Opinion
A Blueprint, and A Civil Society
13 Aug 2011 |
Dr R K Pachauri
| Business World
A harmony between development and environmental protection is imperative. Civil society groups and citizens at large need to work towards an environmental roadmap for the future.
Smart mini-grid for reliable power
08 Aug 2011 |
| The Financial Express
TERI's Smart Mini-Grid system, the first of its kind, shows the way in power generation from renewable resources and intelligent distribution of load through smarter controls.
Beyond lighting -- Solar technology furthering the UN MDGs
05 Aug 2011 |
Ms Smita Rakesh
,Ms Jigyasa Jyotika
| India Carbon Outlook
Over a century and a half after the invention of electricity, billions are still waiting for the power grid to reach their village. Solar lanterns, under the Lighting a Billion Lives campaign, are spreading the light and changing lives in these remote areas.
A victim of poor governance: Energy security
25 Jul 2011 |
Dr Leena Srivastava
| The Financial Express
The crisis in coal supply has created a scare with several power plants running extremely low on coal stocks and new projects at the risk of being stranded. The oil sector has been run down on account of abysmally poor pricing decisions that could not be addressed, despite the obviously declining health of the oil companies. Reforms in the electricity sector came to a stand-still after a mis-handled distribution privatisation exercise and the consistent and seemingly conscious erosion of the institution of independent regulators. The promise of the natural gas sector, which led us to believe that India was floating on gas, is disappearing. And yet we continue to believe that India is an emerging power that is going to witness close to 10% annual rates of economic growth over the next several years!
The increase in prices of LPG, kerosene and diesel witnessed in the last few days will have its political fall-out. Teri and similar organisations have, for at least two decades, been suggesting ways for more effectively targetting and delivering subsidies-while highlighting the nearly 40% leakage of subsidies and the fact that nearly two-thirds of the remaining subsidy reaches undeserving sections. If 80% of the subsidy burden annually could have been avoided, we wouldn't have been in this situation.
The current price increase along with the fall in international oil prices due to the release of stockpiles by the International Energy Agency will ease the financial pressure on oil companies and the subsidy pressure on the government. But the reduction in various taxes announced by the state governments to mitigate the adverse impact of this price increase would only mean a transfer of finances from some pockets of the government into others. Also, the long-term issues would still need to be addressed when oil prices go up again. Apart from looking at the UID scheme for changing the subsidy delivery system, the government urgently needs to see how it can encourage energy savings that would reduce the ever-growing demand for oil and its products.
The problem with regulatory commissions is they think their only objective is to keep electricity tariffs down. Sustainable development is widely understood to have three pillars - economic, environmental and social. Long-term sustainability considerations in the power sector are no different. The regulatory commissions can still pull back the power sector from a disastrous future by (i) communicating openly their long term vision for sustainable development of the sector, with clear performance benchmarks specified, (ii) recognising the separation of responsibilities they have of tariff setting vis-a-vis the government's responsibility of covering any subsidies (iii) designing and implementing incentive schemes to promote energy efficiency, and (iv) building credibility and confidence in their capabilities. Realising the 25-30% efficiency improvement potential in consuming sectors would reduce the shortages in the system and go a long way in easing the pressure on coal.
The grim coal shortage situation highlights the complete inefficacy of planning in the industry and government. Trying to address this by placing pressure on the ministry of environment and forests to allow coal mining in eco-fragile areas will only ensure that the mis-governance extends from the energy sector into the environment and forestry sector.
A common refrain today is that governments have to be more responsible. They also need to be more accountable to the public. In the context of the energy sector, a large part of this accountability would come from making available reliable data on the performance of each sector which could be subjected to a social audit.
Moving towards a sustainable transit system
30 Jun 2011 |
Ms Akshima Tejas Ghate
| Mint
Urban transport has emerged as a key challenge for city planners. Private vehicles rule the road and cyclists and pedestrians are on the decline. We need to develop a planned and integrated public transport system.
Private participation - A feasibility check
27 Jun 2011 |
Ms Arpita Khanna
,Ms Aastha Mehta
| The Financial Express
With the state-controlled coal sector unable to meet the demand-supply gap, the decade old privatisation proposal is being looked into again. To draw private investors, the government needs to facilitate enabling policies and transparent procedures.
Government needs to bolster green buildings movement
23 Jun 2011 |
Ms Mili Majumdar
| Mint
The government's move to give priority to green buildings is the environmental impact assessment process is a welcome step. But there’s more to be done to sustain the green buildings movement.
