India’s Power Problem

[LMagic007]

India’s Power Problem

India is having a civil war of sorts over power. Part of India wants nuclear power, part wants renewable power, primarily CSP trough generators. Both hold great promise, both require substantial amounts of land to generate the required level of power, and both are vying for the same land in India’s heavy populatged interior. This is of course not real war, but it is making for a decion that will need to be made by India, and soon. Nuclear or Renewable.

[Windguy]

I think Australia may be involved in that decision, since we are thinking of selling to India yellow cake. India would have it so much easier by just signing the non proliferation treaty and there would be no politics involved then. But if India can successfully use Renewable, then the better for the world. And India is a place with massive amounts of coal. Just thinking about it though, if your population is only averaging 3 tons of co2 per head compared to the west, then an economic boom, which India is going through should see them easily becoming 100% renewable quite quickly. Far more easily then any western country.

[LMagic007]

Yes I agree, I think developing nations are far better placed to take advantage of the benefits renewable energy can offer because of their lower carbon footprint and energy requirement per capita. I think they would be far better off building up their economies on renewable energy at a more sustainable pace, whilst also meeting their carbon management objectives.

Also developing nations don't have the same exacting demands placed on their energy networks that modern western developed nations do and their fossil fuel energy networks are typically less reliable anyway than in the west, so there is greater leeway there, for the misgivings of the intermittency of supply associated more predominantly with renewable energy.

Thus the uptake of renewable energy should integrate more seamlessly into the lifestyles of residents in developing nations and in some cases of remote or rural settings enhance their lives by provision of energy they may never have had access to before.

[August]

India sees solar energy as an option to reduce the energy crisis - Politics/Nation-News-The Economic Times

COIMBATORE: With the much-awaited nuclear deal finally getting the nod in the US Congress, scientists across the country foresee a solution to the energy crisis. In the meantime they feel that the immediate solution to India's energy problem lies in tapping of solar energy.

[LMagic007]

Indeed. Things are changing so rapidly with high growth for solar that's easily scalable, renewable, etc... that it offers good energy security well into the future. I think over the next 20 years we will see a trend in decentralisation of power generation. I also think that renewable energy will provide far more employment opportunities for countries like India and China than nuclear. Nuclear will take them years to develop further as indicated in the article and require far more developed robust power grid infrastructure, where as solar is deployable far more rapidly and it's more easily dispersed, thus offering more immediate benefit to the approx 400 million people allegedly without electricity.

[Karl]

Originally Posted by LMagic007

Also developing nations don't have the same exacting demands placed on their energy networks that modern western developed nations do and their fossil fuel energy networks are typically less reliable anyway than in the west, so there is greater leeway there, for the misgivings of the intermittency of supply associated more predominantly with renewable energy.

How so?

[LMagic007]

Originally Posted by Karl

How so?

Power grids in developing nations are typically less developed and less relied upon than a modern developed nations grids. That's not to say they are not important to those that do rely upon them, but it's well known that developing nations have less infrastructural capacity and complexity and hence less dependency on complex integrated power grids, than do more modern industrialised nations. It's all on a relative scale of course.

For example India apparently still has 400 million people without power. Thus in that context, misgivings of intermittency of renewable energy, would be less impacting upon that segment of the population, who don't have electricity access anyway. Thus they are ideally suited to renewable energy in such regions, because their industrial complex infrastructure would be comparatively undeveloped, due to the fact that they have no electricity. Thus distributed intermittent renewable energy would still be a step forward, for this segment of the population that don't yet have electricity access at all.

[Salz]

That is a pretty incredible number of people without power!