This article provides notes on urban energy demand in India.
The environmental effects due to increasing consumption levels of fuels like coal; lignite, oil and nuclear etc. are of growing concern to various researchers. The combustion of these fuels in industries has been a major source of pollution.
Coal production through open cast mining; its supply to and consumption in power stations and industrial boilers leads to particulate and gaseous pollution, which can cause pneumoconiosis, bronchitis and respiratory diseases. The energy production/consumption in India during 1950-51 to 1995-96 is depicted in Table 18.3.
Energy production and consumption has increased steadily in India since 1950 onwards. The production of coal and lignite has increased from 32.2 million tons in 1950-51 to 292.27 million tons in 1995-96, an increase of more than 9 times. The production of petroleum products registered an increase of more than 22 times, from 3.3 million tons in 1950-51 to 74.7 million tons in 1995-96.
The bulk of commercial energy comes from the burning of fossil fuels viz., coal and lignite in solid form, petroleum in liquid form and gas in gaseous form. In addition to emission of greenhouse gases, the burning of fossil fuels has led to several ecological problems and associated with health problems like cancer risk, respiratory diseases and other health problems.
Burning of traditional fuel adds to a large amount of carbon dioxide into atmosphere and increases greenhouse gas emission.
The production of electricity has increased from 5 billion KWH in 1950-51 to about 380 billion KWH in 1995-96. The shares of thermal power and hydropower changed substantially. The shares of thermal power has increased from 51% in 1950- 51 to about 79 per cent in 1995-96 whereas the share of hydropower declined from 49 per cent in 1950-51 to 19 per cent in 1995-96.
The share of nuclear power is nominal. This clearly indicates that burning of fossil fuels, especially coals, emits lot of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and leads to global warming. The increasing population numbers and growing affluence have already resulted in rapid growth of energy production and consumption in India, and this trend can only be expected to accelerate in the future.
A considerable amount of air pollution results from burning of fossil fuels. Moreover, the resources for fossil fuels are also limited thus exploration of alternate energy resources would provide the way out.