Showing posts with label clean energy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label clean energy. Show all posts

Friday, December 13, 2019

Global Energy Demand


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Thursday, November 17, 2016

Dirty Energy Will Have To Be Beat On Price

The solar energy industry has to innovate so hard and so fast (the solar energy Moore's Law?) with prices coming down by half every two years that dirty energy is simply priced out globally.

That is the best way forward.

The planet can not be hostage to whether or not a White House occupant will try to walk away from the Paris Agreement.

The political people though should agitate to end all the subsidies to dirty energy. There is too much corporate welfare going on.

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Friday, January 22, 2016

When The Ocean Currents Of Global Finance Stop Moving

Money getting parked like this is a disservice. There is such need, in terms of Global South infrastructure, and clean energy. This is like the ocean currents stopped moving. Why will money not want to grow?

The missing $20 trillion
If you define a tax haven as a place that tries to attract non-resident funds by offering light regulation, low (or zero) taxation and secrecy, then the world has 50-60 such havens. These serve as domiciles for more than 2m companies and thousands of banks, funds and insurers. Nobody really knows how much money is stashed away: estimates vary from way below to way above $20 trillion. ..... Ugland House, a building in the Cayman Islands that is officially home to 18,000 companies ...... Delaware (population 917,092), which is home to 945,000 companies, many of which are dodgy shells. ..... Miami is a massive offshore banking centre, offering depositors from emerging markets the sort of protection from prying eyes that their home countries can no longer get away with. The City of London, which pioneered offshore currency trading in the 1950s, still specialises in helping non-residents get around the rules. British shell companies and limited-liability partnerships regularly crop up in criminal cases. London is no better than the Cayman Islands when it comes to controls against money laundering. Other European Union countries are global hubs for a different sort of tax avoidance: companies divert profits to brass-plate subsidiaries in low-tax Luxembourg, Ireland and the Netherlands. .......

America remains shamefully reluctant to share information with the Latin American countries whose citizens hold deposits in Miami.

....... Nor do corporate taxes raise much money: barely more than 2% of GDP (8.5% of tax revenue) in America and 2.7% in Britain. Abolishing corporate tax would create its own problems, as it would encourage rich people to turn themselves into companies. But a lower rate on a broader base, combined with vigilance by the tax authorities, would be more efficient and would probably raise more revenue: America, whose companies face one of the rich world’s highest corporate-tax rates on their worldwide income, also has some of the most energetic tax-avoiders. .....

Financial centres and incorporation hubs, from the City of London to Delaware, will fight any attempt to tighten their rules. But if politicians really want to tax the missing $20 trillion, that’s where they should start.

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Wednesday, November 11, 2015

India: Solar Is The Cure

India Is Caught in a Climate Change Quandary
India is home to 30 percent of the world’s poorest, those living on less than $1.90 a day. Of the 1.3 billion Indians, 304 million do not have access to electricity; 92 million have no access to safe drinking water. ...... India’s rivers depend on the health of thousands of Himalayan glaciers at risk of melting because of a warming climate, while 150 million people are at risk from storm surges associated with rising sea levels. ..... The United Nations expects India’s population to reach 1.5 billion by 2030, bigger than China’s......

the world’s greenhouse gas emissions must be brought close to zero by the end of the century

.... economies like China and India must totally decarbonize their electricity supply around midcentury and achieve negative emissions from then on, using carbon capture technologies and vastly increased forests, to suck excessive carbon out of the atmosphere. ........ India must continue to grow at 7.5 to 8 percent a year for the next 15 years. ..... Even under the most ambitious goals for nuclear power and renewable energy, more than half of this power is expected to come from coal, the dirtiest fuel. “By 2030 India’s coal consumption could triple or quadruple” ...... It aims to get 40 percent of its electricity from nonfossil fuels by 2030 and to reduce its emissions intensity by 33 to 35 percent from 2005 to 2030. It also offers to vastly increase its forest cover. ..... India’s energy consumption amounts to only 0.6 metric tons of oil equivalent per person, about a third of the world average. It explains that “no country in the world” has ever achieved the development level of today’s advanced nations without consuming at least four tons.


