Rewiring a Nation of 1.4 Billion: India’s Energy Transition with Dr. Jai Asundi

David, Sara, and Ed chat with Dr. Jai Asundi, Executive Director of the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), an independent Indian think tank. 

Dr. Asundi has been leading CSTEP since 2009, connecting data, modeling, and policy to tackle India's energy and climate challenges. They dive into India's electricity grid, the EV revolution, oil and gas dependency, and where energy meets geopolitics.

About Our Guest

Dr Jai Asundi is the Executive Director at the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP) in Bangalore, India. In the past decade he has been working on variety of problems where science and technology play a dominant role. He is a senior member of the IEEE and holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh where he is currently Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy.

References available on episode page

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Transcript

Dr. Jai Asundi: The opportunity to use clean energy, which is, uh, renewables is, is, is a, is a great opportunity because you can, again, go back to the, the old day of, of, of energy security at a micro level rather than energy security as a country as whole. Now you've got individual regions that can be more secure in their energy depending on the sources and, and solar and wind. Provide that security locally. 

Ed Whittingham: Hi, I'm Ed Whittingham and you're listening to Energy Versus Climate, the show where my co-host, David Keith, Sara Hastings-Simon and I debate today's climate and energy challenges. Back in mid-October, David, Sara and I had a wide ranging conversation around several topics to do with India's energy transition with Dr. Jai Asundi. Jai is uniquely well placed, sees through the complexity as executive director of the Center for Study of Science, technology and Policy, or cstep, an independent Indian think tank. Jai's been at the helm of Cstep since 2009, where he leads efforts to bridge data modeling and policy for India's energy and climate challenges.

Before that, he spent time in academia as an assistant professor in information systems at the University of Texas at Dallas, and held a postdoctoral role. At the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University where he also earned his PhD. In our conversation, we dug deeply into the nature of India's electricity grid, EVs, oil and gas dependency, and where energy and geopolitics converge even better.

David took the lead moderating for this one, as you'll hear right off the top. Now, here's the show, 

David Keith: Jai Asundi. Welcome to Energy versus Climate. 

Dr. Jai Asundi: Thank you, David. Uh, it's a pleasure to see you again and, uh, be with all of you. 

David Keith: Thank you. I'm, I'm really excited. As I came back from India about, uh, three, four weeks ago, and I was just excited by the pace of change, the change the energy business, et cetera.

I haven't actually seen you, I for a while, I think two years ago I saw you in Bangalore one evening. And I'd like to just start by a second of, of referring to our shared heritage. I think I know you through engineering and public policy. This department at Carnegie Mellon that was completely foundational to all my professional career, changed my life really.

And you were a PhD student there? I believe under vum. And in my travels in India, I keep meeting more of the kind of EPP aum diaspora. Uh, it's, they're fantastic. And so maybe say a few words about Arun, who I guess died a few years ago. 

Dr. Jai Asundi: Yes. Dr. Aum was, a physicist, uh, by training and then accidentally jumped into material science. And made his way through the Indian scientific establishments and ended up becoming the scientific advisor, uh, to the defense minister, who also used to be the Prime Minister during his time. And he ended up serving almost seven prime ministers over a period of a decade. And after that decade, he actually came to Carnegie Mellon because he wanted to take a break from, uh, a lot of the b bureaucratic work and get into academia once again.

And he had a PhD from University of Bangor, uh, in England, and he wanted to get back to academia. And one thing that he found out at EPP was this idea that. How societies can actually change with the right use of technologies at the right time, especially for development. And that motivated him to actually return to India and start, uh, the organization that I now head called the Center for Study of Science, technology and Policy.

It's, it's 

David Keith: really been terrific to see that legacy. I remember him at Carnegie Mellon and this transition from him being involved in the defense stuff and India's nuclear weapon development to working. I remember working with Chu, who I'm now contact again at, at ni, on, on biomass, gasification, all these kind of practical things in Indian energy development.

