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there's an important element of this that rarely gets mentioned - demand growth in India. At the moment, the per capita electrical energy consumption of India i
by eldaisfish 5y ago
there's an important element of this that rarely gets mentioned - demand growth in India. At the moment, the per capita electrical energy consumption of India is between 20% - 25% that of China. What this means is that if India is to continue to grow, this energy must come from somewhere. Bear in mind, this is 4x - 5x as much energy as is delivered today to get to where China is today. While more renewable energy is a good thing, the fact is that no gigawatt scale power grid anywhere has managed to do this i.e. meet demand growth solely through renewable energy.
You mention strengthening the power grid - this is one of India's biggest choke points to domestic energy generation. their transmission grid is truly world-class but their distribution grid is regularly on the verge of collapse and power cuts are frequent. Before someone chimes in with "batteries" those are expensive and the Indian government already subsidises fuel - something that already works well. Batteries are not a solution to rickety distribution infrastructure in the developing world.
- pwarner 5y agoLong term we need a lot more energy globally than we have today. Think like 2x USA per capita total energy consumption, but all as electricity. Take that model global, and we need a lot more electricity.
- hazza_n_dazza 5y agoWhy? My 7nm CPU consumes heaps less power than my old 28nm CPU. What we need is a shift to fully renewable that dosen't eat the planet on the way.
- soperj 5y agoWhy? Cars? Think about how much less traffic a city like Mumbai would have if it was all electric bikes instead of electric cars.