The Hindu : National : India must tap natural resources: Kakodkar

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 19, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

National

National

India must tap natural resources: Kakodkar

Special Correspondent

“Global energy situation reaching a crisis point in sustainability ”

— Photo: K. Gopinathan

Power talk: (From left) K. Kasturirangan, Director, National Institute of Advanced Studies; J. Gururaja, former Senior Adviser, Energy; Anil Kakodkar, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission; and D.P. Sen Gupta, Coordinator, Energy Security and Management, at a training programme in Bangalore on Monday.

BANGALORE: India is still an energy deficit country and it will need 1,370 GWs of energy by the middle of the present century. At present the country had only one-tenth of that figure, said Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission Anil Kakodkar.

Delivering the keynote address at the six-day National Training Programme on the theme ‘Energy Security and Management’ organised by the National Institute of Advanced Studies here on Monday, Dr. Kakodkar said the country must intensify its efforts to find and build technologies for harnessing its natural resources in energy production.

The global energy situation was reaching a crisis point “both in terms of sustainability and climate change due to emission of green house gases,” and the depletion of fossil fuels would only be faster considering the kind of development and the pace of consumption, he said.

Quoting studies by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and the Planning Commission, Dr. Kakodkar said the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) had been assessed at 9 and 8 per cent respectively.

The studies had stressed the importance of using technology to meet the energy needs of the country.

Technologies needed

Newer technologies were needed in the field of coal and thorium. Coal was still the largest fossil fuel available in the country but needed technology to make it a clean energy source. Similarly, technologies would have to be developed to use thorium, he said.

He said the country had only small quantities of uranium and it made better economic sense to import uranium rather than exploiting the indigenous sources.

Outlining the research and development initiatives in the field of energy, Dr. Kakodkar said the new designs for nuclear reactors available would reduce the construction time by 5 years from 7 years and extend the design life from 40 to 60 years and processes that would bring down the power tariffs at the consumer end from Rs. 3.22 to Rs. 2 per unit.

He said the present under-utilisation of the installed capacity of the reactors was only a temporary phase.

Central place

Earlier Director of the National Institute of Advanced Studies K. Kasturirangan said energy had taken a central place for economic development and social progress of nations around the world. More than 80 per cent of the global energy needs were met by fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal. Unfortunately, the global reserves were limited. The global proven oil reserves were estimated to be 1,188 billion barrels (one barrel is equivalent to 160 litres) as per the 2004 figures. In the same year the proven gas reserve was found to be approximately 6,400 trillion cubic feet (one trillion cubic feet was equivalent to 100 million barrels of liquid fuel)

Time to worry

He said the predicted time for depletion was approximately 40 to 60 years for oil, and a little over 100 years for gas. This was a time for all the nations to worry about their energy security, especially those countries that depended heavily on imports.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National