India: danger of blackouts even in New Delhi

Due to a combination of factors, including environmentalists' push for "green" energy such as wind and solar energy, as well as the logistical crises linked to Covid-19, blackouts and energy problems are repeating themselves in all over the world, but at the moment especially in Asia.

At a time when Chinese authorities ordering energy companies to save as much as possible, numerous power plants across India could be forced to adopt intermittent but ongoing blackouts due to depleted coal stocks. A minister even warned that the capital New Delhi itself, a megalopolis of 21 million inhabitants, could be affected. Like her, two states, Tamil Nadu and Odisha, who have raised an alarm about the scarcity of coal.

According to Delhi Energy Minister Satyendra Jain, more than half of India's 135 coal-fired power plants, which supply about 70% of the country's electricity, have seen their supplies run out to such low levels that they only have enough to guarantee energy for three days before the capital is hit by a blackout. Typically, they should keep a supply of at least a month. But these are not normal times.

"If the supply of coal does not improve, there will be a blackout in Delhi in two days," the national capital's energy minister, Satyendra Jain, said today. "The coal-fired power plants that supply electricity in Delhi must maintain a minimum one month supply of coal, but it has now dropped to one day," Jain said.

Prime Minister Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party is pleading with the government to send emergency coal supplies: “Our call to the center is that rail cars be organized and that coal be transported to the plants as soon as possible. All plants are already in operation with only 55% capacity, ”according to NDTV.

Of course, the incredibly image-conscious Indian government dismisses these news and alarms, with the National Coal Ministry insisting that there is sufficient fuel to meet the demand for power plants and that the entire system is it's recovering quickly after heavy monsoons limited coal shipments, per BBG.

The Jain Energy Minister later complained that the current situation in India has been "man-made", especially by the West and its pressures to stop using hard coal. a nice kick in the ass for Greta and her friends.

As we noted above, the energy shortage is not limited to India. Right now, economies around the world (from China to the UK, Europe to Afghanistan) are struggling to maintain adequate supplies as energy prices rise, driven by a surge in demand during the post-recovery recovery. COVID. All this, however, shows how much coal is still needed and that Greta and friends would have done better first thinking about installing new forms of energy generation, and then eliminating coal.