Atanu Dey On India's Development

Fragments – 5

March 5, 2006 by Atanu Dey

BBC reports that the US has done a U-turn and is not opposed to the Iran-India LNG pipeline through Pakistan. I suppose that the US has finally figured out that the pipeline would make India vulnerable to even more Pakistani blackmail and all in all, it would be a bonus for the US. Normally the US puts the screws on India by merely arming Pakistan to the teeth. This time the dumb Indians are obliging the US by voluntarily bending over for Pakistan with no help from the US.

The Iran Pipe-bomb is on its way.

If you pay for the cost of the instrument that will be used to screw you over, you might be a third world country.

  • http://thoughts2shair.blogspot.com Sabarish Sasidharan

    And all for some oil that can be ‘cultivated’ (bio-diesel) on the vast tracts of land that lie unused for years…

  • Little Ram

    If you look at the math, the alternative of bio-fuel is not as good. it will take us at least 20 years of cultivation to realise a small fraction of our energy needs from this route. Also, the land that we will need to divert from other uses represents a significant opportunity cost.

    For now, there are no immediate alternatives to fossil fuel/ petroleum. “Powering the future” on “National geographic” has an detailed and interesting analysis.

    Sourcing our petroleum via the Iran-Pakistan pipeline has certainly some serious implications. As a country, we are in a bit of a pickle given our geo-political situation. On our West lie, a huge swath of countries that are non-democratic and a few that are potentially dangerous. We have no easy alternative solution. I suppose from that point of view , Nuclear power is important for us.

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  • http://parvativetri.blogspot.com Parvati

    I too was very concerned about this project since it was being spoken about so many years ago. It is a complete waste of time for India, and is open to all sorts of sabotage and continuous nuisancical trouble from Pakistan and terrorists.
    It will be a perennial headache for India and as you say, we will be foolishly paying through our nose for this gift of torment…

  • Jayakumar

    I think we, the people, recognize that our depnedency on foreign fossil fuels is a huge problem. Certainly, one feels great discomfort that some percentage of the dollar that goes overseas to the middle east or other locations may be somehow utilized in a negative way against the nation. But I digress, everyone has written that up sufficiently. What’s your fix for the problem though? I’d like to hear more about that.

    I feel civilian nuclear power isn’t so great for India because our electrical grid is neither efficient nor well established. Granted, if we could supply the primary industrial consumers, then that’d free up quite a bit for others. But the risk of catastrophy due to natural disaster, earthquakes, floods, or terrorist attack is higher than I’m willing to accept.

    I would like to hear about more localized and lower capital cost technologies. Things like biodiesel, well, perhaps not so much about the technology but about success stories in local areas. I have heard things about posibly using genetically engineered red algae that generate methane (or was in ethanol) just by sitting in the sun in salt water. I figure we could easily dig some pits in Gujarat, or our abundant dessert areas and fill them with sea water and then grow our future energy sources.

    I’ve heard an interesting commercial case for solar power. That is, today’s poor are using kerosene, parrafin, candles, hydrocarbons for lighting. So they’re paying x rupees monthly for that. You take those same x rupees and rent out solar panels with sealed lead-acid car batteries wired to simple LED based lighting. Now you’re making money. It’s better for the users because unclean burning generates carbon monoxide and soot that is unhealthy especially for children. I’d like to hear about people trying that and success stories around that.