
When will India run out of coal?
- August 20, 2021
India is running out of fossil fuels.
Coal and oil are the main energy sources, but there are other energy sources that could replace them, experts said on Tuesday.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts India’s total energy demand for the next three decades to fall by 20% to 27.5 billion tonnes.
The World Bank expects that, by 2040, the country’s energy mix will be nearly 40% fossil fuels and 35% non-fossil fuels.
India has an ageing population and an ageing economy.
This has contributed to a lack of domestic energy and a growing demand for imported energy.
The IEA’s new forecast projects that India will run out by 2023.
Coal is likely to be the main source of energy in the country for the foreseeable future, followed by petroleum, natural gas and hydroelectric power.
In the long term, hydroelectricity could become India’s largest energy source.
Oil and gas will remain important sources of energy, but are likely to become less so, the IEA said.
“As we approach the 2040s, there is a clear shift in the energy mix to a mix of fossil and non-renewable fuels,” the agency said in its Energy Outlook report published on Tuesday, which looked at energy demand in the years ahead.
India will need to import nearly 2.8 billion tonnes of oil and 1.9 billion tonnes more of gas by the end of the 2030s, compared with the current level of 1.6 billion tonnes, the agency added.
The energy sector in India is largely dependent on coal.
This is due to the lack of cheap domestic coal, and a lack in the supply of new coal mines and pipelines.
India imports a lot of coal, mainly because the country does not have enough coal mines.
India is also running out as a result of rising carbon emissions from industrial and mining activities, mainly due to industrialisation.
India is now the fourth-largest emitter of CO2 in the world after China, Russia and the United States.
India’s coal use is expected to peak by 2025.
“India’s energy demand will grow rapidly in the next 10-20 years, and in the decades ahead will depend on coal-fired generation capacity and coal consumption growth,” the IGA said.
The country’s coal-related carbon dioxide emissions have increased by more than 50% in the last five years.