6 ms·

India has been happily buying discount fossil fuels from Russia. Foot, meet gun

by nikanj 5y ago

eklavya 5y ago
Yeah, why care for the poor population even when Europe is busy buying oil for itself. It’s not like per capita consumption of the west is 10x or greater.
- ngc248 5y ago
  exactly .... "rules for thee, but none for me". In an already resource constrained place like India, it will take time to switch to renewable resources. Until then the only option is fossil fuels.
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    It doesn't seem to get talked about as much it should but the economically efficient way to net zero is for rich, but non-sunny places to install solar in poor but sunny places and split the carbon reduction 'credit'. It’s a win-win-win. I wonder how much more effective in economically damaging Russia it would be to push solar (and efficiency, insulation etc.) in regions on its southern border. EU should do it at home too, as its the smart thing to do regardless, but bang-for-buck probably depends more on a) geography, b) growth rate of electricity usage, c) displacement of coal power, followed by poorly regulated methane extraction.
    - kzrdude 5y ago
      Tangential to this, there is the Morocco solar project - where the plan is to export via HVDC link to the UK - will this result in UK energy prices influencing those of Morocco? "Ideally" the production site should have access to cheaper energy since it's "their resource".
      - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
        Thats a good example. It would be better for 'global' warming if Britain just bought carbon credits from Morocco and skipped the transmission line. Morocco gets cheap, clean energy independence and industrial investment, the world gets less fossil co2 and even if they get taken over by Martians in the future that don't respect human laws, the climate benefit is already delivered and can’t be "cut off". However, the same groups that have poisoned the well on carbon "taxes", seem to have really done a number on the whole concept of offsets and emissions trading. Free market economics? Not acceptable if it hurts fossil fuels and helps the poor, only vice versa it seems.
        pabs3 5y ago
        The Gold Standard organisation funds projects that reduce carbon emissions and helps the poor: https://www.goldstandard.org/our-story/gold-standard-featured-projects https://www.goldstandard.org/our-story/gold-standard-feature...
        kzrdude 5y ago
        "Free market" economics are broken for nonrenewable resources, since they misprice them - don't take future scarcity into account at all, and encourage an all-you-can-extract economy.
        ZeroGravitas 5y ago
        They're relatively easy to fix though. But fossil fuels oligarchies destroy society and civilization just as much as they destroy the environment. Faith in government, science, rule of law, democracy and economics have been polluted as thoroughly as the air.
    - qart 5y ago
      India is already doing it. Not at a rapid enough pace to meet all of the national demand, but at least my state (KA) has the lowest coal consumption and is still selling electricity to other states. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaic_power_stations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaic_power_sta... sort by year and by capacity for highlights.
      - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
        India does have some good work in this area but at the margin India will think "should I invest one more dollar in this?" and the answer will be "No, it will only gain me 99c that I can capture". But that gain, unlike the carbon output, will be bounded by the national border, unless there's some way of exporting it for cash. EU carbon tariffs will have a similar effect, making Indian goods relatively cheaper on the export market if they invest in solar. This comes up again and again. The famous "Renewable Energy Without the Hot Air" for example is about how the UK could generate it's own power cleanly. Which is effectively irrelevant in a global context of 60 Million vs 11 Billion people, but it makes phasing out fossil fuels seem harder so there's a lot of people pushing it as an unstated assumption.
- nasut 5y ago
  Well that would be 12kWh (EU) vs. 1.8kWh (India). Multiply by population 447M * 12 kWh = 5364 BkWh vs. 1360M * 1.8 kWh = 2448 BkWh from oil. So yes, EU is spewing twice the co2 from oil. That said, the EU has probably the strongest co2 emissions reduction programs out there atm. The EU for example reduced its co2 emissions by 19% 2019->2020. India’s co2 emissions OTOH grows 4-5% each year. So in that sense they are shooting themselves in the foot. Of course there are multitudes of things to consider (GDP, standard of living etc.) so blamegame is a bit misplaced. For blame: all this pales in comparison to the US, which consumes over twice the oil per capita (27 kWh/capita) vs. EU https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-oil?tab=table https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-oil?tab=table which make 27 kWh * 334M = 9000 BWh from oil alone and is barely reducing their total co2 emmissions. They reduced it by a whopping 1% 2009-2019
