September 26, 2012 12:30 PM

Presented by Ramprasad Sengupta, Distinguished Fellow, India Development Foundation, Gurgaon, Haryana, India, and Visiting Research Fellow, Liu Institute for Global Issues. Professor Sengupta's research interests lie primarily in energy, resource, and environmental economics.

 

 

India has been heavily dependent on fossil fuels for supporting its process of economic growth - the main primary commercial energy supply as available from the indigenous sources being coal. As India has already started importing coal for power and non-metallurgical use, this paper examines the macroeconomic sustainability of the existing trend of fossil fuel use from the view point of energy resource adequacy and financial balance of the macro-economy. It then further enquires into how far India has been able to reduce the pressure on energy resources through energy conservation over the last two decades 1990 to 2009 and also shows how such conservation of energy combined with aggressive fuel substitution of coal by the renewables can resolve the problem of macroeconomic sustainability of 7% to 8% growth of Indian economy in the long run over a time horizon up to 2045-46.

Download the poster here.