This week at the UT Energy Symposium, Rohit Chandra will give a talk titled "Coal in India: History and Persistence."
Rohit Chandra is a doctoral student at the Harvard Kennedy School, studying energy policy and economic history. His dissertation is a political and economic history of the Indian coal industry from 1960-2015. In the past, he has worked with the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, Center for Advanced Study of India in Philadelphia, and Brookings India. Abstract: Like many other countries, India's industrial base and electricity system has been built largely on the back of coal-based power generation. Since nationalization in the early 1970s, Coal India (CIL) has weathered many political and economic obstacles in trying to deliver on the nation's coal demands. In all the recent euphoria about renewable energy, the deep historical connections between the Indian state and the coal industry seem to be unacknowledged. Both financially, and politically, the Indian state is deeply invested in coal and coal-based power generation. This is likely to make the transition to renewable energy gradual, not precipitous, as many have been predicting. In this talk, Rohit will give a brief historical sketch of the Indian coal industry, and then discuss some of the reasons why coal and its downstream use in power and other industries is likely to persist in India for the foreseeable future.
The UT Energy Symposium meets every Thursday during the long semesters. Come early to attend a networking session before the talk: refreshments will be served at 4:45 p.m. in the POB Connector Lobby outside the auditorium.