Power shortage haunts India as nuclear deal cleared

[phantom power]

Power outages that stretch hours are a regular event in Shaila Kapoor's life in a smart suburb of energy-hungry India's national capital.

"It's a nightmare," said Kapoor, a teacher. "We've power back-up (from a battery) but it doesn't last long and then we either literally drip from the heat or drive to a mall."

India's massive electricity crunch is a key reason why the government said it was determined to go ahead with a controversial civilian nuclear technology pact with Washington that was cleared by the US Congress and Senate this week.

http://www.spacedaily.com/2006/081003020929.fsof2kcd.html

[Codeine]

1. Real power for growing economies.

No greenhouse gas and the power needed to run a real industrial economy.

[Dover]

2. Nations eye India's vast nuclear market

Nations eye India's vast nuclear market
The US Senate passed a deal Wednesday to let America join Russia and France in supplying India's huge energy needs.


New Delhi - With an emphatic vote Wednesday, the US Senate assured that America will take part in India's $100 billion nuclear-energy sweepstakes.

The 86-to-13 vote to resume civilian nuclear trade with India for the first time since 1974 is a signature diplomatic achievement for the Bush administration, cementing ties with a nation seen as a counterweight to China.

But it is also a major piece of business. In 20 years, India aims to increase its nuclear power 10-fold, and will rely on international businesses to do it.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh struck a deal Tuesday to open nuclear trade with France – a deal the Indian Chamber of Commerce estimates to be worth $29 billion. Russia is already helping India build two reactors.

Before Wednesday, US business leaders were worried about being left behind. They estimate that the deal could create 200,000 jobs in the US and revive an industry that has not built a new plant in the US for a decade.

India's plans involve "a huge amount of money," says Ted Jones of the US-India Business Council. "Even a modest slice of it is huge"....>

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1003/p06s01-wosc.html

[bananas]

3. Uh-oh, there's that percent and 2050 talk again.

Currently just 2.5 to three percent of India's electricity comes from nuclear sources. By 2020, that figure is expected to rise to four to five percent.

"It (the agreement) won't make much difference in the next few years but by 2050 the government hopes 25 percent of power will come from nuclear sources -- and that would be a big deal," said Alok Brara, publisher of national utility magazine PowerLine.

[NNadir]

4. I've been to India, and the electrical situation there is a sight to behold.

There's a lot of electrical piracy, wherein people climb poles, hook up wires and light their businesses and homes.

I was told if someone is electrocuted in the act, they just get someone else to climb up.

This obviously has an effect on the funding of power systems.

India is a coal empire and there are lots of coal fired power plants with rather low smoke stacks. You can get well choked there.

The good news of course is that India has the world's largest thorium reserves. Indian nuclear plants are among the few in the world that already run on this exceptionally desirable form of nuclear fuel. They are heavily invested in CANDU (heavy water) type technology, and these are very, very, very desirable reactors.

I very much doubt that India needs much American nuclear technology. I suspect that in a few years we will need theirs.

This country graduates less than 100 nuclear science Ph.D.'s in a year - and half of them are foreign born. I would suspect that India graduates ten times that amount.

We have a lot of very, very, very, very stupid anti-science jerk offs in this country, the kind who go around cheering for Governor Hydrogen Hummer's brazillion solar roofs program while attempting to destroy the world's largest, by far, climate change gas free forms of energy.

Such wanton destruction and vandalism in the name of yuppie paranoia will not play in India. I have the impression that they will build reactors as fast as they can, which is, of course, a good thing.

(Speaking of Governor Hydrogen Hummer, it would seem that California's extremely high electricity rates and the need to borrow 7 billion bucks to finance stupid meaningless shit like his brazillion solar roofs program is the final vindication of the unjustly trashed Grey Davis.)

[bananas]

5. I always love it when yokels express their enthusiasm for percent talk.

Especially when it's 2050 talk.

It's pretty fucking clueless.


I have met zero pro-nukes who have any sense of responsibility to future generations. Rather the entire class of these dullards seems to think that it is wise and morally acceptable to project and dump their irrational fantasies on future generations.

Fourty years ago there was the same dumb ass "nuclear will save us" talk and guess what? Nuclear energy has failed to do a single meaningful thing.

Any idea what 8 billion people living at 1/3 of US energy consumption would look like in exajoules.

No fucking clue?

Twenty-five percent of a dime is two and a half cents, genius. Twenty-five percent of a billion dollars is 250 million dollars. Have you ever stopped to consider while blabbing in percent that 25% in 2050 might involve more dangerous fossil fuels than are used now? Where do you and the rest of the NEI airheads think that dangerous fossil fuel supply is going to come from?

Couldn't care less? You'll likely be dead? Fuck the children?

Why am I in no fucking way surprised?

While you assholes are blabbing incoherently about your indifference to the future, the planet is fucking dying right now.

You couldn't fucking care less.

[NNadir]

6. Plagiarize much?

One of the things that is most striking about the dumb anti-nuke cults is that there are ZERO members of them who have ever had an original thought.

QED.