Comments on: Power and the Skoch Summit 2009 http://www.deeshaa.org/2009/02/03/power-and-the-skoch-summit-2009/ Mon, 13 Feb 2012 05:41:09 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: ranjit http://www.deeshaa.org/2009/02/03/power-and-the-skoch-summit-2009/comment-page-1/#comment-137791 ranjit Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:48:46 +0000 http://www.deeshaa.org/?p=1639#comment-137791 India does not have a spectacular record in tech. R&D whether government or private sector that suggests that it would be able to develop the next gen solar tech. before any of the other nations/regions such as the U.S., EU, Australia, Japan, etc. At this point, most of these nations are motivated and throwing cash/brain-power at exactly this (e.g. "Helios" program at UC Berkeley worth $500M over 5 years; and several other multi-million dollar programs in other univs./research centers and also VC-funded). So this is nothing but a pipe-dream! What India can do is develop partnerships with these leading research groups - funding them and serving as a test-bed for the next gen technologies. India can lure private sector to play in this field by setting appropriate policies (e.g. aggressive renewable portfolio standards, feed-in tariffs, least-cost planning, some sort of environmental regime that raises cost of fossil-fuel power relative to renewable sources, subsidies and leveraged loans from the WBs/ADBs/etc.). Bottomline - if India is not convinced otherwise, we are likely to see almost a doubling of the current fossil-capacity and an addition of large chunk of nuclear capacity - all expensive and environmentally harmful. Disclosure: I am currently providing assistance to the Indian regulators/utilities about clean energy options. India does not have a spectacular record in tech. R&D whether government or private sector that suggests that it would be able to develop the next gen solar tech. before any of the other nations/regions such as the U.S., EU, Australia, Japan, etc. At this point, most of these nations are motivated and throwing cash/brain-power at exactly this (e.g. “Helios” program at UC Berkeley worth $500M over 5 years; and several other multi-million dollar programs in other univs./research centers and also VC-funded). So this is nothing but a pipe-dream! What India can do is develop partnerships with these leading research groups – funding them and serving as a test-bed for the next gen technologies. India can lure private sector to play in this field by setting appropriate policies (e.g. aggressive renewable portfolio standards, feed-in tariffs, least-cost planning, some sort of environmental regime that raises cost of fossil-fuel power relative to renewable sources, subsidies and leveraged loans from the WBs/ADBs/etc.).

Bottomline – if India is not convinced otherwise, we are likely to see almost a doubling of the current fossil-capacity and an addition of large chunk of nuclear capacity – all expensive and environmentally harmful.

Disclosure: I am currently providing assistance to the Indian regulators/utilities about clean energy options.

]]> By: sudipta http://www.deeshaa.org/2009/02/03/power-and-the-skoch-summit-2009/comment-page-1/#comment-137790 sudipta Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:08:13 +0000 http://www.deeshaa.org/?p=1639#comment-137790 http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/bill_gross_on_new_energy.html Thought this should be interesting while we're on the topic. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/bill_gross_on_new_energy.html

Thought this should be interesting while we’re on the topic.

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