India Looks to Clean Energy for Expanding Population

Mumbai, an urban metropolis of roughly 35 million people, is growing rapidly and having difficulty keeping up with it’s peoples energy needs. Each year, in India, 14 million people are added to the population. By the end of this century it is expected to be the first and only country ever to reach two billion inhabitants. For several years, the economy has peaked around 7 to 9 percent in growth, and traffic is increasing ten fold.

Cars are a rare privilege in a country that relies mostly on buses and small rickshaws. However, for those drivers who do brave the traffic on the road most work commutes can last up to 90 minutes each morning. The increasing traffic has brought slews of new issues to India’s already crowded streets.

The train and bus systems are not much of an improvement. People are smashed into rail cars like sardines. In the last five years, there have been 20,000 deaths related to overcrowded railways. People are on the roof, hanging outside of doors, and sitting in carriages meant for luggage. The buses are just as bad as the railways. But most workers have no other option but to ride the crowded public transport systems.

However, India with the fourth biggest population in the world is becoming a hotbed for dangerous carbon emissions which are expelled by thousands of public transport vehicles operating at all hours. As the Indian economy and population increases their carbon emissions are exponentially increasing as well.

Environmental Minister, Jairam Ramesh, said that for basic survival the government will need to provide all residents with access to electricity and that the emphasis will have to be on doing it cleanly. India has joined the Group of 77, which including China, is an increasingly powerful block of countries which would like to see Western nations begin to pay for their carbon emissions.