MDW Backstory: December 2022

From a reader after I suggested that India will go direct to EVs, skip ICE.

My thesis:

India will pivot to EVs, the market for ICEs in India will diminish over time.
The reader's thesis: I'm wrong.

My thesis:

natural gas, oil is too expensive for countries like India
natural gas, oil is for the "elite"
not enough global natural gas for the US, Europe, China, India. Something has to give;
only alternative for countries like India: EVs
only viable fuel source for electricity for counties like India: coal

not North American natural gas

My links: see screenshots and headline stories at this post.

IEA: India's energy outlook, 2021.
IEA: India -- coal, 2022.
India: EVs
Indian Mahindra: $1.2 billion EV investment, December 14, 2022
India: need for coal. An additional 28 GW by 2032 (this next decade)
India: techies in drive's seat as global auto companies take EV road;
Stellantis looks to India for affordable EVs for Europe;
Tata (India): to double production in 2023; more launches planned;
Statista: number of coal plants by country;
India: looking to acquire foreign coal mines;
wiki: global coal plant data

average coal plant: 5,000 MW (range, 3,000 to 6,000)
28 GW = 6 coal plants (5,000 MW)

Reader's note to my thesis:

Well, let's see if I can get someplace with my "India's great, but largely ignored, Bakken potential". I'm typing this in real time, so it's even longer than usual. But, it'll give you something to do while Santa is deciding if you've been naughty or nice.

Let's start with taking a look at your position that since Brazil went straight to air, India can skip the ICE.

First example will be population density of each country

So, that is Brazil's population density

Let's see if I can find India's

Here it is -

So, India's current population density :

Chart and table of India population density from 1950 to 2022. United Nations projections are also included through the year 2100.
The current population density of India in 2022 is 431.11 people per square kilometer, a 0.68% increase from 2021.
The population density of India in 2021 was 428.19 people per square kilometer, a 0.8% increase from 2020.
The population density of India in 2020 was 424.79 people per square kilometer, a 0.96% increase from 2019.
The population density of India in 2019 was 420.75 people per square kilometer, a 1.03% increase from 2018.
Brazil is only 6 percent as dense as India:

Chart and table of Brazil population density from 1950 to 2022. United Nations projections are also included through the year 2100.
The current population density of Brazil in 2022 is 25.28 people per square kilometer, a 0.46% increase from 2021.
The population density of Brazil in 2021 was 25.17 people per square kilometer, a 0.53% increase from 2020.
The population density of Brazil in 2020 was 25.04 people per square kilometer, a 0.67% increase from 2019.
The population density of Brazil in 2019 was 24.87 people per square kilometer, a 0.77% increase from 2018.

So - I think it's obvious that there's an apples/oranges comparison for transportation, right?

But, let's take a look at Wiki and see what they have to say about transportation in Brazil.

Brazilian roads are the primary carriers of freight and passenger traffic. The road system totaled 1,720,000 km (1,068,758 mi) in 2019.^[335] The total of paved roads increased from 35,496 km (22,056 mi) in 1967 to 215,000 km (133,595 mi) in 2018.^[336]^[337] The country has about 14,000 km (8,699 mi) of divided highways, 5,000 km (3,107 mi) only in the State of São Paulo. Currently it's possible to travel from Rio Grande, in the extreme south of the country, to Brasília (2,580 km (1,603 mi)) or Casimiro de Abreu, in the state of Rio de Janeiro (2,045 km (1,271 mi)), only on divided highways. The first investments in road infrastructure have given up in the 1920s, the government of Washington Luís, being pursued in the governments of Getúlio Vargas and Eurico Gaspar Dutra.^[338] President Juscelino Kubitschek (1956–61), who designed and built the capital Brasília, was another supporter of highways.^[339]
Brazil's railway system has been declining since 1945, when emphasis shifted to highway construction. The total length of railway track was 30,875 km (19,185 mi) in 2002, as compared with 31,848 km (19,789 mi) in 1970. Most of the railway system belonged to the Federal Railroad Corporation RFFSA, which was privatized in 2007.^[340] The São Paulo Metro was the first underground transit system in Brazil. The other metro systems are in Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Recife, Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Salvador and Fortaleza. The country has an extensive rail network of 28,538 kilometers (17,733 miles) in length, the tenth largest network in the world.^[341] Currently, the Brazilian government, unlike the past, seeks to encourage this mode of transport; an example of this incentive is the project of the Rio–São Paulo high-speed rail, that will connect the two main cities of the country to carry passengers.
There are about 2,500 airports in Brazil, including landing fields: the second largest number in the world, after the United States.^[342] São Paulo–Guarulhos International Airport, near São Paulo, is the largest and busiest airport with nearly 20 million passengers annually, while handling the vast majority of commercial traffic for the country.^[343]
For freight transport waterways are of importance, e.g. the industrial zones of Manaus can be reached only by means of the Solimões–Amazonas waterway (3,250 kilometers or 2,020 miles in length, with a minimum depth of six meters or 20 feet). The country also has 50,000 kilometers (31,000 miles) of waterways.^[341] Coastal shipping links widely separated parts of the country. Bolivia and Paraguay have been given free ports at Santos. Of the 36 deep-water ports, Santos, Itajaí, Rio Grande, Paranaguá, Rio de Janeiro, Sepetiba, Vitória, Suape, Manaus and São Francisco do Sul are the most important.^[344] Bulk carriers have to wait up to 18 days before being serviced, container ships 36.3 hours on average.^[345]

