The Hindu Business Line : Ensuring energy security

IT HAS BY now become customary for the President, Mr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, to raise, on formal occasions of state, issues of direct relevance to the country's economic progress. On the eve of the 59th Independence Day, he raised the issue of the need for a policy thrust in renewable energy sources so that the country is able to achieve total energy independence by 2030. The case is indeed compelling for ramping up the level of energy consumption in the context of raising the standard of living of the people.

In its recent appraisal of the Tenth Plan, the Planning Commission had noted that nearly 56 per cent of households are without electricity. Undoubtedly, affordable power is the key to improving the standards of living of the dispossessed. The conventional sources of enhancing energy availability pose many challenges. Over the years, the world has reduced its dependence on petroleum fuels for power generation. The recent flare up in crude oil prices would only fuel this trend. Coal and hydro-power projects too have their own disadvantages. For one, their availability is skewed towards the country's East and the North-East necessitating huge investments in transmission infrastructure. The carbon emissions in the case of coal and the seismic implications of large hydro-power plants add to the imponderables. That leaves only the nuclear option among the conventional sources. The domestic availability of natural uranium would constrain the projects in the conventional and fast-breeder type nuclear power plants. The willingness of Russia and other countries constituting the nuclear suppliers group to offer plants based on light water reactors (a parallel option in the fission energy route) is yet to be tested under the new agreements with the United States. The thorium-based fusion reactors are still many years away as the technology is yet to be commercially proven.

The choice clearly falls on solar and wind energy — the two non-conventional sources. They have the advantage of offering a distributed supply solution to the burgeoning energy needs of the country. The solar power is an option the President referred to in his speech. But one wished that he had also dwelt on the prospects for wind energy in scaling up power production. The Plan programmes in wind power energy are success stories in a dreary landscape of under-achievement across many sectors. The country's wind energy installed capacity is likely to be double the target for this Plan period. The enthusiasm of the private sector to commit investments in this sector is clearly the reason for this extraordinary performance. The success record has to be reinforced with the Union Government making this a thrust area and according to it the importance it bestows on Centrally sponsored schemes in such areas as family planning, primary education, and child development. The country has shown itself as capable of executing development projects once the requisite political will been mustered. This could well turn out to be another case in the record of such achievements.

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