Make in India, don’t just make do in India

An Indian woman about to marry a Chinese man was warned by a friend, "Don't do it, he won't last". The joke was doing the rounds at a time in the '90s when cheap and flimsy Chinese products had flooded the Indian market. Like all good jokes, there was a hint of truth in the punch line. Smuggled Chinese torches fell apart after a few blinks of light, cheap cordless phones looked good but rarely worked, as did digital watches, sports shoes, electric pumps and bicycles. The rush to imitate the world's material goods and resell them was a dismal public relations phenomenon for China. People across the globe suffered the indignity of second-rate Chinese products. The bad publicity however was an essential introduction to the country's developing abilities, and ensured the Chinese their future prospects in the global market. Things could only get better. 

They did. After a decade of poking fun at the Chinese, Indian ridicule has turned into admiration. Both the quality and range of items improved so much that they began to draw outsiders to China's celebrated markets for a bonanza of international sales, export and clever marketing. In fact, two years ago when designing an office building in Bangalore, our client insisted that all the construction finishing material be procured from there. A trip to Guangzhou's construction material warehouses spared me the tedious detail of shopping and haggling for lights, plumbing fixtures, wiring, flooring and plaster boards in a variety of markets spread over Bangalore. Instead, a golf cart whisked me through miles of displays, while I made the selection. At the end of the day, the shipment was on its way to Chennai. 

If there are any lessons to be learnt from the 'Made in China' model, it is the necessity of following the rigorous path of imitation, self-assessment, invention and application. The Modi Make in India campaign however is meant merely to promote industrial growth. Cheap Indian labour and skills are to be directed towards producing cars, chemicals, textiles, electronics and inviting foreign companies for mining, tourism, aviation and biotechnology. The objective of improving GDP growth by attracting foreign capital makes India nothing more than a destination for product outsourcing. There is little incentive to plough funds into the important arena of research and development. Foreign companies that do invest in research direct their work primarily to the home market. Indian companies barely use a tenth of their profits for new experiments; consequently India — despite being one of the largest economies — ranks a lowly 76 on the Global Innovation Index. 

By their own admission, even industrialists say that their immediate goals are merely to increase profits and production. While upscale cars like BMW and Audi begin manufacturing operations in India, Indian car makers themselves only promote expensive models. In cities with dangerous pollution levels, shouldn't a zero-carbon car or solar bus be part of the Make in India campaign? Many builders construct luxury villas and million-dollar vacation homes. Does this make sense in a country with a shortfall of over six million urban homes in the low and mid-level housing sector? The campaign's promotion of the tourism industry similarly overlooks the structure of Indian domestic travel and seeks large scale high-end hospitality. When 60 million Indians are on the move annually, wouldn't a restructuring of domestic hotel and travel facilities make more sense? 

Most countries rely on their own initiatives to create effective solutions. The pod hotel — where guests are literally inserted into a drawer bed for the night — is the outcome of a Japanese requirement to reduce hotel space. Japan's Kochofucu factory came up with an air-conditioned jacket. Rather than cooling a whole room, the wearer merely dons the jacket in summer and plugs in to the nearest socket. A Swedish inventor, while in Africa, constructed a device that absorbs harmful dust particles in a 50-foot radius. In parts of West Africa, rural schools are assembled from pre-fabricated parts in a matter of days. There could be no better market for all four devices than India. Yet the Indian mind — and Make in India in particular — promotes ideas and projects that are neither relevant to Indian conditions, nor promise any gain in innovation. 

Unless the Make in India campaign can put its mind to making life less of a struggle for Indians through innovations for rural schools, latrines, urban transport, housing, water supply, cooking fuel and energy, it will peter out into a hollow slogan. The campaign's unspoken agenda should not only lift millions out of poverty, but provide an enriching physical landscape for their lives. That however would require some serious seasoned thinking beyond the scope of mere economics and GDP. 

The writer is an architect.

Original Post : TOI

West Polluted World' for 150 Years, and India Says It Won't Pay

Original Post: Anindya Upadhyay

“You made the mess -- you clean it up” may well be India’s attitude at the coming international climate-change talks in Paris.

“It’s the West which has polluted the world for the last 150 years with cheap energy,” Indian Power Minister Piyush Goyal said in an interview. “I can’t tell the people of India that we’ll burden you with high costs because the West has polluted the world, now India will pay for it. Not acceptable to us.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has sent mixed signals about its stance toward climate change, adopting aggressive targets for adopting renewable energy while at the same time pointing the finger of blame at richer nations for causing global warming.

Indian officials coordinating climate policy have met with their U.S. and Chinese counterparts in recent weeks to discuss the December talks in Paris, and India has said it will make a pledge in the near future for how it will act under the deal that is due to emerge. It isn’t clear whether India will commit to a date to start rolling backgreenhouse gas emissions, and U.S. officials have said they don’t expect such a pledge from India this year.