Brazil rapidly adopted air transport because it is a large landmass. Population is heavily concentrated on its Atlantic coast. Its population growth is centuries newer than India. Apples to oranges.

And, then let's see what Wiki has to say about transportation in India.

Well, they have a good start on roads:

As per 2017 estimates, the total road length in India is 5,603,293 km (3,481,725 mi);^[29]^[30] making the Indian road network the second largest road network in the world after the United States. At 0.66 km of highway per square kilometre of land the density of India's highway network is higher than that of the United States (0.65) and far higher than that of China's (0.16) or Brazil's (0.20).^[1]

And, they're building more roads:

Under National Highways Development Project (NHDP), work is under progress to equip national highways with at least four lanes; also there is a plan to convert some stretches of these roads to six lanes.^[32] In recent years construction has commenced on a nationwide system of multi-lane highways, including the Golden Quadrilateral connecting four important metropolitan cities of India (Delhi-Kolkata-Chennai-Mumbai) and North-South and East-West Corridors which link the largest cities in India.
In 2000, around 40% of villages in India lacked access to all-weather roads and remained isolated during the monsoon season.^[1]^[33] To improve rural connectivity, Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (Prime Minister's Rural Road Program), a project funded by the Central Government with the help of the World Bank, was launched in 2000 to build all-weather roads to connect all habitations with a population of 500 or above (250 or above for hilly areas).^[33]^[34]

They have a low incidence of car ownership:

Nationwide, India still has a very low rate of car ownership. When comparing car ownership between BRICS developing countries, it is on a par with China,^[58] and exceeded by Brazil and Russia.^[58]

Let's take a look at freight:
Indian Railways announced on 31 March 2017 that the country's entire rail network would be electrified by 2022.^[30]^[55] Though not a nascent concept, the electrification in India now has been committed with a fresh investment of ₹35,000 crore (US$4.4 billion) to electrify the entire network and eliminate the cost of fuel under transportation which will amount to a massive savings of ₹10,500 crore (US$1.3 billion) overall. This will be a boon for savings for the Government to channelize the investments in modernization of the railway infrastructure.^[56] Close to 30 billion units of electricity will be required for railway electrification on an annual basis by 2022, leading to excellent opportunities for IPPs of conventional power.^{[55] Isn't that funny "units of electricity"?}

IR is huge - it's the eighth largest employer in the world.

In the freight segment, IR ferries various commodities and fuels in industrial, consumer, and agricultural segments across the length and breadth of India. IR has historically subsidized the passenger segment with income from the freight business. As a result, freight services are unable to compete with other modes of transport on both cost and speed of delivery, leading to continuous erosion of market share.^[100] To counter this downward trend, IR has started new initiatives in freight segments including upgrading of existing goods sheds, attracting private capital to build multi-commodity multi-modal logistics terminals, changing container sizes, operating time-tabled freight trains, and tweaking with the freight pricing/product mix.^[101]
In 1999, the Konkan Railway Corporation introduced the Roll on Roll off (RORO) service, a unique road-rail synergy system, on the section between Kolad in Maharashtra and Verna in Goa,^[102] which was extended up to Surathkal in Karnataka in 2004.^[103]^[104] The RORO service, the first of its kind in India, allowed trucks to be transported on flatbed trailers. It was highly popular,^[105] carrying about 110,000 trucks and bringing in about ₹ 740 million worth of earnings to the corporation until 2007.^{[106] (Note - this is exactly what the USA has been doing for years)}
Perhaps the game-changer for IR in the freight segment are the new dedicated freight corridors that are expected to be completed by 2020. When fully implemented, the new corridors, spanning around 3300 km, could support hauling of trains up to 1.5 km in length with 32.5-ton axle-load at speeds of 100 kilometres per hour (62 mph). Also, they will free-up capacity on dense passenger routes and will allow IR to run more trains at higher speeds. Additional corridors are being planned to augment the freight infrastructure in the country.

So, you have a well-established railroad system, but their electrification needs will compete with any private citizen who wants to buy and charge an EV, right?

