India has potentially a future power shortage, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal informed Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Oct. 9. “Out of India’s 135 coal-fired plants, 108 were facing critically low stocks, with 28 of them down to just one day’s worth of supply, according to Power Ministry data released on Wednesday [Oct. 6], the most recently available,” AP reported Oct. 8.
Altogether 70% of India’s electricity is generated from coal-fired generating stations.
This reflects a few forces. India has just had a significant round of monsoons, which appear to be coming to an end. They flooded some of the coal mines, and made transport of coal difficult. At the same time, and most significantly, the Green fascist attack on coal, leading to the shutting down of coal mines, and coal power stations globally, combined with the speculators bidding up all energy commodity prices—from oil and gas, to coal—has caused the price of coal to skyrocket. India, with the world’s fourth largest coal reserves, relies principally on its domestic coal production, but it also imports significant amounts. Indonesia is one of India’s coal suppliers. Indonesian coal prices have swelled from $86.68 per ton in April, to $162 per ton in October, a near doubling. Importing a greater amount of coal would add a great cost to the Indian economy.
