.

Few nations are trying for some alternate ways of reducing emissions. One such method is, CCS Carbon Capture and Storage. In this method, the carbon is captured at the source and pumped underground. Such a method is expected to reduce CO2 pollution by 40% according to oil major Shell. Ofcourse such a method can shoot two birds with one bullet. Shell is providing this services to companies that want to reduce carbon emissions. Shell makes money from these companies by helping them reduce carbon emissions and guess where do they pump this gas? They pump this gas into oil fields so that the oil that could not be extracted from the normal levels can now be extracted because due to the pressure created by CO2 in these oil fields, the oil levels raise above. :-)

Did you know series

Oflate I am getting lot of gyan. So, I thought of putting them in my blog under the theme 'Did you know?'. I will label them as 'Did you know'.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Hillary wants emission cuts from India

The carbon foorprint of US is 22.2% of the world and that of India is 4.9%. India is one among the few countries who is expanding the forests to offset carbon footprint. And Hillary is asking India to commit on the emission reduction?

By the way, China I think has gone past US in terms of Carbon Emissions.