Missile man of India and world known scientist Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam explained a very revolutionary plan for India, fastest developing country in the world. While addressing in 3rd Petrotech Subir Raha Memorial Lecture in August 2012, Dr. Kalam expressed what India needs to do in order to accelerate its economical growth. He guided on many challenging issues and untouched topics in his speech. He talked about solar model in Gujrat, energy requirements of country, foreign exchange and crude oil dependency, energy independence. Out of all, we will discuss energy requirements of India and energy independence here.
Energy Requirements:
Being a developing country, India’s energy demand is increasing every rising day. Supply-demand balance is necessary to maintain the growth of economy as energy is primary requisite of every industry which contributes most of the money into economy. With hardly 1% of oil and gas resources, India feeds energy supply to 17% of world population. To cope up with the speed of economy, India needs to generate 400 GW electric power most of which is recommended from renewable sources. Dr. Kalam has given statistical figures which government should look before planning future energy plans. With due geographical restrictions, Dr. Kalam’s advice is also useful for other countries. At present, India has installed capacity of 233 GW (as per CEA report, December, 2013) and we need additional 167 GW to complete our goal. With thoughtful use of land and natural resources, have to;
- Generate 50 GWs of hydel power with the help of regional waterways.
- Generate 60 GWs of power from solar energy by implementing large solar plants.
- Generate 50 GWs of power from Nuclear power.
- Generate 65 GWs power by using Wind energy.
With this plan, we can generate 225 GWs energy which is much more than required. In practice this surplus generating capacity is required to reduce the load factor on renewable energy sources. It will also increase the reliability of grid. Further, we can use municipal waste to generate electrical energy to add near about 30% of excess power.
3 Dimensions of Energy Independence:
Dr. Kalam clearly mentioned 3 aspects of energy which are needed to be considered before planning energy policy. Energy independence should;
- Ensure affordable and qualitative energy for everyone.
- Reduce the dependence on fossil fuels and stabilize the energy supply
- Promote environmental safety.
In order to put energy independence into practice;
- Energy efficiency of equipments in industrial, commercial, transportation and residential sectors should be increased to reduce energy demand growth by 50%
- Usage of fossil fuels should be reduced and restricted to 50%
- Replacing fossil fuels by green fuels e.g. carbon neutral renewable fuels in transportation.
- Reducing the net emission of CO2 from current 1.3 Kg per Watt of power per year to less than 0.65 Kg of CO2 per Watt of power per year.
Dr. Kalam proposed 3 areas which needs extensive research and will stand as rock solid solution to energy independence. We have to work on solar cell efficiency, Thorium’s nuclear applicability and bio-fuel plantation.