The coming era of unlimited — and free — clean energy
In the 1980s, leading consultants were skeptical about cellular phones. McKinsey & Company noted that the handsets were heavy, batteries didn’t last long, coverage was patchy, and the cost per minute was exorbitant. It predicted that in 20 years the total market size would be about 900,000 units, and advised AT&T to pull out. McKinsey was wrong, of course. There were more than 100 million cellular phones in use in 2000; there are billions now. Costs have fallen so far that even the poor — all over world — can afford a cellular phone.......... The experts are saying the same about solar energy now. They note that after decades of development, solar power hardly supplies 1 percent of the world’s energy needs. They say that solar is inefficient, too expensive to install, and unreliable, and will fail without government subsidies. They too are wrong.

Solar will be as ubiquitous as cellular phones are.

...... solar power has been doubling every two years for the past 30 years — as costs have been dropping. He says

solar energy is only six doublings — or less than 14 years — away from meeting 100 percent of today’s energy needs

. ....... inexpensive renewable sources will provide more energy than the world needs in less than 20 years. Even then, we will be using only one part in 10,000 of the sunlight that falls on the Earth. ...... By 2020, solar energy will be price-competitive with energy generated from fossil fuels on an unsubsidized basis in most parts of the world. Within the next decade, it will cost a fraction of what fossil-fuel-based alternatives do. ....... wind, biomass, thermal, tidal, and waste-breakdown energy, and research projects all over the world are working on improving their efficiency and effectiveness. Wind power, for example, has also come down sharply in price and is now competitive with the cost of new coal-burning power plants in the United States. It will, without doubt, give solar energy a run for its money. There will be breakthroughs in many different technologies, and these will accelerate overall progress. ........

We will be able to create unlimited clean water — by boiling ocean water and condensing it.

With inexpensive energy, our farmers can also grow hydroponic fruits and vegetables in vertical farms located near consumers. Imagine skyscrapers located in cities that grow food in glass buildings without the need for pesticides, and that recycle nutrients and materials to ensure there is no ecological impact.
Why Obama should stop pushing nuclear energy on India
It no longer makes sense for any country to install a technology that can create a catastrophe such as Chernobyl or Fukushima — especially when far better alternatives are available. Technologies such as solar and wind are advancing so rapidly that by the time the first new nuclear reactors are installed in India, they will be less costly than nuclear energy. ...... Solar power has been doubling every two years for the past 30 years — as costs have been dropping. At this rate, solar is only six doublings — or less than 14 years — away from meeting practically all of today’s energy needs. Even with this, we will be using only one part in 10,000 of the sunlight that falls on the Earth. ....... For India, energy production using solar will alleviate the problems of its decaying national electricity grid. Energy can be generated and stored locally — at the village level. ......

The president should not be prescribing medicine that he would not take himself.

The United States has not installed any new nuclear plants for more than 30 years. There would be massive public protests if any were even proposed — anywhere in the country. Germany is working towards phasing out all of its nuclear plants by 2022 and many other developed countries are looking to follow its lead....... India is still reeling from the Bhopal disaster of 1984, when a leakage of cyanide gas at the Union Carbide plant killed 5,295 people and left tens of thousands with permanent disabilities. The surviving victims are stillbegging for fair compensation. This was a chemical catastrophe; a nuclear one would be far more destructive. ..... Instead of trying to chain India to the past with technologies such as nuclear, he should help the country leapfrog into the future with clean energy. This will benefit not only India, but also the world.
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Tuesday, October 13, 2015

India And Energy

India’s Energy Crisis
Can India modernize its manufacturing economy and supply electricity to its growing population without relying heavily on coal—and quite possibly destroying the global climate?
At least 300 million of India’s 1.25 billion people live without electricity ..... Another quarter-billion or so get only spotty power from India’s decrepit grid, finding it available for as little as three or four hours a day. The lack of power affects rural and urban areas alike, limiting efforts to advance both living standards and the country’s manufacturing sector. ....... Modi ... has promised to increase India’s renewable-energy capacity to 175 gigawatts, including 100 gigawatts of solar, by 2022. ..... (That’s about the total power generation capacity of Germany.) ...... India is attempting to do something no nation has ever done: build a modern industrialized economy, and bring light and power to its entire population, without dramatically increasing carbon emissions. Simply to keep up with rising demand for electricity, it must add around 15 gigawatts each year over the next 30 years. ......

The country gets most of its electricity from aging, dirty coal-fired plants.

