Betting on the power game

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

: for example, the under-implemented Electricity Act of 2003 and the government finally allowing the private sector to play a larger role in electricity supply expansion by commissioning contracts for ultra mega power plants. The institutional problems might slowly be on the mend; however, when finally we do overcome our most crippling institutional barriers we might run headlong into long run constraints posed by the availability of fuel. Note that at an 8% rate of growth of GDP our national income as well as demand for power should increase 25 fold by 2050.

GDP growth and growth in power use share a synergistic relationship: GDP growth increases the demand for power and the increased use of power facilitates GDP surges. If the required increase in power supply is not forthcoming over a long time, all efforts at increasing efficiency of power use would have exhausted themselves, and GDP growth itself would be threatened. In other words, decoupling GDP increase from power supply augmentation is ruled out in the long run.

Even if power generation from coal maintains its share in total generation of 55%, coal resources would be exhausted by around 2045 at the mentioned rate of GDP growth. Supporters of hydro power expansion often point rather gleefully to existing estimates that indicate a utilization of only 33 giga-watts out of the total potential of 150 giga-watts of hydro-power. However even after full exploitation, hydro power will barely take care of 5% of the projected electricity demand in 2050.

Natural gas, even by Planning Commission scenarios, will never be able to meet more than 16% of our requirements. Similarly available scientific data indicates that wind power, even if developed to its full potential, will never satisfy more than 3% of the projected power demand in 2050. With existing technologies, large scale solar power production is ruled out because of high costs. Thus, a major power crisis would become unavoidable in 2050 or earlier unless nuclear power generation is developed on a large scale.