Power & Energy
India, Struck By Heat Wave, Can't Afford Its Coal Addiction Mihir Sharma, May 06, 2022 https://www.ndtv.com/opinion/indias-heat-wave-highlights-need-to-switch-from-coal-to-solar-2950559
There's no clearer evidence that India's electricity sector, dominated by coal-guzzling power plants and state-run utilities, simply isn't up to the job. And the problem is only going to get worse: India has rapidly electrified in recent years and peak power demand has been growing between 8% and 10% a year. ..Thermal power plants produce three-fourths of India's electricity. But they can never seem to get their hands on enough coal. Indians need to look at our dependence on coal-fired electricity with an objective eye. Far from being cheap and reliable, it too often winds up being pricier than it should be and absent when we need it most. Whatever else coal might provide India, it isn't energy security.
Commnet on WhatsApp. OPS: "Unsurprisingly, nobody wants to invest in the sector" except the likes of Adani who know they will make wealth given the liberal support both from Govts and Courts, and their network of ports, rail and round tripping!
an open-source, generic, customisable, free-to-use demand-oriented energy systems modelling platform
Prayas (Energy Group) has built an open-source, generic, customisable, free-to-use demand-oriented energy systems modelling platform called Rumi, and the PIER (Perspectives on Indian Energy based on Rumi) energy model of India through the decade of the 2020s.
The PIER modelling exercise highlights some interesting trends and policy insights for the Indian energy sector.
* Need for urgent policy attention to increase usage of modern cooking fuels, particularly in some states and regions.
* Small changes in consumer behaviour can significantly impact the country’s energy demand and supply mix.
* Caution in future coal power capacity addition beyond the existing pipeline if India achieves its renewables capacity addition targets.
* Wind can potentially play a greater role vis-à-vis solar in the renewables capacity mix.
The PIER report is available here
(https://www.prayaspune.org/peg/publications/item/512) . Rumi can be downloaded and used from https://github.com/prayas-energy/Rumi,
and PIER can be downloaded and used from https://github.com/prayas-energy/PIER.
In a letter of fedback to the IEA, Shankar Sharma wrote a note to the IEA underling the "dire need for the global communities to provide adequate focus on minimising the overall demand for materials and energy, while doing all that is feasible to protect and enhance the biodiversity. Moving towards a net zero emission scenario by 2050 alone will not be able to provide a sustainable energy/ economic model. In this direction IEA can undertake many initiatives such as the ones mentioned below.
"Provide a lot more emphasis to enhance/restore the global biodiversity, many elements of which have been seriously damaged by the past focus on increased usage of fossil fuels. IEA should consider harnessing its vast technical resources, international clout and global energy outlook to chart out specific energy pathways for each of its member countries and for association countries, such as India." For Full text
The idea of ‘green growth’ is flawed. We must find ways of using and wasting less energy. https://www.deccanherald.com/science-and-environment/the-idea-of-green-growth-is-flawed-we-must-find-ways-of-using-and-wasting-less-energy-991678.html
All our renewable technologies are significantly less energy dense than fossil fuels .Every technology to replace them, while attempting even to maintain our current consumption, requires huge amounts of fossil energy. our consumption increases faster than we can add renewable generation.
The new renewable infrastructure requires rare earth minerals. Electricity is only 20 per cent of our total energy use.
International Energy Agency ‘Net Zero by 2050 report’—Business Summary:
https://www.wbcsd.org/contentwbc/download/12197/182629/1
Responding to the Deccan Herald article, Climate Policy Analyst, Shankar Sharma told DH of the fedback to IEA
"to adequately focus on ways and means of urgently reducing the global demand on materials and energy in order to make the energy transition model sustainable.
Our society must do all that is feasible to minimise these impacts; but sadly our governance structure, including various regulatory agencies, the Parliament and the Judiciary, seem to be oblivious of these consequences. "National media houses like DH should consider carrying effective editorials on the topic, and also launch a massive media campaign to educate/warn our political leaders and bureaucrats about the enormous potential of unacceptable costs and existential threats to our communities because of the pursuit of business as usual model of the high GDP growth paradigm in India, which rarely, if ever, talks about the natural limit to the growth/ materials/ energy."
See Letter of Shankar Sharma to the IEA :