...... a massive 2012 outage that left more than 600 million people in the dark and drew attention to a utility sector in disarray, with an estimated $70 billion of accumulated debt. ...... China is now the world’s largest emitter of carbon..... Its population is expected to grow by another 400 million people over the next three decades, bringing it to 1.7 billion by 2050. ...... By 2050, India will have roughly 20 percent of the world’s population .....

these younger politicians tend to be pragmatists, seeking to encourage economic growth through neoliberal policies such as deregulation and privatization of state industries.

Since his appointment, Goyal has emerged as a champion of renewable energy, calling for investments of $100 billion in renewables and another $50 billion in upgrading the country’s faltering grid. Almost every week he appears in the newspapers cutting the ribbon on a new solar power plant or wind farm or hydropower installation......... coal remains the cheapest source of power, and India’s coal industry has embarked on a building boom, doubling installed capacity since 2008. India consumes around 800 million tons of coal a year and could more than double that number by 2035 ..... Almost 70 percent of India’s electricity today comes from coal-fired plants. About 17 percent comes from hydropower, much of it from large dams in the northeast. Another 3.5 percent comes from nuclear. That leaves about 10 percent, depending on daily conditions, from renewables—mostly wind farms. ...... Over the next 25 years, “with the most aggressive assumptions in terms of renewables, we could go up to 18 or 20 percent from renewables,” Ramesh told me. “Hydro takes longer—it involves displacement of people and submergence of land, but we could expect that 17 percent contribution to go up to 25 percent. Nuclear is at 3.5 percent right now and, under the most aggressive assumptions, could go up to 5 or 6 percent. So under the best scenario—the most aggressive programs for nuclear, hydro, solar, and wind—bloody coal will still be at 50 percent.” In other words, while low- or zero-carbon sources would make up a greater portion of India’s energy supply, overall carbon emissions would nearly double: from around 2.1 billion tons in 2014 to more than four billion tons by 2040..........

In 2012, when Modi was chief minister of the state of Gujarat, he presided over the launch of the world’s largest solar installation: a group of plants totaling nearly one gigawatt combined.

..... the government plans a program of building nuclear plants that would roughly triple capacity by 2024 and supply one-quarter of the country’s electricity needs by 2050. India also aims to further capitalize on its abundant potential for water power, particularly in the far northeastern states ....... the planned construction of an ultra-deepwater natural-gas pipeline across the Arabian Sea, from Iran to India’s west coast......

building all these new projects will be extremely expensive, requiring a level of fiscal discipline and political will that India’s fractious, corrupt government has seldom achieved.

Modi, who has surrounded himself with a group of capable, mostly well-respected technocrats like Goyal, has limited power to compel the states to implement and enforce clean-energy mandates, beyond the promise of central-government largesse. Rules requiring utilities to use a minimum amount of renewable power have mostly been ignored. Key pieces of legislation, including important amendments to the Electricity Act of 2003, are stalled in parliament because few of the country’s politicians are willing to tackle the key issue: utilities are currently forced to sell electricity at below costs. Efforts to modernize the country’s antiquated utilities—as must happen if there is to be any chance of implementing Modi’s ambitious energy agenda—seem no closer to success than they did when he took office...........

“The West will have to pay for the damage they have caused to the world and the planet,” Goyal said in a climate-change address in London in May.

........ Modi is trying to create a world-class renewable-energy industry while reforming a corrupt and bankrupt utility sector, growing the country’s manufacturing sector, keeping deficits low, and sustaining economic growth at around 8 percent a year. ......... Power losses in transmission and distribution across India average around 25 percent, and in some areas they can reach 50 percent. That means that half of the electricity being generated either never reaches an end user or is used but never paid for. Power losses in the developed world seldom reach 10 percent. For a grid about to be tested by the addition of large amounts of power from intermittent renewable sources, that outdated infrastructure is a huge problem............ the daily rolling brownouts that plague Delhi, along with most other Indian cities. With grid power uncertain, major Indian companies such as IT giant Infosys have installed their own power plants: Infosys is planning a 50-megawatt solar park to serve its offices in Bangalore, Mysore, and Mangalore.......

Promising free water and electricity, without specifying a way to pay for it, is an old tradition in Indian state and local election campaigns.