Let's see how India can meet electric production/transmission/distribution:

Oh, but before we go, let's just establish that India's use of waterways is nearly nil:
India has an extensive network of inland waterways in the form of rivers, canals, backwaters and creeks. The total navigable length is 14,500 kilometres (9,000 mi), out of which about 5,200 km (3,231 mi) of river and 485 km (301 mi) of canals can be used by mechanised crafts.^[150] Freight transport by waterways is highly underutilised in India compared to other large countries. The total cargo moved by inland waterways is just 0.15% of the total inland traffic in India, compared to the corresponding figures of 20% for Germany and 32% for Bangladesh.^[151]
Cargo that is transported in an organised manner is confined to a few waterways in Goa, West Bengal, Assam and Kerala.

Back to "where's the electricity"

There are lots of laughable statistics on installed capacity. Since we both know those numbers are mythical, we'll just skip that with the summation that India is short of electricity, they've been relying on coal, they're trying to switch to "renewables", and we know that intermittent energy is unreliable/insufficient.

Haven't gotten to transmission and distribution yet - but here's a staggering number:

According to the analysis presented in the India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP) released by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, only 8 percent of Indian households own air-conditioning units. The cooling demand across India is projected to rise at a rate of 15-20 percent annually and aggregated cooling demand will grow to around eight times by 2037-38, as compared to the 2017-18 baseline. In India, 45 percent of the country’s peak electricity demand in 2050 is expected to come from space cooling alone.^[60]
About 136 million Indians (11%) use traditional fuels – firewood, agricultural waste and dry animal dung fuel – for cooking and general heating needs.^[61] These traditional fuels are burnt in cook stoves, sometimes known as chulah or chulha.^[62] Traditional fuel is an inefficient source of energy, and its burning releases high levels of smoke, PM10 particulate matter, NO_x, SO_x, PAHs, polyaromatics, formaldehyde, carbon monoxide and other air pollutants, affecting outdoor air quality, haze and smog, chronic health problems, damage to forests, ecosystems and global climate.^[63]^[64]^[65]
^{Again,
an opportunity to stomp that number into people's brains. There are
only 9 countries in the world with more than 130,000,000 people.
Neither Mexico nor Japan are in that list. They're both in the high 120
million range. Can you imagine the market to convert those poor folks
into cooking with clean gas? Fabulous potential!}

Distribution:
The total length of high voltage (HV) transmission lines (220kV and above) would be enough to form a square matrix of area 266 km² (i.e. a square grid 16.3 km on a side, so that on average there is at least one HV line within a distance of 8.15 km) over the entire area of the country. This represents a total of almost 20% more HV transmission lines than that of the United States (322,000 km (200,000 mi) of 230 kV and above). However the Indian grid transmits far less electricity

In a future grid dominated by decentralized power generation like solar and wind power, unscientific expansion of the electrical grid would yield negative results due to braess paradox.[

India's aggregate transmission and commercial (ATC) losses were nearly 21.35% in 2017–18.^[216]^[3]^[217] This compares unfavorably to the total ATC loss in the electricity sector of the United States, which was only 6.6% out of 4,404 billion kWh electricity supplied during the year 2018.^[218] The Indian government set a target of reducing losses to 17.1% by 2017 and to 14.1% by 2022. A high proportion of non-technical losses are caused by illegal tapping of lines, faulty electric meters and fictitious power generation that underestimates actual consumption and also contributes to reduced payment collection.
^{Funding of power infrastructure

India's Ministry of Power administers the Rural Electrification Corporation Limited and the Power Finance Corporation
Limited. These central-government-owned public sector enterprises
provide loans and guarantees for public and private electricity sector
infrastructure projects in India. Excessive plant construction loans at
75% of overestimated costs on overrated plant capacities have led to stranded assets of US$40 to 60 billion.

Budgetary support
After the enactment of Electricity Act 2003 budgetary support to the power sector is negligible.^[240]
Many State Electricity Boards were separated into their component parts
after the act came into force, creating separate entities for
generating, transmitting and distributing power.^[241]

Oh,
this is funny - I could have saved some work - (;>) But, I ferreted
out some stuff they don't mention. Here's a Wiki recap:

Problems with India's power sector
India's electricity sector faces many issues, including:

