Text | Hearing the sound of the green tree
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Sources: All of the information stated in this article is based on reliable sources, and is detailed at the end of the article
Preface
Indian Prime Minister Modi has been promoting Made in India internationally for the sake of the "dream of prosperity and strength", claiming that India will replace China as the "next world factory".
It's not that Modi is talking big, but that India's own infrastructure is not in place, and India's domestic factories, schools, etc., have been suspended from school due to power outages many times.
Why are there frequent power outages in India, and where has India developed in the field of nuclear power?
The power dilemma
Electricity is a mandatory requirement for a country to seek economic development, and without electricity, all production activities will be forced to stop.
China's development is getting better and better, the power supply is becoming more and more sufficient, even if it is a small county town and village on the 18th line, there are few cases of insufficient electricity, air conditioning, WiFi, 24 hours of continuous rotation, is no problem at all.
However, with a population of 1.4 billion, India's electricity consumption is very different from ours, and India's development has been repeatedly frustrated due to the lack of power resources.
In June 2023, the northern region of India was hit by a high temperature of 43 degrees, and the two most populous states in the country, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, suffered widespread power outages at this time.
Many people in India suffer from heat stroke and the number of patients in hospitals has increased dramatically, but the hospitals have no electricity, so they can only be cooled by manually using books or fans.
We have winter and summer vacations, but India has a "power outage holiday" because of the lack of power supply.
In the summer of 2022, 43 cities and more than 4,000 villages in the state of Rajasthan suffered power outages due to a lack of electricity in western India, forcing all factories to go home on vacation.
In the world, there is no country with rapid development and strong strength like India, which has two power outages for three days in the summer, and President Modi said that he would build a "world factory", but now if he is not careful, it will become a "power outage factory".
How backward is India's power infrastructure, and how far is India's power capacity from China's?
Comparison between China and India
Whether it is in China or India, it is still dominated by "thermal power generation", but at the same time, there are also hydropower and nuclear power generation, China has developed hydropower generation, we have the Three Gorges Project and the Xiaolangdi Project.
India also wants to vigorously develop hydropower, but because the terrain in India is relatively flat, it does not have such conditions, and many rivers are located in other countries, and the size of the water flow is not something that India can effectively control.
In 2022, India's annual hydropower generation capacity was 151.6 billion kWh, but China's hydropower generation reached 1,202 billion kWh this year, a difference of more than 10,000 kWh.
If this road does not work, then take advantage of the large amount of coal to vigorously develop thermal power generation, and the fact is that India is indeed doing the same, and it is very dependent on coal power generation.
In 2022, India consumed about 1 billion tonnes of coal, 8 percent of which was used to generate electricity, and more than 170 power plants were operating non-stop, generating only 1.2 trillion kilowatt hours of electricity.
In 2022, the mainland's thermal power generation capacity was 5.8 trillion kWh, 4.6 trillion kWh more than India.
The lack of development of hydropower and thermal power has led India to pin its desire to meet its electricity needs on clean energy "nuclear power", and has invested heavily in the construction of nuclear power plants at home.
To what extent has India developed in terms of nuclear power generation, and how far is it from China?
The Kega nuclear power plant in the southern Indian state of Karnataka
Nuclear power generation
There are not many countries in the world that have "nuclear", so the development of nuclear power technology is almost all developed countries, China and India are one of the few developing countries, vigorously developing nuclear power.
China's nuclear power started in the 70s of the last century, and China's first self-designed and built Qinshan nuclear power plant was officially put into operation in the 90s.
After the difficult transition from 0 to 1, China introduced French technology and built two units at the Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant, which were put into commercial use in 2004.
Through technical research and accumulation of experience, we continue to introduce the third-generation nuclear power technology from Europe and the United States, and then develop the third-generation advanced pressurized water reactor technology with independent intellectual property rights.
Since then, China's nuclear power has achieved independent R&D and investment, and China has entered a stage of stable and efficient development of nuclear power.
As another leader in the development of nuclear power in Asia, India's nuclear power development started earlier than ours, and in 1956, Canada helped India build the first "nuclear reactor" in Asia.
In 1969, with the help of the United States, India's first nuclear power plant was officially put into operation, and we are about 20 years behind India in terms of starting and building the first nuclear power station.
However, it is a pity that in the 70s, when India's nuclear test was advancing step by step and achieving good results, the international community suddenly began to raise objections to India's development of "nuclear", and India was forced to enter the stage of "nuclear ban" for 30 years.
China, on the other hand, has made rapid progress in the field of nuclear power in the next 30 years, and when the 30-year embargo period expires, President Modi can't wait to start the research and development of nuclear power technology.
After nearly 20 years of development, India currently has 7 operating nuclear power plants, including 22 nuclear reactors with an installed capacity of more than 7.5 million kilowatts.
India also claims that it has made a breakthrough in the research of "thorium reactors" and has promised that the world's first "thorium reactor" will be realized by 2025.
The "thorium reactor" is an upgraded version of the "uranium reactor", uranium-235 and uranium-233 are the current nuclear reaction fuels, which are highly radioactive, while thorium-232 is much less radioactive than uranium, while also being stable and has high heat conversion efficiency.
It would be a huge technological breakthrough if it could be applied to nuclear power generation, which China expects to be commercialized by 2040.
India's time is 15 years ahead of ours, and many people feel that India is "bragging and talking high" again, after all, the time will come next year, and there is no news yet.
At present, in 2023, the mainland's nuclear power generation capacity will be 433.4 billion kilowatt hours, ranking second in the world, and India's nuclear power generation capacity will be 56 billion kilowatt hours, and the top 10 will not be able to enter, and the two sides will have a seven-fold gap.
Whether it is hydropower, thermal power or nuclear power and other aspects of the mainland's strength, it can be said that it beats India, and the current situation of India's power construction has a gap of one or two decades with us.
Resources:
Interface News: Power outages and shutdowns in many places, 700 trains suspended: India is experiencing another coal shortage
Guangming.com: "Nearly 170 people died in high temperatures and scorching heat, and there were widespread power and water outages"
International Energy Network: Who is the king of power generation?8 charts to analyze the annual power generation data of 31 provinces in the country in 2023!
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