“India doesn’t take responsibility for the problems that the world is facing because ofthermal coal,” Goyal said in the interview in New Delhi Sept. 8. “Our pollution out of carbon emissions is still very, very low compared to the world.”

PRECISION SCREENS FOR SOLAR CELL PRINTING

Fourth-Largest Emitter

India is the fourth-largest emitter of carbon dioxide, behind China, the U.S. and the European Union. India emitted about 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide in 2014, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. That is about one quarter the amount of China and one third the amount of the U.S.

India said in August that its national proposal to the Paris talks will cover mitigation, adaptation, finance and technology. So far, almost 50 countries constituting more than half the world’s emissions have submitted their plans -- formally known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions or INDCs.

The government of India is likely to present its proposals by Sept. 27, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change said Sept. 15 in Brussels.

India’s climate change plan may see a bigger renewable target for 2030 than the current goal of 175-gigawatt capacity to be built over the next seven years, Goyal said. The country needs cheap power to aid development, he said.

He will add large hydro-power projects to expand the renewable target, he said.

Hydropower, LEDs

"I want to reignite the interest in hydro-electric investments," he said. India intends to almost quintuple its clean energy installations to 175 gigawatts by 2022 with wind, solar, biomass and small hydro projects.

India allowed development of offshore wind projects up to 200 nautical miles into the surrounding seas earlier this month to help achieve its climate-change goals.

As part of the government’s energy-efficiency program, Goyal aims to save 100 billion kilowatt-hour units of power consumption annually by eliminating less efficient incandescent and CFL bulbs over the next three years.

“Our target is to do 770 million LED bulbs in the country, eliminating the CFLs and the incandescents in three years," he said.

Global solar photovoltaic manufacturing production slows in recent years

The US Energy Information Administration’s new ‘Today in Energy’ brief looks at the slowdown in the growth rate of global solar panel production:

Global solar photovoltaic manufacturing production is slowing. 

The brief shows that growth in solar photovoltaic (solar PV) module production has slowed in recent years to 4% annually from 2011 to 2013 after increasing by an average of 78% from 2006 to 2011. In addition, the gap between global solar PV module manufacturing capability and production has grown, leading to lower utilisation rates of manufacturing facilities.

The utilisation rates of solar PV module manufacturing facilities (in terms of actual production as a percentage of maximum throughput) peaked in 2011, when production was 36.6 gigawatts (GW) and capability was 52 GW, giving a utilisation rate of 70%. In 2013, although production and capability increased slightly, the utilisation rate of manufacturing facilities declined to 66%.

Unfair trade practices

Sales of solar PV panels made in China into North American and European markets at extremely low prices have led to complaints of unfair trade practices. Based on an investigation that found Chinese solar PV modules were being dumped or subsidised in the US market, the US Department of Commerce established anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on PV modules from China. In Europe, the European Commission and the major Chinese manufacturers reached an agreement on minimum prices and shipping volume.

The market is reacting to the slow growth of module production and the decreased utilization of PV manufacturing capability by downsizing and consolidating PV manufacturing companies. For example, Germany reported to the International Energy Agency that there were a total of 11,000 employees working in 40 PV companies operating in Germany at the end of 2013, compared with 32,000 employees in 62 companies at the end of 2008. 

Similar trends were reported in China, with Chinese PV module and cell manufacturers decreasing from 300 companies to fewer than 100 companies.

China the biggest maker

Despite the consolidation of Chinese manufacturing companies, China continues to be the largest producer of solar PV modules, manufacturing 23 GW in 2012 and 26 GW in 2013, or more than 60% of annual global PV module production in those years, mainly to serve export markets. China ranks just ahead of the US as the sixth-largest installer of solar photovoltaics. However, China has announced a goal of installing 100 GW by 2020, almost as much as the 2020 targets of Germany, Italy, and Japan combined.

Future demand for solar PV will be affected by major countries' goals for installed solar capacity. More than 50 countries have established national solar targets, amounting to more than 350 GW by the year 2020. 

The current top six countries in terms of total installed solar capacity—Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, France, and China - represented 76% of installed capacity in 2012, but only 61% of the global target total for 2020. 

Reaching 350 GW by 2020 would require average annual installments of 40 GW from 2013 through 2020, which is equivalent to manufacturing production in 2013 and well within current PV manufacturing capability of 60 GW per year.

In some cases, national targets are not indicative of a country's future solar PV market. For example, the US doesn’t have a national target. Instead, several individual states have established renewable portfolio standards, some with separate targets explicitly for solar.  Furthermore, countries tend to adjust their targets. For instance, India recently increased its solar target from 20 GW to 100 GW by 2022.

And although the UK has not officially reduced any solar PV commitments, the Government is causing grave concern by rowing back on a number of subsidies to various renewable energy forms, including both large scale and domestic solar PV. 

Original Post: Eia