The Hindu Business Line : Power of efficiency

When the developed world calls on India to reduce carbon emissions, as the G-8 nations did earlier this month at the Heiligendamm summit, it cannot but be tempting to tell them to reduce emissions first. After all it is the developed nations that have over the years released most of the carbon load into the atmosphere to set off some wonky climate behaviour. Any correction must be theirs to make, not India's. With 17 per cent of world's population, India accounts for just four per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions. Other nations speeded up their development by burning fossil fuels that were available relatively cheap. Surely India should have the right to go with this strategy and not deny itself. Such an argument sounds chirpy, even politically correct, for no one likes to be dictated to. It may even be good rhetoric in the South-versus-North debate; but to assume that India has to pursue a similar energy-extravagant path to development would be terribly wrong.

Satisfying the energy appetite of an economy and a population as large as India growing at this current heady pace of 8 per cent a year will be a challenge if the country takes a business-as-usual approach to energy consumption. Electricity generation capacity would need to be enlarged by more than 50 per cent to meet the projected rise in demand over the next five years, and this will call for a staggeringly large amount of resources. The additional indent on cement and steel for building the power stations and transmission lines over the five years will be equal to 20 per cent of the total output of the past year. Coal needs of thermal power stations will be just as immense; against 320 million tonnes last year, some 542 million tonnes would be required in 2012. Consider not just the demands this will make on the existing creaky infrastructure but also the implications for the atmosphere, which will need to absorb all the extra greenhouse gases. Can the country do with less?

It is evident that there are gross inefficiencies in the way energy is produced and used. Thermal efficiencies at many power stations are half what they must be; transmission and distribution losses are almost thrice what they ought to be; and appliances that use electricity soak up much more energy than they should. The question is why such a dismal state of efficiency has been tolerated, and why there has been no regulatory intervention to set efficiency norms and enforce them. The country does no better with crude oil, consuming as much as Germany but producing one-third its Gross Domestic Product. It is time such sloppy use of precious natural resources is corrected. If power stations can deliver 50 per cent more electricity from the same quantity of coal, not only does that make environment sense, it makes good economics. Indeed that is what the nation must expect from them.

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