Securing the Energy Future for India

[12fypmgr]

Most of our coal reserves are in forests; imported coal is costly. How can we meet our demand for coal without affecting biodiversity or incurring excessive costs?

[atulbok@gmail.com]

compromising with the forest reserves is highly undesirable, in my view the demand for coal should be fulfiled by imports. We know we are in short of petroleum,technologies may advance in future to show us the way for a extraction without destruction which will be worth when the petroleum will be exhausted.

[munnanu4013@gmail.com]

Alternate sources of energy which lessen the dependency on coal, for this focus on the hydro power project in north india like Bihar and UP, ahere every year flood destroy everything. It also helps to control the flood as well as satisfying the need of water in agriculture.

[devenvaija09@gmail.com]

Sir,
I think we delimit the use of coal to only Category A or most priority based industries and elsewhere shift to Non-Conventional Energy Resources

[waseemparkar@gmail.com]

Please do not cut down the forests just for COAL. If you can plant a forest then you may as well cut down one. Once you have a new forest in place you may cut down the one having coal. Not before. Effected people should gain employment from this. The planned coal factory should bank-roll the entire planned activity. If it does not make economic sense then you might as well import coal; as it makes the import cheaper.

[reykaran@yahoo.co.in]

Coal is not only getting highly expensive but has a lot of negative externalities like pollution, global warming etc which will eventually result in a market faliure. Therefore, It is an unlikely option in the future. In fact, the only reason coal is still being pursued in India is low cost per unit energy. And even though it can be harmful in the long run the government is skeptical in leading the way for more greener options. I can go on with the statistical data scientists are showing all over the world about the harmful affects of fossil fuels but that you guys can such look up. I do acknowledge the fact that government has taken the initiative of fulfilling its goal of renewable energy production but the question here to be asked is whether we are doing enough to be a self-sustained energy producing country? Well importing technologies, materials give us a straight no! We need more R&D in solar and nuclear power, even bio fuels pose a great viability to the future.

[dr.harmansingh@gmail.com]

With the fast pace of industrialisation, india is already loosing area under forest cover rapidly, more mining will lead to severe loss of habitat. The only viable solution is to switch over to renewable sources of energy. Maximum coal is being used to produce electricity, hopefully with nuclear power electricity generation, the amount of coal used will come down. Also if we analyse, we use a huge lot of electricity to light up our streets, on traffic lights and tonight up other buildings of national importance. If we switch over all the nations street lights only to solar powered lighting, it will save not only coal, but will cut down CO2 emission as well.
For the industrial use of coal, I think he best would to be plant new forests now and bring in more area under forest cover. Keep using the present resources of coal. By the time we are about to deplete the current resources, the new forests will be fully grown, them only try to touch any other habitat. The present mining area which will be then of no use and can be converted into industrial parks or other developments.

[jain_sanjayp@yahoo.co.uk]

Let us think radical....
Why not reduce dependence on coal and in 20 years, completely move away from Coal.

[chanakyathegreat@rediffmail.com]

Rather than relying on coal, its better to have Wind, Solar, CNG and other forms of renewable energy forms. The argument is that coal based power plants are required to to generate huge amounts of power. Why not utilize the distributed way of power generation to generate huge amounts of power. Say solar powered power generation by people themselves by installing solar power panels in their own houses that generate electricity during day time and hence can meet the requirement for the nation. Most of them even has got batteries installed. So it will be wise to pay the electricity consumer/generator the same amount that is created using coal based power plants. Make sure the state electricity boards implement this plan with efficiency. This will not only eliminate the need for any coal based power plants and the need for coal. Also the states must be encouraged to install wind power plants to ensure large scale power production by the states.

Another area of improvement is the use of hybrid technology in vehicles. Make it mandadatory for all vehicles to have either hybrid technology (cng+petrol and electric power, or CNG and electric power) or atleast CNG in all vehicles that will be manufactured from 2012 and also make it mandadatory to fit CNG kits for all vehicles from 2012 January onwards if they have to ply on the roads. This will ensure that the use of oil is removed and with the CNG and the shale gas being supplied, India can acheive energy independence.

[sashikanth.376@gmail.com]

We can't manufacture coal. The only way we can improve efficiency of coal procurement is to have a centralized one-window process (in consultation with MoEF) which would grant all permissions required for coal mining in an area. I also believe that legalization of Go, No-Go idea, with a scientific background would greatly simplify the process of environmental clearance, because everyone would know beforehand where mining can be allowed and where it can't.

My question is, why do we have to meet our current demand for coal? Energy produced from coal causes pollution, is inefficient and expensive. The question we must be asking ourselves instead is, how can we decrease our current demand for coal by diversifying into other areas of power generation (Currently coal plants meet more than 50% of our energy needs). Everyone is talking about nuclear plants and that's fine. What about solar plants? Are we on track to meet the target of 20,000 MW solar power generation by 2020? Can we facilitate greater FDI in this sector (because it requires a high capital investment) by allowing for subsidies, tax breaks etc? What are we doing to promote research in alternative sources of energy?

Lets try to look beyond coal. We have to, some time or the other. The time when we're growing at 9% is a good time to start.