I remember summer being a time for desert coolers, the cooling smell of khus tatti in government offices, and of fruits like water melons and mangoes. But all this has become anachronistic given that today summer is about surviving heat waves. Sure, in the central and northern parts of India people dying from heat stroke was an unfortunate normal feature in summer. But this year not only has summer arrived early but has brought with it temperatures that have never been experienced before.
Most of the ways to deal with the heat involves the use of electricity. ACs and fans are switched on for longer hours, fridges are opened more frequently for ice and water, people on-the-go buy more bottled water and drinks at shops. So, there is a spike in electricity demand and an increase in plastic waste – studies in Europe show that in summer plastic bottle waste increases by 40%.
India is already facing a coal shortage. In his book Ethical Dilemmas of a Civil Servant, the former Civil Servant Anil Swarup gives a background to the coal shortage currently faced in India because of the spike in electricity demand. He says that for the Swaach Bharat Abhiyan, Coal India Limited deputed their managers in charge of mines to building toilets in schools. So instead of performing their duties which they were experts, they were tasked with fulfilling Narendra Modi’s dream, which they were not experts on.
The Law of Unintended Consequences is a cross that Indian citizens must silently bear. At least 108 of the 173 coal fired thermal power plants face an acute shortage of coal. This has led to power outages in various states including Maharashtra, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh. To overcome the crisis, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has canceled 1100 passenger trains till May 24 to facilitate the movement of coal rakes across India.
The increase in electricity consumption will mean higher electricity bills which is going to add more pain to the household budgets hobbled by the increase in fuel and food costs.
India has forgotten how the rightwing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and their supporters went to town about increase in prices during the UPA years. This concern for increasing prices and its effect on Indians is nowhere to be seen today. In fact, Ramdev Baba has recently suggested that people should work more and not complain about the price rise. In such an uncomfortable climate the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government and their supporters may just be thanking their Gods for the heat wave. Indian citizens may soon be told that to protect themselves from rising prices, including that of LPG, they should use the hot pavement to cook. Remember PM Modi spoke about an innovative tea stall owner capturing gas from the gutter to use as fuel. Indians will need more of these innovative solutions to cope with the government’s unwillingness to protect their citizens from price rise.
But jokes and facts aside, the heat wave that India has been facing is worrying on many fronts.
Of course, there is a direct consequence on agricultural output because of this heat wave. Another obvious worry is that electricity generation and therefore industry is not resilient and unable to cope with climate change. The coal shortages, even if allegedly caused by the desire to keep Modi happy, does not bode well for the BJP dream of making India a USD 5 Trillion economy.
But for coal fired thermal power plants to run one also needs a constant supply of water. Water is first used to scrub and clean the coal. Water is converted into high pressure steam to drive turbines. Then water is used as a coolant and finally water is as a pollution control device – used to settle flyash. Indian coal fired thermal power plants consume 5-7 m3/h per MW. However, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change mandates that they consume only 3.5 m3/h per MW; there were 269 thermal power plants in India as of August 2019. They consume 87.8% of the total water consumed by the industrial sector.
Here in lies another problem – a heat wave along with a stretched summer is going to evaporate a lot of water. As we have seen water is another basic necessity for a coal fired thermal power plant to function. As per the 2019 report from Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) titled Risks Growing for India’s Coal Sector – ‘Groundwater levels across India are in decline. Since 2012, both total annual rainfall and monsoon rainfall have been below normal levels across the country (except for 2013 in both cases). This is a major threat for coal fired thermal power plants. The report points out that between 2013-17 water shortage problems resulted in ‘roughly 17,000 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of lost generation (and revenue)’.
With climate change already on us it is not surprising that this report also warns that ‘Water-related problems are certain to worsen as the impacts of climate change continue to manifest, exacerbating the duration and severity both of flooding and drought. The latter is particularly concerning since about 41GW of India’s installed thermal capacity is located in drought-affected areas, with about 37GW located in “extreme drought” areas.’ One can extrapolate this to dams – the hydro-electricity generators.
As mentioned in one of my previous opeds which was on consumerism, buying more energy efficient ACs etc is not going to cut it. According to India’s Central Electricity Authority (CEA) the per capita consumption of electricity has been increasing. In 2012-13 it was 914 kWh, it has increased to 1208 in 2019-2020. Even if energy efficiency is improving, consumption outstrips any benefits from this efficiency.
How can we cool things down? The answer is not simple and it may be too late. But here are two things governments must be more ambitious on climate mitigation targets and the second as individuals we need to do more and less – less plastics, less personal vehicles; less wastage; more personal cloth bags, more public transport.
(Samir Nazareth is an author and writes on socio-economic and environmental issues)