Under the Aam Aadmi Party’s platform, Delhi families will get 20,000 liters of free water a month, and those who use less than 400 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month will get a 50 percent discount on their electric bills. Those subsidies will cost the government up to 16.7 billion rupees ($250 million) annually—and they will not help the discoms run profitable businesses......... Under the agricultural subsidies that have become the third rail of energy politics in India, farmers essentially get free power, which means the utilities that serve them lose money on every customer. Some of the loss is made up in handouts from the central government—but upgrading the grid will be of little use unless utilities can develop viable business models. The sector has been bailed out, to the tune of billions of rupees, twice in the last 13 years. The cumulative losses have increased so drastically that they could “pull down the whole growth agenda” of the Modi government .......

Full reform, however, will require steps that remain politically off limits for now: complete privatization, less interference by state governments in utility operations, and, above all, an end to free electricity for farmers.

..... India’s vastness. ..... Expanding the grid to reach every home and business would require many trillions of rupees that the central and state governments simply don’t have. For many, gaining access to electricity through solar microgrids and other local power sources that bypass the traditional utility model is a far more practical option.........

India’s energy problems will require solutions tailored to the country’s history, its technology and economy, and its place in the world.

..... Although Appapur is located inside a tiger reserve, the real problems are leopards, snakes, and wild boars. Leopards take 10 to 15 domestic cows and goats a year ...... A number of Indian and foreign providers, including fast-growing companies like Visionary Lighting and Energy and Greenlight Planet, are spreading small home solar systems across South Asia, driven by government incentives, plummeting costs for the technology, and high demand......... Every town in India, even the dustiest roadside hamlet, has banners and billboards advertising small battery and inverter systems. A new energy ecosystem is arising in complex and not always predictable ways...... The combination of failing utilities, heavy reliance on coal, a faulty grid, and an energy sector crippled by government subsidies and interference seems to argue that India has no chance: no path to economic growth and energy abundance except one that’s disastrous for the environment. But at ground level, the picture is more complicated and less bleak........ “The central government and outside investors are, naturally, focused on these big mega-projects, where they’re getting ridiculous financing, but

the real innovation is happening at the village level

,” says Anshu Bharadwaj, the executive director of the Center for Study of Science, Technology, and Policy, a Delhi think tank.

“The most impactful way is to develop a large number of 100-kilowatt, half-a-megawatt projects that are distributed across the country, close to rural loads.”

........... You can’t extend the grid to every village and hut in India, but you also can’t develop and operate a 21st-century manufacturing base using unpredictable distributed solar power. ....... Bihar is typical of India’s rural states: it has more than 100 million people, less than one-fifth of whom have access to reliable electricity. The state discom is more or less bankrupt, subsidized electricity bills are artificially low, and electricity losses on the grid are close to 50 percent. The reach of the grid is random ...... “I visited a village today that doesn’t have electricity,” he told me in July,

“and 100 meters away, the next village has good electricity. It’s confusing.

They may get it next month, next decade, or never.” ...... happens to be embarking on its modernization phase at a time when prices for renewable-energy generation, and for the technology to make it work at the local level, are starting to rival prices for traditional fossil-fuel-generated power. ...... Every microgrid and local solar system deployed reduces by a fraction the need to extend the grid; every new renewable-energy system installed by a business or factory reduces the pressure to build ultra-mega power plants........

The Indian genius for adaptation and survival in chaotic and challenging circumstances

provides hope that the country can solve the seemingly insurmountable challenge of expanding its economy in a clean and sustainable fashion. In many ways there is no choice. “India cannot afford to replicate the American or Chinese ‘Grow now, pay later’ model,” says Jairam Ramesh. “We cannot afford to say, ‘We’re going to have 25 years of 8 percent GDP growth, then do a cleanup act later.’”
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Wednesday, June 24, 2015

१५% Growth Rake कैसे Achieve करें

आडवाणी प्रधान मंत्री हुवे होते तो मैं कहता, भैया आप ५% ही दे दो वही काफी है, क्यों कि आप Hindu Rate Of Growth (2-3%) के ज़माने के लोग हो। मौनमोहन सिंह लौट के आ जाते फिर तो मैं कहता, आप ने ९ तो पहले दे ही दिया अब १० दे के दिखाओ। लेकिन चुँकि बात नरेन्द्र (rhymes with Paramendra) मोदी की है, और ये जनाब १५ साल तो राज करेंगे ही, योग करते रहे और सेहत ठीक रखे तो २० भी जा सकते हैं। तो इनको तो १५% तक जाना है। वो कैसे?