Solid waste, the funding fixation
15 Jun 2011 |
| Planet Earth
Positives have been noticed in the handling and disposal of solid waste in India. Yet, the sector finds itself deficit in financial support, says Dr Shilpi Kapur, Associate Fellow, Resources, Regulations & Global Security.
Urgent need to get rid of subsidies
13 Jun 2011 |
Mr Pravin Kumar Agarwal
| The Financial Express
Fuel subsidy has thwarted competition and ensured the dominance of oil PSUs. It has drained government finances and hurt oil marketing companies. What we need is market determined pricing for petroleum products.
The blame game on coal shortage
07 Jun 2011 |
Mr S K Chand
| The Financial Express
The serious shortage of domestic coal supplies, becoming graver by the day, is being directly attributed to the ministry of environment and forests's (MoEF) green activism; particularly that of its minister. The standoff between the ministry of coal and MoEF is only partially resolved, but this time the minister has hit the nail on the head. At the last Group of Ministers meeting, the minister pointed out that Coal India Ltd (CIL) wants to bring in more and more new areas under mining without fully exhausting the production potential of existing areas.
Is CIL left with any other option?
It is now clear that CIL has reached a stage where it is unable to further increase coal production either from the existing mines or by starting new mines. CIL had already stretched its capacity to limits when in December 2005, Public Investment Board (PIB), under the chairmanship of then-expenditure secretary, cleared 16 proposals in one shot for enhancing the capacities of several large opencast mines by an additional 100 million tonnes (mt) of annual coal production (read government approval for over-exploitation of existing mines). CIL's total annual production in the year 2004-05 was only 323 mt, which, thus, grew to 431 mt in 2009-10-an increase of over 100 mt in 5 years. Then, CIL registered zero growth next year in 2010-11.
CIL is also unable to quickly projectise virgin coal blocks, not only because of the recent go/no-go controversy but also because of the skewed government policy of the past. CIL had reported that it can produce 500 mt annually starting 2011-12 until 2036-37 if it was allowed to retain 289 virgin coal blocks (known as CIL blocks) out of the total kitty of 499 virgin coal blocks for meeting its long-term requirement. These 289 virgin coal blocks were better explored, had largely proven reserves with developed infrastructure viz rail, road, power, etc, compared to the blocks being offered for captive mining (174 in number) to private parties and others, which were largely unexplored or were away from developed infrastructure. But this was not to be. The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) supported the recommendation of the Ratan Tata-headed Investment Commission (2006), which recommended that 'CIL blocks' should be de-reserved. Since CIL was planning to projectise only 150 blocks until 2011-12, the balance 79 fully explored virgin CIL blocks were de-reserved, thus seriously limiting CIL's capacity to manoeuvre against the go/no-go embargo in 2010. Now, many of the CIL's virgin blocks to be projectised by 2011-12 got stuck with the go/no-go controversy as many of these blocks lie deep in unbroken forests in newer coalfields or in existing coalfields with already high levels of pollution. Understandably, CIL now desperately needs all these shallow virgin coal blocks to be cleared for opening new mines as it is hardly left with any other option.
In spite of many constraints, out of 40 blocks allotted prior to 2003, 14 blocks (out of 26 today) were operating in 2009 and more were ready to follow. On the other hand, the de-reserved good CIL coal blocks allotted to private parties or governments for fast tracking coal production have failed to produce any coal so far.
In the long-term, CIL's production is going to decline very sharply as the older mines get depleted faster due to over-exploitation and it would not have any virgin coal blocks to projectise after finishing the current lot due to the release of 'CIL blocks' to private parties and others.
The problem of shortage of coal to the power sector had become so acute that the PMO intervened and got some of the blocks cleared that were initially under no-go, including one coalfield in Orissa, which was high on Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index.
The pressure from the ministry of power has also been increasing because many of the existing power plants are forced to back down due to a shortage of coal, and there is a clear possibility that the shortage will result in the stranded capacity of almost 24,000 MW of the current Plan period's likely capacity addition of 55,000 MW; lowered down from the ambitious plan of 78,000 MW to start with.
It is obvious that CIL, a maharatna company, is left with no contingency plan to fall back upon and, therefore, it is now coercing the government to clear all the leftover virgin coal blocks; be it a case of diversion of deep forest land or be it a case of ignoring the high degree of pollution in the coalfields. Now the Prime Minister himself has decided to intervene by scheduling a high power meeting of concerned ministers and the deputy chairman of Planning Commission.
It is going to be a tough call but the outcome of the meeting is a foregone conclusion.