The economic growth of any nation is dependent on abundant access to majorinfrastructurai input. Energy is one major input for providing impetus to the growth ofeconomy and, India needs plenty of energy which is cheap, reliable and also green. This isa tough challenge given the background this country is currently going through. We need togrow at 8-9% and In order to achieve such a growth rate, we need that our energy sectorand more particularly power sector to grow at 6%+ which is a huge challenge. The growingconcern of the international community on climate change and consequent adverse impacton economy is a paradox which is of concern to every strata of society. You need moreenergy, you need cheap energy and you need green energy. This paradox of energy and climate change is discussed in this paper from purely scientificangle. There are no-magical solutions. The answer shall be all inclusive and not exclusiveof one energy source against another. We need fundamentally different R&D for efficientenergy conversion and transport devices (both centralized and distributed), we need R&Dfor managing the energy at the demand side in most effective manner, we need R&D forexploitation of several renewable energy systems more particularly solar and bio in asynergy driven way and we need R&D to take care of excessive emissions. While the firstthree R&D elements are in the known regime of work (of course newer ways are alsoemerging) but it is the last element on R&D to take care of excessive emissions whichrequire a high profile globally hooked R&D. Carbon capture and sequestrationtechnologies, zero emission power plants are few of concepts which are being explored. Multi dimensional, multi institutional R&D is the need of the hour and all possible optionsare discussed in the paper which gives a bird's eye view on such technologies with specificemphasis in Indian context.
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