Originally Posted By: Shannow
That's the problem with YOUR black and white world tempest.
The regulations that the government is enforcing are
black and white.... Do what we want or close down.
I have
tried to look for information on the cost benefit of what the EPA is doing. I have found none.
And the massive blackouts in India are a classic case of government incompetence and the fallacy of central planning:
Quote:
The state still dominates power production, with private-sector producers accounting for only 27 percent of generation capacity. “The power ministry has made this industry financially unviable and until they set it free, it will continue to run into problems like these massive blackouts,” says Rohit Singh, an analyst with IDBI Capital Market Services. The government mandates that state-owned Coal India sell to local power producers at a discount of about 75 percent, but the company, which controls about 80 percent of the market, hasn’t kept pace with the growth of the power sector. Michael Parker, an analyst in Hong Kong with Sanford Bernstein, puts the shortfall at 60 million tons of coal a year. For India’s power producers, there are few alternatives to Coal India; with the rupee’s 26 percent slide against the dollar over the past 12 months, importing isn’t really an option.
Coal India’s struggle to keep up with demand stems in part from government restrictions on new mining. Many coal deposits lie in forested regions in eastern India, whose inhabitants want the forest to remain untouched and where Maoist rebels are active. Several years ago the government implemented a “go/no go” policy restricting new mining. The government ended the policy recently, but the coal industry is still feeling the impact, says Salil Garg, director of energy and utilities for Fitch Ratings India.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/201...e-population#p1
Quote:
Retroactive taxation and cumbersome licensing procedures have discouraged foreign investors at a time when India badly needs jobs for the millions of young people entering the workforce annually.
India has added significant coal-fired generating capacity in the last year, analysts said, but much of it is unused because transmission lines can't handle the added load. Meanwhile, government-influenced pricing driven more by politics than the market often leaves suppliers unwilling to meet demand.
State officials accused one another of exceeding their allocated share of power. Analysts said a weak central government is at times so worried about the next state or national election and so wary of offending small allies that it balks at decisions with a clear national benefit.
Problems in the power sector mirror those elsewhere in the government and the economy. A series of corruption scandals has allegedly cost the treasury tens of billions of dollars. It's estimated that as much as 30% of India's food spoils before it reaches the consumer, as millions of citizens go hungry, but reforms of the retail, storage and distribution system have stalled.
http://india.nydailynews.com/newsarticle...-in-a-new-light
Government is the problem.