  - hagen2022 5y ago
    One can always compare the per capita and blame the rich world for many issues. This is nice for a debate. But at the end, poor + middle class of India suffer due to this. Sure the rich world ruined environment, but that cannot be reason to say India can do similar. The first to get affected will be the poor world (yes, incl. India) and then only the poor people in the west. I understand this is a sensitive issue, as my wife is from India, and people do not like complaining about India (especially they do not like foreign news organisations like BBC/CNN/NYtimes posting negative news). Please start thinking as global citizens (heck your people are running Twitter, Google, MS).
    - eklavya 5y ago
      The problem is that you are cut off from the reality. The poor has to live and that means we need to have cheap energy. Get off the high horse and maybe engage with your governments to understand why nuclear power is still out of reach for developing nations. Forget about sharing green power tech.
- wewxjfq 5y ago
  Europe is stopping it, India is asking for more. 140 countries could condemn the war in an UN vote - India couldn't.
  - naruvimama 5y ago
  - kzrdude 5y ago
    I'm a European. I think we have to accept that not the whole world has to care about a war in eastern Europe. For us, it's the world, but it's hypocritical to demand that everyone pays attention to our crisis.
    - LightG 5y ago
      I generally agree - but considering this conflict could (unlikely but possibly) become a world war then, yes, other countries should pay attention.
      - AmIDev 5y ago
        Should it be considered world war if it's only NATO vs Russia? WW2 involved millions from commonwealth(India contributed the largest volunteer military), I don't see India, China and Africa getting involved into NATO-Russia war directly. That excludes majority of the world's population.
      - srvmshr 5y ago
        True. It does, but similar risks have come by before (in S Asia). India & Pakistan had a full confrontation in 1990s, when they were both nuclear capable & backed by Russia and US respectively. People at the helm of warcraft perhaps know where to draw the line. It is highly unlikely Putin will use tactical nukes or pre-emptively strike US/EU, no matter how grim the war looks. People do not realize that the game of brinksmanship has played out several times in the past. We empathize Ukraine because news coverage & social media have brought the sounds of guns and rocket right to our doorstep. Horrific war crimes have happened, countless people died & children orphaned in Kosovo, Palestine, Kashmir etc. - but we can't connect with it because we don't see it flashed in the daily news.
mulvya 5y ago
US imported even more. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/international-business/us-imported-more-fuel-from-russia-than-india/articleshow/91193208.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/international-b...
gkalbert 5y ago
Countries with secure energy reserves are sitting on the moral high horse right now. Similar to the India criticism above, in Europe it is always Germany that is criticized for importing natural gas from Russia. This week it turned out that Poland and Bulgaria (which Russia has just cut off) relied to the order of 45% and 90% on Russian gas. Poland is now re-importing Russian gas from Germany! Other European countries also rely on Russian gas. I suppose we should instead buy from virtuous countries like Saudi Arabia (Yemen war, human rights violations).
- weberer 5y ago
  >in Europe it is always Germany that is criticized for importing natural gas from Russia Germany is particularly criticized because they shut down their nuclear plants about 10 years ago, which makes them seen as huge hypocrites when talking about reducing fossil fuel use.
- moffkalast 5y ago
  Still it's easier to lay blame on the richest country in Europe for picking the cheaper and dirtier option while they could do better, than Poland for trying to pull itself out of poverty. Not to mention a large chunk of Germany's gas is used by the chemical industry, which is kind of like saying "we're gonna keep buying Russian gas to not hurt our profit margins". What we should really be doing is following France's shining example of complete nuclear power independence, but the time for that was 15 years ago and we're basically all fucked right now.
  - hayvq 5y ago
    I agree with pushing nuclear energy, but France is still buying Russian gas! Other European countries benefit from the NordStream pipelines as well, which were originally built to circumvent Ukraine after Ukraine stole gas in transit (another example that the history is more complex than presented right now). Germany is rich on paper for the elites. The population is poor, suffers from wage dumping through influx of Eastern Europeans and already suffers from sky high energy costs for private households.