७-७.५% तो अभी हो गया। वो creative accounting से ---- अरुण जेटली जी का जो Goods And Services Tax Bill है, उसको पास करो तो Growth Rate में २% तक add हो जावेगी (कपिल शर्माका शब्द) ---- कितना हुवा? ९% हुवा। और मैं GST Bill को बड़े गौर से देख रहा हुँ। इस पर Opposition वालों को भी yes बोलना है।

सोलर पावर से आप जितने सौ गीगावाट बिजली पैदा करो ग्रोथ रेट में उसका सीधा असर पड़ेगा। १०० गीगावाट से १% ---- वो तो कर लिया। ५०० गीगावाट करो तो ५% -- तो ९ और २ अगर ११ तो ९ और ५ कितना? १४% .

बाँकी के १? नीतिश को कहो बिहार को २०% पर ले जाए --- ताकि राष्ट्रिय औसत कमसेकम १% और बढ़ जाए। नीतिश १६ पहले ही कर चुके हैं। १६ कर सकते हैं तो २० भी कर सकते हैं।

प्रत्येक १००,००० किलोमीटर रोड बनाने से १% add होती जाएगी। प्रत्येक भारतीय तक अगर ब्रॉडबैंड पहुँचा दो तो उससे २% और add हो जाएगी। भारत और बंगलादेश के बीच जैसा normalization है वो अगर पाकिस्तान और भारत के बीच हो जाए तो उससे २% और add हो जाए।

GST Bill तो भारत के भितर के लिए है ----- दुनिया भर trade agreement कर कर के market expand करते रहो। अफ्रिका बहुत promising है। युरोप, अमेरिका, जापान, चीन।

१५% Growth Rate कैसे Achieve करें? मैंने बात वहाँ से शुरू कि। मेरे को लग रहा है दो साल और लगेगा १०% तक पहुँचने में। वहाँ से १५% तक पहुँचने में उसके बाद ५ साल लग सकते हैं। उसके बाद शायद २० भी संभव हो जाये। सोलर पावर से १,००० गीगावाट बिजली पैदा कर लो तो शायद २०% growth rate भी संभव है। Move aside Saudi Arabia, we have Rajasthan. सुर्य प्रणाम हम वैसे नहीं करते हैं, बहुत सोंच समझ के करते हैं।

Education और Health बहुत मायने रखती है ------ वहां क्युबा से बहुत कुछ सिखा जा सकता है। नीतिश से भी।

अगर प्रत्येक भारतीय टॉयलेट प्रयोग करने लगे तो उससे जो health expenses कम होंगे उससे GDP growth rate में नहीं ज्यादा तो २% तो मदत होना ही है। इस तरह बिमारियाँ ना फैले।

भारत के लोगों के पास जितना सोना है उस सबको financial system में लाओ तो उससे २% ----- बहुत सोना है भारत में। लेकिन सोना घर पे सोना के रूप में रहती है तो that is money out of the system, that is money that people can't lend and borrow ---- लोग काला धन की बात करते हैं, मैं सुनहरा धन की बात करना चाहुँगा। सुनहरे धनको banking system में ले आओ तो उससे ग्रोथ रेट में २% तक तो मदत हो ही जावेगी (कपिल का शब्द).

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Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Africa Can Save The World

Barack Obama And Africa
Barack Obama Africa Foundation

This is mind blowing. Africa has had it this entire time.

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Saturday, February 28, 2015

नीला आसमान और भारतका विकास

चीनने विकास तो किया लेकिन वहाँ क्या है कि आजकल आकाश दिखता ही नहीं है। भारत को वो गलती दुहरानी नहीं चाहिए। प्रदुषण ज्यादा हो तो quality of life ख़राब हो जाती है -- तो वैसे विकास का क्या फ़ायदा कि सबको दम्मा का बीमारी हो जाए?

Double Digit Growth चाहिए भारतको। Clean Energy can actually help. It is one of the industries of tomorrow. And not only should India emphasize clean energy as much as possible, it should make it an export item.

नीला आसमान और भारतका विकास ---- सबका साथ जो कहते हैं उसमें आसमान को भी समेटिये।

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