Making a De-carbonized and Energy-Independent India (E)

India is very energy hungry - it imports most of its oil, gas and lots of quality coal. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced that India will be 'Net Zero’ carbon emitter by 2070 - on the technological road to energy independence and to decarbonize India. Best estimates suggest that for the next 30-40 years coal in its current form will still be the predominant source of energy India. A new push is being made for carbon capture, storage and use and IIT Delhi has been pioneering some of these technologies. One almost no carbon dioxide source of base power is nuclear energy and India has announced a fleet mode of construction of ten reactors. Even at full utilization of so called renewable forms of energy like wind, solar and tidal India’s energy appetite will be met only to the tune of 25%. The rest will have to be met with atomic energy or by coal gasification combined with carbon capture and storage. Prof. Sonde was in his first avatar an engineer at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC), Mumbai, he then moved to the private sector and spent a lot of time at National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and is a leading expert on India’s energy bouquet and policy. India is now investing in re-inventing coal, in an effort to make coal as free of carbon as possible through technologies like coal to methanol, coal to gasification and coal to hydrogen. For India, coal is really the king as the coal resource can last up to 300 years but a cleaner, greener form of energy from coal has to be developed. Scientists say India’s energy independence will come from deploying a combination of clean coal energy, solar energy, hydrogen energy and nuclear energy. A decarbonized Indian economy is an imperative and achievable through the use of local research and development.

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