India has been happily buying discount fossil fuels from Russia. Foot, meet gun

by nikanj 5y ago

India has been happily buying discount fossil fuels from Russia. Foot, meet gun

Yeah, why care for the poor population even when Europe is busy buying oil for itself. It’s not like per capita consumption of the west is 10x or greater.

ngc248 5y ago
exactly .... "rules for thee, but none for me". In an already resource constrained place like India, it will take time to switch to renewable resources. Until then the only option is fossil fuels.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  It doesn't seem to get talked about as much it should but the economically efficient way to net zero is for rich, but non-sunny places to install solar in poor but sunny places and split the carbon reduction 'credit'. It’s a win-win-win. I wonder how much more effective in economically damaging Russia it would be to push solar (and efficiency, insulation etc.) in regions on its southern border. EU should do it at home too, as its the smart thing to do regardless, but bang-for-buck probably depends more on a) geography, b) growth rate of electricity usage, c) displacement of coal power, followed by poorly regulated methane extraction.
  - kzrdude 5y ago
    Tangential to this, there is the Morocco solar project - where the plan is to export via HVDC link to the UK - will this result in UK energy prices influencing those of Morocco? "Ideally" the production site should have access to cheaper energy since it's "their resource".
    - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
      Thats a good example. It would be better for 'global' warming if Britain just bought carbon credits from Morocco and skipped the transmission line. Morocco gets cheap, clean energy independence and industrial investment, the world gets less fossil co2 and even if they get taken over by Martians in the future that don't respect human laws, the climate benefit is already delivered and can’t be "cut off". However, the same groups that have poisoned the well on carbon "taxes", seem to have really done a number on the whole concept of offsets and emissions trading. Free market economics? Not acceptable if it hurts fossil fuels and helps the poor, only vice versa it seems.
      - pabs3 5y ago
        The Gold Standard organisation funds projects that reduce carbon emissions and helps the poor: https://www.goldstandard.org/our-story/gold-standard-featured-projects https://www.goldstandard.org/our-story/gold-standard-feature...
      - kzrdude 5y ago
        "Free market" economics are broken for nonrenewable resources, since they misprice them - don't take future scarcity into account at all, and encourage an all-you-can-extract economy.
        ZeroGravitas 5y ago
        They're relatively easy to fix though. But fossil fuels oligarchies destroy society and civilization just as much as they destroy the environment. Faith in government, science, rule of law, democracy and economics have been polluted as thoroughly as the air.
  - qart 5y ago
    India is already doing it. Not at a rapid enough pace to meet all of the national demand, but at least my state (KA) has the lowest coal consumption and is still selling electricity to other states. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaic_power_stations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaic_power_sta... sort by year and by capacity for highlights.
    - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
      India does have some good work in this area but at the margin India will think "should I invest one more dollar in this?" and the answer will be "No, it will only gain me 99c that I can capture". But that gain, unlike the carbon output, will be bounded by the national border, unless there's some way of exporting it for cash. EU carbon tariffs will have a similar effect, making Indian goods relatively cheaper on the export market if they invest in solar. This comes up again and again. The famous "Renewable Energy Without the Hot Air" for example is about how the UK could generate it's own power cleanly. Which is effectively irrelevant in a global context of 60 Million vs 11 Billion people, but it makes phasing out fossil fuels seem harder so there's a lot of people pushing it as an unstated assumption.
nasut 5y ago
Well that would be 12kWh (EU) vs. 1.8kWh (India). Multiply by population 447M * 12 kWh = 5364 BkWh vs. 1360M * 1.8 kWh = 2448 BkWh from oil. So yes, EU is spewing twice the co2 from oil. That said, the EU has probably the strongest co2 emissions reduction programs out there atm. The EU for example reduced its co2 emissions by 19% 2019->2020. India’s co2 emissions OTOH grows 4-5% each year. So in that sense they are shooting themselves in the foot. Of course there are multitudes of things to consider (GDP, standard of living etc.) so blamegame is a bit misplaced. For blame: all this pales in comparison to the US, which consumes over twice the oil per capita (27 kWh/capita) vs. EU https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-oil?tab=table https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-oil?tab=table which make 27 kWh * 334M = 9000 BWh from oil alone and is barely reducing their total co2 emmissions. They reduced it by a whopping 1% 2009-2019
- hagen2022 5y ago
  One can always compare the per capita and blame the rich world for many issues. This is nice for a debate. But at the end, poor + middle class of India suffer due to this. Sure the rich world ruined environment, but that cannot be reason to say India can do similar. The first to get affected will be the poor world (yes, incl. India) and then only the poor people in the west. I understand this is a sensitive issue, as my wife is from India, and people do not like complaining about India (especially they do not like foreign news organisations like BBC/CNN/NYtimes posting negative news). Please start thinking as global citizens (heck your people are running Twitter, Google, MS).
  - eklavya 5y ago
    The problem is that you are cut off from the reality. The poor has to live and that means we need to have cheap energy. Get off the high horse and maybe engage with your governments to understand why nuclear power is still out of reach for developing nations. Forget about sharing green power tech.
wewxjfq 5y ago
Europe is stopping it, India is asking for more. 140 countries could condemn the war in an UN vote - India couldn't.
- naruvimama 5y ago
- kzrdude 5y ago
  I'm a European. I think we have to accept that not the whole world has to care about a war in eastern Europe. For us, it's the world, but it's hypocritical to demand that everyone pays attention to our crisis.
  - LightG 5y ago
    I generally agree - but considering this conflict could (unlikely but possibly) become a world war then, yes, other countries should pay attention.
    - AmIDev 5y ago
      Should it be considered world war if it's only NATO vs Russia? WW2 involved millions from commonwealth(India contributed the largest volunteer military), I don't see India, China and Africa getting involved into NATO-Russia war directly. That excludes majority of the world's population.
    - srvmshr 5y ago
      True. It does, but similar risks have come by before (in S Asia). India & Pakistan had a full confrontation in 1990s, when they were both nuclear capable & backed by Russia and US respectively. People at the helm of warcraft perhaps know where to draw the line. It is highly unlikely Putin will use tactical nukes or pre-emptively strike US/EU, no matter how grim the war looks. People do not realize that the game of brinksmanship has played out several times in the past. We empathize Ukraine because news coverage & social media have brought the sounds of guns and rocket right to our doorstep. Horrific war crimes have happened, countless people died & children orphaned in Kosovo, Palestine, Kashmir etc. - but we can't connect with it because we don't see it flashed in the daily news.

