I've been doing a good bit of research on these topics, and some of the exciting areas are as follows:
- Push towards electric vehicles
- While China is attacking the problem from the point of view of electric cars, India has made enormous strides in electrifying the three-wheeler (auto) fleet, and is also moving towards electrifying the two-wheeler (scooter/ moped) fleet
- In addition, a large number of electric buses are already plying/ on their way to ply on Indian roads
- While China is the true leader in electric buses (90% of all e-bus sales are in China, and the city of Shanghai now has 16,000 electric buses, which means its entire fleet is electric), India would be in second place (though a very distant second)
- China has already seen dramatic drops (north of 70%) in SO2, NOx, etc. pollution, and Beijing is rapidly moving away from being a highly polluted city
- I'm excited about the same thing happening in Indian cities
- Associated problems:
- The electricity grid needs to rely on cleaner sources for true pollution reduction, no point in having clean vehicles if there is more pollution at the source
- Do we have the resources necessary - lithium, cobalt, etc. - to have a truly fully electric fleet? Limiting resources would limit the number of batteries that can be built, in turn restricting the number of electric vehicles. Recycling could be key.
- Alternatively, are there other emerging battery technologies (iron-air, aluminium-air) which would not have these resource limitations?
- India is rolling out BS-VI norms for both vehicles and cleaner fuels, years ahead of schedule
- Per some studies that I've been reading about, in the near term, adoption of cleaner fuel and vehicle manufacturing norms would have a much greater impact on pollution mitigation than just electrifying the fleet
- India's BS-VI norms seem to be pretty comprehensive (based on Euro-6 norms, but with adaptations), and these norms also cover pollution monitoring at the dashboard of cars
- The earlier BS-IV norms, when they were rolled out (India is skipping BS-V and going directly to BS-VI from BS-IV) initially specified a ban on manufacture of non-BS-IV compliant vehicles, but did not prohibit sale of existing non-BS-IV vehicles
- However, with BS-VI, after April 2020, there is a comprehensive ban on even the sale of existing BS-IV vehicles - only BS-VI vehicles may be sold after April 2020
- Many cities in India (8, I believe) have already upgraded to BS-VI fuels, so the availability of the fuel is not an issue post April 2020
- Push for renewable energy
- India is already at the point, where renewable energy component in the full mix is north of 33% (1/3rd)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable ... olar_power
In the electricity sector, renewable energy account for 34.6% of the total installed power capacity. Large hydro installed capacity was 45.399 GW as of 30 June 2019, contributing to 13% of the total power capacity.[1] The remaining renewable energy sources accounted for 22% of the total installed power capacity (80467 GW) as of 30 June 2019.[2] - Mega solar power plants are already operational in Rajasthan and MP
- The Rewa plant in MP is currently supplying clean solar power to the Delhi metro
- The Delhi metro is on track to become 100% solar powered in a couple of years
- 100% solar means - not just the lighting/ AC/ etc. but even the trains themselves are fully solar powered
- Then there is wind/ hydroelectric
- India is already at the point, where the addition in renewable energy capacity exceeds the addition in coal-based energy capacity
- India is already at the point, where renewable energy component in the full mix is north of 33% (1/3rd)