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Given India’s rapid growth, it is seeing a surge in demand for energy that is outstripping what current domestic supplies can cover. However, in trying to secure foreign sources of energy, India is playing a game in which China already has an enormous head start, having already lost several bids for natural gas supplies. Domestically, both politics and poor infrastructure have conspired to make development of new energy sources, including in coal, hydro, nuclear, and renewables a major challenge. Managing energy demand, meanwhile, can be a political minefield, as the recent protests over fuel subsidy cuts demonstrate. New oil and gas fields, as well as the nascent nuclear sector, can help lessen the need for foreign energy deals, but the success of these new efforts is not guaranteed. If India cannot properly balance the mix of foreign and domestic energy supplies, it could pose a threat to its future growth potential.
Source: EIA
Feeding a Foreign Addiction: Externalizing its Energy Mix
India’s present energy consumption is heavily dominated by coal (53 percent) and oil (31 percent), with the mix rounded out by natural gas (9 percent), hydropower (6 percent), and nuclear energy (1 percent). Perhaps the only significant sources of energy not envisioned as imports are animal dung, fuelwood, and other traditional forms of energy that are harnessed by many of India’s poor for cooking fuel, which produce a considerable amount of black carbon and have a negative impact on the country’s emissions profile.
See full article here.
Michael Kugelman
Program Associate for South and Southeast Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC
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26 August 2010
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