India’s Ambitious Bid to Become a Solar Power

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/535551/indias-ambitious-bid-to-become-a-solar-power/

[font face=Serif][font size=5]India’s Ambitious Bid to Become a Solar Power[/font]

[font size=4]The Indian government hopes to increase the country’s solar capacity 30-fold by 2020.[/font]

By Peter Fairley on March 9, 2015

[font size=3]India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, made headlines last fall by announcing his ambition to install 100 gigawatts of solar power capacity—over 30 times more than India has now—by 2022. Skeptics noted Modi’s lack of a detailed plan and budget, but some well-capitalized industrial players have apparently caught Modi’s solar fever: at a renewable energy summit called by Modi last month he collected pledges for 166 gigawatts of solar projects.

At the New Delhi summit, renewables giants such as First Solar and SunEdison mixed for the first time with chief ministers from Indian states and top executives of Indian industrial conglomerates such as Adani Enterprises and the National Thermal Power Corporation, India’s largest power generator.

Tobias Engelmeier, founder of Bridge to India, a solar-market consultancy, says Modi’s ambition has “changed the conversation” about India’s solar potential. But what happens next, says Engelmeier, will depend only in part on what renewable energy strategy Modi can devise from within the central government. The ultimate driver could be India’s unmet demand for electricity. A quarter of India’s population is not connected to the power grid, and electricity supply is chronically short for those who are.

Modi told the New Delhi summit that India had to “make a quantum leap in energy production,” and he said solar could deliver with its rapid construction rates and crashing prices—from 20 rupees (32 cents) per kilowatt-hour to less than seven rupees over the last three years. “The government seems to really subscribe to the possibility that solar and renewables can transform India,” says Pashupathy Gopalan, president for the Asia-Pacific region for SunEdison, based in Belmont, California.

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[Fred Sanders]

1. Much can be planned for and done when federal budgets are not being held hostage every 6 months.

America is a third world backwards nation in terms of governance. Does America have any long range plan for anything other than war?

[djean111]

2. Nope.

Well, long-range planning to keep subsidies and loopholes. There is that.

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. In the immortal words of George W. Bush…

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0012/18/nd.01.html

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Transition of Power: President-Elect Bush Meets With Congressional Leaders on Capitol Hill[/font]

Aired December 18, 2000 - 12:00 p.m. ET

[font size=3]…

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH (R-TX), PRESIDENT-ELECT: I told all four that there were going to be some times where we don't agree with each other. But that's OK. If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator.

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I'm sure President Obama has felt the same way…

[NickB79]

4. At the same time, they're beefing up coal production and use

http://www.smh.com.au/business/mining-and-resources/energyhungry-india-doubles-down-on-coal-20150126-12y037.html

Coal production is slated to expand here in the coming months, part of the new government's ambitious push to double India's output to more than 1 billion tons annually to meet the needs of a burgeoning economy - with growth now set to outpace China's, according to several forecasts.

snip

Even under the best-case scenario, coal will continue to account for more than 60 per cent of the country's power capacity until 2030, according to one government model, although renewable energy such as wind and solar power will rise from 6 per cent to 18 per cent.

It sounds like India is embarking on the same path as China: an all-of-the-above approach where they utilize ALL their available energy resources to become a 1st-World nation, with climate change a secondary concern over economic growth.

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. Sounds a lot like the U.S.

… with climate change a secondary concern over economic growth.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. India Doubles Coal Tax, Yet Again

http://cleantechnica.com/2015/03/03/india-doubles-coal-tax-yet/

[font face=Serif][font size=5]India Doubles Coal Tax, Yet Again[/font]

March 3rd, 2015 by Anand Upadhyay

[font size=3]Of late, India has been cutting subsidies while at the same time increasing taxes on fossil fuels so as to transform itself from a carbon subsidy regime to one of carbon taxation. On Saturday, the country moved forward to double the “clean energy cess” it levies on coal used in the country.

While presenting the general budget, the Finance Minister Mr. Arun Jaitley announced, “I propose to increase the Clean Energy Cess from ₹100($1.6) to ₹200($3.2) per metric tonne of coal, etc. to finance clean environment initiatives.”

Jaitley later clarified “With regard to coal, there’s a need to find a balance between taxing pollution and the price of power.”

“I intend to start on that journey too,” he added. If this sounds like deja vu, it should! Only last year, India had doubled the coal taxes from ₹50($0.8) to ₹100($1.6) per metric tonne of coal.

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[NickB79]

7. When you double a tiny number, it's still a tiny number

$3.20/metric tonne of coal (which shouldn't be confused with being $3.20/tonne of carbon, because one tonne of coal actually generates 5700 pounds of CO2), is still a paltry number.

From the link you provided:

It further suggests that in order to bring down carbon emissions drastically and to bring domestic prices on par with international prices, there should be about a 5-fold hike in coal cess to ₹498 ($8) per metric tonne of coal. Such a price reform could potentially lead to annual CO2 emissions reduction of 214 million tons (11% of India’s annual emissions). This would still keep most of the coal power plants profitable, given the current tariff structure.

They're at $3.20/ton. They need to reach $8/ton, just to reduce annual emissions by 11%. They might get there eventually, but I don't think we have "eventually" anymore.

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. Has the US doubled our coal tax lately?

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/report/2015/01/06/103880/cutting-subsidies-and-closing-loopholes-in-the-u-s-department-of-the-interiors-coal-program/

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Cutting Subsidies and Closing Loopholes in the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Coal Program[/font]

By Matt Lee-Ashley & Nidhi Thakar | Tuesday, January 6, 2015

[font size=3]In 2002, the Powder River Basin, or PRB, in Wyoming and Montana surged past the Appalachian coalfields that stretch from Pennsylvania to Tennessee to become the nation’s largest coal-producing region. Today, the PRB occupies a 40 percent share of the U.S. coal market. Although market forces, mechanization, and technological changes help explain some of the coal industry’s decision to shift more production from privately owned lands in the East to federal lands in the American West, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s, or DOI’s, coal policies have played an equally important—though largely unnoticed—role in this transition.

Specifically, the DOI’s Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, and Office of Natural Resources Revenue, or ONRR, use their royalty-collection authority to subsidize coal production on federal lands. Coal companies, in turn, have learned to maximize these subsidies by shielding themselves from royalty payments through increasingly complex financial and legal mechanisms. Reform is urgently needed to cut these subsidies and to close loopholes that disadvantage other coal producing regions and distort U.S. energy markets.

…

A growing body of evidence suggests that the major coal companies use their elaborate network of subsidiaries and affiliates to maximize the subsidies that can be gained through existing federal royalty regulations. To keep the price of coal artificially low for royalty, tax, and other valuation purposes, companies are allegedly cloaking sales to their network of subsidiaries and affiliates as arm’s-length transactions when they are in fact captive, non-arm’s-length transactions.

For example, in Western Minerals v. KCP—which involved a contract dispute filed in the U.S. District Court of Montana in 2012—Western Minerals alleged that Ambre Energy engaged in “self-dealing transactions, by selling to itself coal from the Decker Coal Company through either Ambre Limited directly or an affiliated subsidiary and then reselling such coal at a higher price.

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