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August 1, 2012

Three Strikes You're Outage

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[1] More than half of India's power-generation capacity of 205 gigawatts is coal-based,
and Coal India Ltd., the world's biggest coal producer, is unable to produce enough owing to delays in getting environmental clearances for mining.

[2] An ambitious program to build nuclear-power plants
has faced public demonstrations, which took off in earnest after the nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan, last year.

[3] Meanwhile, government giveaways in the form of free electricity to farmers
and a reluctance among politicians to raise power tariffs to sufficiently cover costs have drained cash reserves from the largely state-run electricity-distribution companies, leaving them with mounting debt and hampered ability to purchase power. -- Power Blackout Hits Northern India - WSJ.com

Posted by gerardvanderleun at August 1, 2012 7:20 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

Considering the correlation between blackouts and a sharp spike in births nine months later…

Posted by: tim at August 1, 2012 1:08 PM

India has also had many demonstrations, lawsuits, and Parliament hearings, mostly instigated by left-wing or extreme nationalist politicians, against foreign (read: American) companies wanting to build power plants there. Between that and the crushing Indian bureaucracy, most of these companies ended up saying, "screw it, we're outta here". Here's the result. But many of those politicians believe that having an all-Indian-owned grid that fails much of the time is better than letting "foreign bloodsuckers" profit from building modern power plants that actually, you know, produce electricity. And they probably still believe that, even now.

Posted by: waltj at August 1, 2012 9:20 PM

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