| India’s growing economy requires more electricity, and massive subsidies have stoked an explosion in new solar projects. But as with many countries, the results are disappointing.
At first, we thought the video above was footage of President Biden’s weather-damaged $325 million pier in Gaza. But it turns out, it is of the world’s largest floating solar plant, located in Madhya Pradesh, India. The idea behind it is that the solar panels sit on top of floaters, which are designed to adapt to changes in water currents. The storm that blew out the solar panels came at a time when India is facing its most severe power shortages in 15 years, due to a drop in hydropower generation and delays in newly built coal-fired plants coming on line.
Meanwhile, despite all the happy talk of India reaching net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2070, the trend is in the opposite direction. The graph below shows that India’s PER CAPITA emissions are 10 times higher than they were in 1960 and have doubled in just the last 20 years. That’s a lot of CO2 for a country with 1.42 billion people – or five times the population of the USA.
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