Story 7D01 India to invest in nuclear power as well as renewables

India to invest in nuclear power as well as renewables

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in environment on (#7D01)
Naranda Modi (prime minister of India) and Stephen Harper (prime minister of Canada) recently met in Toronto where they announced a new 5-year agreement for India to purchase uranium from Saskatoon's Cameco corporation to generate nuclear energy in India. In an article at thehindu.com, Modi is reported as describing India's moves to support the so-called "saffron revolution" in which his administration is growing their commitments to nuclear, solar, wind, biomass and energy saving missions in India. The Hindu article states that: "At the heart of Mr. Modi's speech was his repeated assertion, jan man badla hai, or "The minds of the people have changed," over his 10 months in office, and that India was finally on the move".

The announcement arrives at the same time that the journal Nature has published an opinion piece by Alan Rusbridger, editor--in-chief of the Guardian (London), that scientists must increase their professional and personal activism against the search and use of new fossil fuel energy sources. Rusbridger notes that: "the Guardian Media Group has, in the space of two months, moved from not really thinking very much about the issue to announcing that its 800-million (US$1.2-billion) fund will divest from fossil fuels within 2-5 years".

These events beg the question of which countries and technologies will be the winners and losers in the reshaping of the global energy supply in the coming decades and what the economic value of yet-to-be-exploited hydrocarbon resources will be going forward as well?
Reply 2 comments

This USAian is envious ... (Score: 1)

by fnj@pipedot.org on 2015-04-22 08:16 (#7JH1)

... of both India and Canada.

Re: This USAian is envious ... (Score: 1)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2015-04-22 21:00 (#7M1T)

The US is easily the best-position country for renewable power. It has some of the best locations for solar, wind, hydro, biomass & geothermal. Plenty of other resources, too. Canada isn't so lucky when it comes to solar and needs much more power for heating, while India has far too many people on too little land-area. Thermal-storage solar power plants are being developed and deployed in the US, as is pumped-hydro and wind. There are federal (and most states) tax incentives, as well as feed-in tariffs and other regulatory preferential treatment for those who wish to install their own roof-top small-scale solar power. At least two cities require them on all new homes.

California is deploying solar as fast as possible with a mandate for 33 percent renewables by 2020, and is second only to Texas in wind power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_California
If you want renewables, now, you just need to move to WA, where they have more hydro power than people. California got 30% of its electricity from hydro a few years back, but growing demand (and drought) keeps making that an ever-smaller fraction of the energy mix, while wind and solar deployments expand rapidly.