By Rohit Kumar:
One of the most-often quoted stories of the 21st century is the emergence of India and China on the global economy landscape. These emerging economies have provided much required calmness amidst global economic turbulence. However the flip side of the story is their growing appetite for energy and commodities. India is the 4th largest economy in the world and it is a home for one sixth of total population of the world. At this pace of growth in the economy (8.5 per cent in 2010-11) and subsequent increase in purchasing power, the energy needs of a vast population and growing industry can be quite demanding for policy-makers. The consumption of oil and its products in India itself is 2,438,000 barrels per day which exceeds 125 Million metric tonnes per year.
Even after the vast and diverse geography of India, the oil reserves in India is very less.75% of the total oil is imported from the oil rich countries. Oil and gas accounts for 40% of the total energy needs of India apart from this 53% of the energy needs are fulfilled by coal. Only 7% of the total energy needs are fulfilled by alternative sources of energy. Statistics reveals that a large part of energy needs are dependent on oil in India. Other sectors of energy production are already working to their maximum limit. About 67% of the total vehicles uses petrol in one or other form as fuelling in vehicles, cooking gas is produced from oil, generators make use of oil for electricity and so on. We all know the importance of fuel. Now the question arises, what will happen on the consumption of these resources?
According to a report, Indian oil reserves will be consumed completely in the coming 10 years. This is a big concern that has to be brought in limelight. India is a developing nation and it is running in the marathon of converting the nation into a developed country. We can’t afford the energy crisis as a halt in the development of our nation. What kind of impact an energy crisis can create is visible through a recent incident of “Northern grid failure”, which resulted in the stalling of Railways and Metros. The crisis affected about 620 million people, about 9% of the total population. The scale of a crisis worse than this can easily be imaginable after 10 years when the nation might be on the verge of attaining its goal of a “developed nation.” and there we are devoid of fuels! Although India is a coal rich nation and hydro power is a developed concept here, but even then, are we actually ready to fill this void of oil after those years? We definitely need some alternatives, and the alternative can be the renewable sources of energy.
But the energy production through renewable sources is just 1% of total energy production in India; most of them are bio-gas plants located in remote areas. The technological concept of solar and wind production is amateur in India.
India has got ample of solar and wind energy but it is getting wasted just because of absence of technology. There are 20 solar power and 5 wind power stations in India and the production from these sources has already been cleared through statistics. Also India is one of the major garbage producing countries and even this dump is not properly utilized. We use this garbage in making fertilizers and then most of them are burned to pollute the environment.
Apart from that, if we talk about the nuclear energy in India, although thorium is in profuse quantity but uranium has to be imported. Although the deal has been signed with US for equipments and set ups in the Nation but that needs a huge amount of money to be spent upon. Where the nation is already facing economic problems, this kind of expenditure can shake the whole economy. A whooping percentage of money is already spend upon energy imports and production in India but still the nation faces the problem of power cut offs.
We can easily imagine our nation without fuel. No fuel means no vehicles, no cooking gas, reduced electricity production, and so on!
The statistical analysis reveals that we are not in a state of high expenditures for bringing sophisticated technologies and moreover the state is prone to a disastrous power crisis in the coming future. There is a dire need of focus on the energy management in India. The government should properly implement 3R policy, the promotional concept of Eco-friendly products should be on priority basis, funds needs to be generated for bringing highly sophisticated technologies in India and nation should be capable enough to engineer these technologies in India. Awareness campaigns should be organized to create awareness among all classes of people. All these steps are important otherwise we’ll be in a “BLACK OUT ERA” soon. Energy is the backbone of development of any nation and government need to start preparing for this situation taking in consideration that this developments should not inflate the economy and at same time its absence should not halt it.