Climate Change, Fossil Fuel dependence -- India is hitting the wall

How An Unholy Alliance of Unusual Weather and Scarce Coal Nuked India’s Power Grid | Smart News: "Indeed, the New York Times points to a dearth in imported coal as one of the possible causes for triggering the massive blackout. Another potential force that is driving energy demand and limiting supply is this year’s monsoon, the annual rainy season that supplies three-quarter’s of the country’s water. Or, rather, that this year’s monsoon never happened. The lack of monsoon rains, says Reuters, has caused energy demand to climb as farmers in northwestern India’s heavily producing  agricultural regions leaned more heavily on irrigation to water their fields. Businessweek adds,

The less-than-normal rainfall has put strains on India’s hydroelectric power supply, which accounts for 19 percent of the country’s 205 gigawatt generation capacity but has dropped nearly 20 percent in the first six months of the financial year because of the delayed monsoon rains."

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India power blackout leaves 670 million without electricity | News | National Post

AP Photo

India power blackout leaves 670 million without electricity | News | National Post: "Roads are gridlocked, coal miners are trapped underground, hospitals have been plunged into darkness and millions of  train travellers are stranded after grids supplying electricity to half of India’s 1.2 billion people collapsed on Tuesday in the second major blackout in as many days.

Stretching from Assam, near China, to the Himalayas and the northwestern deserts of Rajasthan, the outage was the worst to hit India in more than a decade and embarrassed the government, which has failed to build up enough power capacity to meet soaring demand.

“Even before we could figure out the reason for yesterday’s failure, we had more grid failures today,” said R. N. Nayak, chairman of the state-run Power Grid Corporation."

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Grid Collapse in India Leaves 360 Million People Without Power | Peak Oil News and Message Boards

Grid Collapse in India Leaves 360 Million People Without Power  |  Peak Oil News and Message Boards: "India’s worst power-grid failure in a decade cut electricity supplies to almost 360 million people in seven northern states today, shutting transport networks, triggering commuter chaos and halting water supplies."

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Assam in disarray after massive floods, hundreds of thousands homeless

Violence in Assam continues, death toll rises to 36 - Hindustan Times: "Blood on the streets
The latest violence erupted just days after floods killed more than 100 people and left at least 400,000 homeless in Assam."

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Maruti shuts factory after management attacked | Reuters

Maruti shuts factory after management attacked | Reuters: "(Reuters) - Maruti Suzuki, India's largest car manufacturer, stopped production at one of its factories on Wednesday after workers attacked managers at the plant and set fire to company property, the automaker said."

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The Associated Press: Floods swamp thousands of Indian villages, kill 27

The Associated Press: Floods swamp thousands of Indian villages, kill 27: "GAUHATI, India (AP) — Raging floodwaters fed by monsoon rains have inundated more than 2,000 villages in northeast India, sweeping away homes and leaving hundreds of thousands of people marooned Friday. At least 27 people were killed, but the toll was expected to rise."

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Seventy dead, 200,000 stranded in Bangladesh floods - AlertNet

Seventy dead, 200,000 stranded in Bangladesh floods - AlertNet: "DHAKA, June 27 (Reuters) - Days of rain in Bangladesh, some of the heaviest in years, have set off flash floods and landslides, killing at least 70 people and stranding about 200,000, police and officials said on Wednesday.

Low-lying and densely populated Bangladesh is battered by torrential downpours during the wet season, which began in the past few weeks."

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