Why can’t India solve its Power Problem?
Posted : June 27, 2005 at 9:32 pm [IST]
Will you believe when I say, emission-less solar farms in Rajasthan’s desert of India can solve the nation’s power scarcity. New researches in electricity generation from sunlight will make it possible. The creativity of human mind defeats all the hurdles of economic growth. In July 2005 issue of “Inc.”, David H. Freedman reports of this development in a feature’ Looking into the Sun’.
In traditional photovoltaic system, sunlight knocks electrons out of a semi-conducting material like silicon, creating electric current. The very best efficiency can be around 15%- 85% of the sunlight’s energy go as waste. Cost per kilowatt-hour of electricity is 25 cents as against about 7cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity from a conventional natural gas based power station.
In this new thermoelectric solar dish system, the dish reflects and concentrates the rays in order to heat and expand gas. Expansion is through a device called Stirling engine turns a conventional electric generator.
A company called Stirling Energy systems claims to have reduced the cost of the dish frame with a mass-producible, bolted, rolled steel design and an off-the self race car radiators 82 three-by four- foot mirrors cover each dish’s surface that costs about $30. Each dish system costs about $25,000, making the total cost of a 500-megawatt installation to about $600 million. That is almost same as one for a conventional natural gas generating station.
The company claims to turn out electricity at less than 8 cents per kilowatt hour- very much competitive with the gas-based plant. And David Slawson, who heads Stirling Energy Systems claims, “If we can cover 1% of the world’s deserts, we can produce 100% of the world’s energy needs. And a solar farm 100 miles by 100 miles would be enough to displace the fossil-fuel consumption of the US.
Why can’t US put in some billion dollars in perfecting this technology and get out of the Iraq type wars for energy? With hydrogen fuel cell in automotive application and this solar technology, US can solve it s major energy problem. Why then the President is so much interested in Iraq costing more than $400 billion a year?
Why are Indian research institutes and IITs are not concentrating its research on this national problem of energy that is keeping the current growth doubtful and multi-nationals skeptical about India’s basic infrastructure facilities?
Sometimes, I start doubting the intention of government efforts in solving the county’s energy problem. The whole of the northern India from Kashmir to Arunachal can become power surplus if private and state enterprises get into big, medium, and small hydroelectric generation installations. The eastern and western coastal areas can go for windmill farms. Nuclear installations can power South India. Solar energy can be the optimum solution for the state like Rajasthan. Biomass can light the rural India. With so much of gas getting discovered, generation may go cleaner with gas-based power stations. Coal based power station can be planned at the pithead in the state such as Jharkhand to cut the cost of transportation. Reliance Energy, Tata Power, NTPC, and some more companies in the business can easily grow into giant enterprises for power generation installing on average 10,000MW capacity every year. All this can happen if the government comes out of the business.
Are you convinced that all this can happen in a time frame of 3-4 years, if there is an intention and will to move from energy scarcity to energy surplus country?
Now I quote from a special coverage of India from c/net News.Com that is on web today. “Electricity is another pressing concern. In nearly every Indian city and state, power outages occur fairly regularly. The lack of an adequate power grid is one reason that no foreign company has built a semiconductor fabrication facility in the country. A South Korean entrepreneur has signed a preliminary agreement to build a chip foundry near Hyderabad, but many sources privately doubt that the project will get far, because of the water and power demands of a modern fab plant.”
Why can’t we get rid of the situation? Can the Prime Minister or the Leftist parties supporting the government answer? Is the opposition doing its job in raising these issues?
I request you all to go through this link on India in this most popular news media of the IT industry.
- Indra
Category: Government Policy/Administration |
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