What it really takes to go green: A story in numbers

The clock is ticking for India (and everyone else) to switch to clean energy. But building a truly sustainable energy mix is anything but easy

It's estimated that even a 60% reduction in global CO2 emissions by 2050 will most certainly still result in disaster—we need 85% of emissions cut

Thirty years may seem like a long time, and the Indian government, like many others, has announced ambitious-sounding renewable energy plans

But look closely, and the current energy policy is decidedly inadequate when you account for truly liveable standards of power consumption in the future

Here's a plan for switching to 100% clean energy—and it's incredibly difficult no matter how you look at it. Bonus: Play with the numbers yourself, it's all there

Question: Can India shift entirely to sustainable energy? The short answer is yes. The long answer is what you’re here for.

The brilliant British physicist, mathematician and renewable energy advocate David MacKay has an excellent book called Sustainable Energy—Without the Hot Air (from which a significant chunk of the philosophy has been derived). Which is just what India needs right now. But (surprise!) in the run-up to the ongoing general elections, both major national parties’ manifestos have been sorely lacking in terms of a plan for India’s energy policy.

AUTHOR

Vivek Aithal

Vivek is an aerospace engineer from IIT Kharagpur (on paper) and programmer by trade with 2+ years in ride-hailing (Ola, Gojek), and a short stint at a medical imaging startup. He's a serial hackathon-er, data-viz buff and believes deep learning is a silver bullet for humanity's problems. He can often be found catching up on late night political comedy, or dreaming about his next wall-art mission.

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