Now for the People, Now for the Planet: COP 17 Climate Negotiations
This is the fifth annual UN Conference of the Parties (COP) conference that I have attended. My journey in the process started with the landmark COP 13 in Bali, Indonesia in 2007. That conference was the first major one that was to layout a roadmap for what the post-Kyoto regime might look like. Its mandate [...]
Era of Cheap Coal Ends, Solar Age Dawns
The bright lights of Diwali have further exposed the depth and breadth of India’s coal crisis bringing a 21st century reality into painful focus: Geologically speaking coal is abundant, economically speaking cheap coal is not. India may be the first country to face this harsh reality, but it will not be the last. Fortunately, the clean energy sector is [...]
Solar Wars
If anyone needed proof that clean energy is the future they need look no further than the recent trade disputes the US has filed against China over wind and now solar. Nations simply do not fight over unprofitable, unviable sectors. Instead they do exactly what China, India, the EU, and the US are all doing: [...]
Democratizing Energy: Mobile Phones Push Community Power
There are six billion mobile phone connections worldwide – 80% of which are in the developing world. A sizeable portion of this market, over 548 million people, own a cellphone but have no means of charging it. These un-electrified, mobile phone users mark the intersection between mobile phone and off-grid energy that is spawning a [...]
Under the Weather: Climate Change in Rural India
Coal is Cheap? World’s Largest Coal Plants Bankrupted by Skyrocketing Prices
Against the backdrop of India’s struggle against coal a new phase of India’s coal crisis is quietly unfolding. The skyrocketing cost of imported coal is wreaking havoc on the financial solvency of the country’s coal plants. Two of which, Tata Mundra and Krishnapatnam, happen to be some of the world’s largest (at 4 GW each [...]
Getting India’s Solar Boom Right
Solar installations grew at a blistering pace in 2010 – 73% compared to 2009. A situation enabled in large part by prices that have dropped 60% in the past three years alone. Given the rapidly changing economics there is enormous interest in the first phase of India’s solar mission, which currently has 80 MW operational, [...]