ENERGY SCENARIO
- Energy is one of the major inputs for the economic development of any country. In the case of developing countries, the energy sector assumes a critical importance in view of the ever increasing energy needs requiring huge investments to meet them. India’s per capita energy and electricity consumptions are less than one tenth of developed countries’ per capita consumption.
- The disparities in urban versus rural; southern, western and northern region versus eastern and north-eastern region; and higher income versus lower income households are very high.
- Unfortunately, the regions where large fossil and renewable energy sources are available have lower per capita energy consumption.
- For sustainable and equitable socio-economic development such a situation needs to change. Given the country’s over dependence on coal, large-scale import of oil and gas, difficulty in meeting the financial burden of import, environmental consequences of large-scale energy production, transformation, transportation and use, it is not wise to strive to achieve the developed country level of energy consumption.
- To improve the quality of life of Indian citizens, there is no doubt that per capita energy consumption has to increase.
- Through judicious approach, higher quality of life can be achieved with moderate increase in energy consumption. The country needs to make timely change of our emphasis on non-renewable energy. Such a change in strategy calls for a paradigm shift in our development approach, i.e. from a unsustainable growth oriented economic development to an environmental friendly equitable development.
- Since three most serious environment related problems (Global warming, acid rain and ozone layer depletion) owe their origin to energy, it is in our national and global interest that we minimise ‘energy want’ without sacrificing the ‘energy need’ for a decent quality of life.
- A time-bound plan is essential to move to ‘renewable energy dominant decentralised system’ from the existing ‘non-renewable energy focused, fossil fuel-centric centralised system’. Energy is essential for every activity of life. There is a strong positive correlation between energy use and the quality of life.
- At global level, percapita income of a country is directly proportional to the per capita energy consumption. Energy can be classified into several types based on the following criteria :
- Primary and Secondary energy.
- Renewable and Non-Renewable energy.
- Commercial and Non-commercial energy.
What is Energy Scenario