Inadequate last mile connectivity. The country already
has adequate generation and transmission capacity to meet the full
consumer demand, both temporally and spatially.^[3]
However, due to the lack of last-mile link-up between all electricity
consumers and a reliable power supply (to exceed 99%), many consumers
depend on diesel generators.^[49]
Nearly 80 billion kWh of electricity is generated annually in India by
diesel generator sets that consume nearly 15 million tons of diesel oil.
Over 10 million households use battery storage UPS as back-ups in case of load shedding.^[242] India imports nearly US$2 billion worth of battery storage UPS every year.^[243]
As overhead lines cause distribution problems during rain and wind
storms, there is a plan to lay buried cables from low voltage
substations to supply cheaper emergency power in cities and towns and
thus reduce diesel oil consumption by diesel generator sets and the
installation of UPS systems.^{[citation needed]}
Demand build up measures. Electricity-intensive industries consume the cheaper electricity (average price Rs 2.5 per kWhr) available from the grid instead of running their own coal/gas/oil fired captive power plants.^[244]^[245]
The captive power generation capacity by such plants is nearly 53,000
MW, and they are mainly established in steel, fertilizer, aluminium,
cement, etc. industries.^[246]^[3]
These plants can draw cheaper electricity from the grid on short term
open access (STOA) basis, avoiding their own higher cost of electricity
generation and diverting power from other consumers.^[247]^[248] Some of these idling captive power plants can be used for ancillary services or grid reserve service and earn extra revenue.^[249]^[250]
Unequal electricity distribution. Almost all households have access to electricity.^[1] However, most households find the electricity supply intermittent and unreliable.^[251]
At the same time, many power stations are idling for lack of
electricity demand and the idling generation capacity is sufficient to
supply the needs of households lacking electricity three times over.
Erratic power pricing. In general, industrial and commercial consumers subsidize domestic and agricultural consumers.^[252]^[253]
Government giveaways such as free electricity for farmers, created
partly to curry political favor, have depleted the cash reserves of
state-run electricity-distribution system and led to debts of ₹2.5 trillion (US$31 billion).^[254]
This has financially crippled the distribution network, and its ability
to pay to purchase power in the absence of subsidies from state
governments.^[255] This situation has been worsened by state government departments that do not pay their electricity bills.
Over-rated capacity. Many coal-fired plants are overrated above the actual maximum continuous rating (MCR) capacity.^[256] to allow the plant cost to be inflated.^[257] These plants operate 15 to 10% below their declared capacity on a daily basis and rarely operate at declared capacity, undermining grid stability.
Lack of timely information on load and demand. Intraday
graphs at 15-minute or more frequent intervals are required to
understand the shortcomings of the power grid with respect to grid
frequency, including comprehensive data collected from SCADA for all grid-connected generating stations (≥ 100 KW) and load data from all substations.^[258]
Lack of adequate coal supply: Despite abundant reserves of
coal, power plants are frequently under-supplied. India's monopoly coal
producer, state-controlled Coal India, is constrained by primitive mining techniques and is rife with theft and corruption.^{[citation needed]}
Poor coal transport infrastructure has worsened these problems. Most
of India's coal lies under protected forests or designated tribal lands
and efforts to mine additional deposits have been resisted.
Poor gas pipeline connectivity and infrastructure. India has abundant coal bed methane and natural gas potential. However a giant new offshore natural gas field has delivered far less gas than claimed, causing a shortage of natural gas.
Transmission, distribution and consumer-level losses. Losses
exceed 30%, including the auxiliary power consumption of thermal power
stations and fictitious electricity generation by wind generators, solar
power plants & independent power producers (IPPs), etc.
Resistance to energy efficiency in the residential building sector.
Continuous urbanization and the growth of population result in
increased power consumption in buildings. The belief still predominates
among stakeholders that energy-efficient buildings are more expensive
than conventional buildings, adversely affecting the "greening" of the
building sector.^[259]
Resistance to hydroelectric power projects. Hydroelectric
power projects in India's mountainous north and northeast regions have
been slowed down by ecological, environmental and rehabilitation
controversies, coupled with public interest litigation.
Resistance to nuclear power generation. Political activism since the Fukushima disaster has reduced progress in this sector. The track record of executing nuclear power plants is also very poor in India.^[260]^[202]
Theft of power. The financial loss due to theft of electricity is estimated at $16 billion yearly.
If I'm a housewife whose husband has
now delivered some disposable income, I'm going to want air
conditioning. That's a drain on the electric system. The railroad and
industry seems to have a prior claim on any increased electric power
that can be generated and transmitted. I don't want to take a bicycle, I
want a car. We now have money for a car, but there's not going to be a
reliable way to charge it. Oh, I know, I'll buy a gas or diesel car.
(;>) Drill, baby, drill!

If Oprah gave a million electric cars to India, they couldn't charge them.

Nope, India is a great ICE market, and a great market for canister LPG.

If
you thought that India can't afford ICE, how do you think they can
afford increased electric generation and transmission? That's surely no
less expensive, and you'd have to agree that infrastructure buildout
takes a far longer lead time.

(;>)

TFBN

This
was a lot of fun for me. I was delighted to unearth the
>130,000,000 figure and then compare that to national populations.
Wonder when my Red Cross International Executive will have the pleasure
of learning that?

Ironic that each country comes in second to the USA. Brazil in airports, India in road networks.}