mulvya 5y ago

US imported even more. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/international-business/us-imported-more-fuel-from-russia-than-india/articleshow/91193208.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/international-b...

gkalbert 5y ago

Countries with secure energy reserves are sitting on the moral high horse right now. Similar to the India criticism above, in Europe it is always Germany that is criticized for importing natural gas from Russia. This week it turned out that Poland and Bulgaria (which Russia has just cut off) relied to the order of 45% and 90% on Russian gas. Poland is now re-importing Russian gas from Germany! Other European countries also rely on Russian gas. I suppose we should instead buy from virtuous countries like Saudi Arabia (Yemen war, human rights violations).

weberer 5y ago
>in Europe it is always Germany that is criticized for importing natural gas from Russia Germany is particularly criticized because they shut down their nuclear plants about 10 years ago, which makes them seen as huge hypocrites when talking about reducing fossil fuel use.
moffkalast 5y ago
Still it's easier to lay blame on the richest country in Europe for picking the cheaper and dirtier option while they could do better, than Poland for trying to pull itself out of poverty. Not to mention a large chunk of Germany's gas is used by the chemical industry, which is kind of like saying "we're gonna keep buying Russian gas to not hurt our profit margins". What we should really be doing is following France's shining example of complete nuclear power independence, but the time for that was 15 years ago and we're basically all fucked right now.
- hayvq 5y ago
  I agree with pushing nuclear energy, but France is still buying Russian gas! Other European countries benefit from the NordStream pipelines as well, which were originally built to circumvent Ukraine after Ukraine stole gas in transit (another example that the history is more complex than presented right now). Germany is rich on paper for the elites. The population is poor, suffers from wage dumping through influx of Eastern Europeans and already suffers from sky high energy costs for private households.