Manikaran in Himachal Pradesh is known for :
- (a)Solar energy.
- (b)Geothermal energy.
- (c)Bioenergy.
- (d)Wind energy.
Correct — B, Geothermal energy. Manikaran sits at about 1,760 m in the Parvati valley of Kullu district, Himachal Pradesh, and its fame rests on hot springs whose water emerges between roughly 64 and 80 degrees Celsius. That heat is geothermal — it comes from the earth's interior along a fractured belt in the Himalaya, not from the sun, wind or biomass. The springs are hot enough that pilgrims at the Sikh gurdwara and Hindu temples there cook food in them, and India's exploratory work on geothermal power has used the Parvati valley as one of its test sites.
- (a)Solar energy. — Solar energy in India is associated with high-insolation, low-cloud regions — Rajasthan, Gujarat, Ladakh — not a narrow, deep Himalayan valley that loses the sun early. Nothing about Manikaran's springs involves incoming solar radiation.
- (c)Bioenergy. — Bioenergy comes from biomass such as crop residue, bagasse or dung, burnt or digested for heat, power or gas. It is a chemical energy store built by plants; Manikaran's heat is entirely subsurface and has no organic source.
- (d)Wind energy. — Wind power needs sustained, unobstructed airflow, which is why Indian wind farms cluster in Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Karnataka and Maharashtra. A steep enclosed mountain valley is one of the poorer wind sites in the country.
Geothermal energy is heat drawn from the earth's own interior, reaching the surface where hot rock, deep circulating groundwater and fractures come together. Where the water surfaces above about 40 degrees Celsius it is a thermal spring; where a field is hot and permeable enough, the steam or hot water can run a turbine or heat buildings directly. India's known geothermal provinces are modest by world standards, and the ones that recur in textbooks are the Puga valley in Ladakh, the Parvati valley around Manikaran in Himachal Pradesh, Tattapani in Chhattisgarh, Bakreshwar in West Bengal and the Cambay graben in Gujarat.
The question is a place-to-resource pairing, and it can be solved by asking what physically distinguishes the site. Manikaran is known for water that comes out of the ground scalding — that fact alone excludes the sun, the wind and biomass, because none of them heats groundwater at depth. Notice also that the springs at Manikaran contain no sulphur, which is worth knowing because candidates often assume every hot spring is sulphurous. As of this exam India had no commercial geothermal power station in operation; the Manikaran and Puga sites had seen experimental installations and survey work rather than grid-scale generation, and that remains broadly the position.
- Manikaran lies in the Parvati valley of Kullu district, Himachal Pradesh, at about 1,760 m.
- Its springs discharge at roughly 64 to 80 degrees Celsius and contain no sulphur.
- The heat is geothermal, sourced from the earth's interior along Himalayan fracture zones.
- Other Indian geothermal sites named in textbooks include the Puga valley in Ladakh, Tattapani in Chhattisgarh, Bakreshwar in West Bengal and the Cambay graben in Gujarat.
- India has run experimental geothermal installations rather than commercial geothermal power stations.
- Assuming every hot spring is sulphurous — Manikaran's are not.
- Confusing an experimental installation with a commercial power station.
- Pairing a Himalayan site with solar or wind simply because those are the better-known renewables.
As a place-to-energy-source pairing, as a list of Indian geothermal sites to be matched with States, or through a question on which renewable India has yet to commercialise.
Advantage(s) of tectonic activity in Iceland include(s): 1. Source of natural geothermal energy 2. Creation of new land 3. Attraction of tourists Select the correct answer using the code given below:
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 and 3 only
- (c) 1 and 3 only
- (d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer(d) 1, 2 and 3
The same physics on a much larger scale. Iceland straddles a spreading ridge and turns its subsurface heat into power and heating; Manikaran is the Indian, Himalayan version of the same fracture-fed thermal water.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Puga valley, often mentioned as one of India's most promising geothermal fields, lies in
- (a)Ladakh
- (b)Uttarakhand
- (c)Sikkim
- (d)Arunachal Pradesh
Answer(a) Ladakh — Puga in eastern Ladakh is the site most often cited alongside the Parvati valley in India's geothermal survey work.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following pairs is correctly matched?
- (a)Tattapani — Chhattisgarh
- (b)Bakreshwar — Odisha
- (c)Manikaran — Uttarakhand
- (d)Cambay graben — Maharashtra
Answer(a) Tattapani — Chhattisgarh. Bakreshwar is in West Bengal, Manikaran in Himachal Pradesh and the Cambay graben in Gujarat.