India’s Main Opposition Attacks A Modi Govt. Policy With Data And (Some) Science

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For the last 10 years, India’s BJP run government’s renewable plans have gone mainly uncontested in the elections, in part due to the opposition parties’ distraction with other issues. Thus, after a better than expected show in the 2024 elections, it is good to see the main opposition,  the Congress party finally do its job on the issue of the country’s renewables trajectory as well.

On June 22, 2024, the Congress Kerala account put out a tweet on X (formerly twitter), pointing out the multiple holes that the 2034 EV policy has. The policy aims to eliminate petrol and diesel vehicles by 2034, replacing them with electric vehicles. The thread posted by the account highlights why this is a bad idea and why India’s infrastructure isn’t ready for it. And does a fairly competent job of it.

The thread starts off with a focus on CO2 emissions. On paper, EVs don’t have any CO2 emissions. The energy required to charge them however, does generate a lot of CO2. Comparing emissions between an EV and a Petrol/Diesel car using the Tata Nexon as a benchmark, the Congress account called out the EV requiring 26.7kg of coal being burnt to fill its 40.5 kWh battery, nearly 2.5 times the amount of petrol/diesel needed for the same distance. 2.5 times the raw fuel being burnt means 2.5 times the carbon emissions. Further remarks were made about how India doesn’t always use the best quality coal, often opting for lower grades like Lignite, which has half the energy density as anthracite coal. All in all, the move would end up nearly tripling carbon emissions. EVs are simply not efficient enough to keep up with combustion engines. This has been self evident for a while in India’s coal powered grid, but rarely questioned. Even as EV supporters insist that with time, the picture will change as the share of renewable energy in the grid rises.

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A few days ago Transport Minister @nitin_gadkari said that Central Govt is planning to eliminate Petrol and Diesel vehicles by 2034 and replace them mostly with Electric Vehicles.

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But if they… pic.twitter.com/LaiaAzB575

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— Congress Kerala (@INCKerala) June 22, 2024

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Why focus on coal though? Why not solar or wind? Well, the congress has an answer for that too. We’ve nearly maxed out hydro electricity production, while Oil, Gas and Bio Fuels have carbon emissions as well. As for solar and wind, they’re simply inconsistent, a well known fact. Solar generates power during the day and EVs are mostly charged during the night time. As for batteries to make up for the inconsistencies, additional costs would come into the picture then. Ultimately, India would have to take the cheapest route and add Coal-based power capacity, claims the Congress handle

In even more damning accusations, the Kerala congress presented a graph of power sources by usage. Coal came out to a whopping 75%, which means that the EV plan would result in 3 times more carbon dioxide than petrol and diesel cars.

The next tweet in the thread is where the accusations start falling a little flat though. The account manages to misread a headline from Energyworld.com, interpreting it as India reaching 517 GW of power capacity by 2032 instead of India adding an additional 517 GW of power capacity by 2032. (Subsequently retracted).

The Congress makes the situation worse in the next subtweet, quoting a video with US Congressman August Pfluger, a known supporter of the 2020 insurrection and climate denier.

Reverting back closet home to Kerala, the account points out load shedding being performed in Kerela as an issue, despite the state being ruled by the LDF. If anything, the issue pinpoints the issues in the system rather than issues with scalability of EVs.

The congress account further points out issues with offering subsidies, conveniently ignoring the part where most developed countries in the world offer subsidies on the purchase of EVs as well. Or the recent trend in India’s own electoral politics, led by the Congress itself, to offer freebies galore.

Finally, the account threw shade on India’s last 9 years performance, extrapolating from past performance to claim that India is not going to reach even one third of the 517 Gigawatt target, considering we’ve only added 140 GW in the last 9 years. Directly quoting the tweet, “In last 9 years we’ve added only 139.62 GW. So, how are we going to add nearly four times the capacity that we added last 9 years, in another 8 years? Is it realistic? You be the judge!”

While it is all too easy to point out the political colours influencing some of the claims (and counterclaims), to its credit, the Kerela Congress needs to be congratulated for taking a stab at attacking the government on its EV policy. They make some much needed points. To answer their final question- Will India meet its targets? We believe it will, as Solar deployment is one aspect where if anything, experts and the commons have repeatedly underestimated the possibilities.  It is instructive that the Congress government’s own target for solar power by 2025 was 20 GW, and today we are going to be nudging 100 GW by the year end.

Yash Singh