Daily Mains Practice Questions 06-02-2023

KEY POINTS

·        Just Energy Transition Partnership (JET-P) is emerging as the key mechanism for multilateral financing by developed countries to support an energy transition in developing countries.

·        This has taken on particular significance following the insertion of the phrase ‘phase-down’ of coal in the Glasgow Pact.

·        Energy transitions could give rise to intra-generational, intergenerational, and spatial equity concerns.

·        Existing JET-P deals, pay limited attention to intra-generational inequity, such as job losses resulting from a coal phase-down.

·        India has signalled a commitment to clean energy with ambitious targets like 500GW of non-fossil, including 450 GW renewable energy (RE) capacity addition and 43% RE purchase obligation by 2030.

·        While RE deployment has outpaced coal in recent years, in 2021-22, coal power served one-third of the new demand.

·        By using coal more efficiently, this policy shift opens the door to India considering a future cap on coal-powered generation capacity.

·        Current generation capacity plus plants in the pipeline are adequate to meet India’s projected requirement in 2030.

·        Low capacity utilisation factor (58% in 2022) further allows the possibility of greater use of existing plants to match future demand. ALSO READ

·        Any future JET-P deal must consider this broader framework for financing and supporting an energy transition.

KEY POINTS

·        The country’s bubbling enthusiasm in the climate change agenda by going the whole hog on solar energy is timely but needs amplification.

·        The first is the wrong comparison of solar power with coal electricity at the load centre, instead of at the pithed, which costs about half that of the load centre.

·        The second flaw is not comparing like with like. Solar electricity is intermittent and coal electricity is continuous. So, you have to add the cost of storage by battery.

·        Implicitly, they agree not to consider the greenhouse gases cost of coal, because it is a global issue, but want to include the particulate emission cost of carbon, which is a local issue.

·        Thus, solar energy is made financially viable by misguiding the people by leaving out storage battery cost; handicapping it with subsidies and concessions.

·        The Three Gorges project on the Yangtze is the world’s biggest hydro electric project. In India, powerful environmentalists stop large hydro projects in their tracks.

·        One major reason for the sickness in the power sector is due to the focus on renewable energy in a big way.

·        The only place where solar power is viable in India is its use in water heating, and even that is because of increasing block tariffs.

KEY POINTS

·        The European Union has joined the United States and the United Kingdom in banning imports of Russian diesel and other refined oil products.

·        The ban is coupled with a price cap on Russian refined fuel, aimed at hurting Russian revenue while ensuring the EU fuel embargo doesn’t end up driving up global diesel prices which are already high.

·        This would largely depend on how successful the European countries are in finding alternative sellers to help fill up the void caused by the ban.

·        Asia and the US. With its own refining capacity under duress, the EU has already been relying on those regions over the past months to make up for the shortfall.

·        The bloc could also benefit from so-called washing, wherein Russian diesel would be blended with other non-Russian products in countries such as Turkey and re-exported back into Europe.

·        India’s diesel exports to Europe have soared since the invasion as refiners take advantage of low feedstock costs thanks to steeply discounted Russian crude and high diesel prices.

·        The mechanism would allow European insurance and shipping firms to continue offering their services to shippers carrying Russian oil products to other regions as long as the fuel is purchased at or below an agreed cap level.

Q.1

Q. 1)Energy transition

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