It was really thrilling to see. Well, turning to Indian energy, I think I wanna start by asking you kind of for a snapshot of the current situation, maybe starting with the grid, give us a sense of what is the current mix of, of, of capacity and, and of, of energy supply, uh, for first, first of all, starting for electricity in India.

Dr. Jai Asundi: Just like any large country, uh, source of energy, uh, is fairly distributed. Uh, though of course you have a few major sources. So for example India has always been a source of coal. And hence you have thermal power plants and thermal power plants. As of, you know. Recently, August, 2025, uh, you would say almost about 245 gigawatts of capacity comes from, uh, thermal power plants.

And the next big component quite surprisingly today is from solar power, which is at about 125 gigawatts. So, uh, you know, it, it is, it is sort of a testament that you have coal and then you have solar. And then of course in the middle you do have a lot of hydro. Uh, India has a lot of rivers, so there's about, uh, 50 odd gigawatts of hydro.

And then about wind power is about 52 gigawatts. So, um, it's not kept up with, uh, solar though it actually started off fairly strong, but with the falling prices of solar energy uh, it actually, uh, has and then there are small amounts from you know. Bio power and small hydro, and let's not also forget a very, very small component of, of nuclear, right?

So, uh, that was a big promise that we had post independence with home iaba and his idea of nuclear energy and, and, and being the source of energy for poor Indians. And, uh, that's where it was. So that's the broad, you know, mix that you're seeing across the board. So coal still occupies a massive. 50% odd, uh, level.

And then of course between solar and the rest, there's 25. 25. So that's the split of energy capacity in India. 

David Keith: That's a terrific summary and I, I understand solar's growing very fast. Maybe we'll get to maybe oil and liquid fuels later 'cause we're kind of connections to Canada. But one useful number that Canadians I think will not be familiar with is what's the.

Cost of, of natural gas and like dollars a giga. And, and you know, we're used to cost of just a few dollars a giga Juul, and I think it's gonna be a lot higher there. 

Dr. Jai Asundi: Uh, let me, let me caveat, all the conversation that we are having is, uh, that, you know, uh. As cstep, we, uh, do a lot more work on renewable energy.

So a lot of the work in fossil fuels is sort of stuff that we, uh, rely on others on, on the data sources and, and, you know, it's something that we've put together fairly quickly. And, uh, you know, as far as gas is concerned, uh, one of the numbers that I saw, uh, recently was this thing where the, the ministry, because a lot of the gas fields are under ministries and they're under, uh, government, control. Uh, they have a notification on how much a price of gas will be, and so they've notified it to be somewhere in the order of about, uh, six or $7 per M-M-B-T-U, which comes out to about.

$6 per giga Juul in comparison, I know Canada is at about $1.50 per giga Juul, so you're talking about, uh, multiples in terms of the, uh, cost associated with gas. Uh, so that's the comparison. I, I can say between India and and Canada. 

David Keith: And maybe one last kind of big picture thing, uh, an impression that I got very strongly at this big meeting.

Uh, I, I was at a coachee with a bunch of Indian, um, sort of senior development people. Was this sense that that. That this, that the really rapid growth of solar, especially, but you know, other renewals. But solar dominant is certainly partly about climate, but partly it's really about energy security, the sense that it can really back off, uh, reduce energy imports.

Is that, am I reading that right? 

Dr. Jai Asundi: Absolutely. In fact, um, the opportunity for distributed energy. Is through a lot of renewables and people have been talking about biomass energy all along. India has been using biomass energy for millennia. Uh, and uh, now of course the opportunity to use clean energy, which is, uh, renewables is, is, is a, is a great opportunity because you can, again, go back to the, the old day of, of, of energy security.

At a micro level rather than energy security as a country as whole. Now you've got individual regions that can be more secure in their energy depending on the sources and, and solar and wind provide that. Security locally. Uh, so while we may definitely talk about the climate question, I think the energy security question is a bigger one.

That has always been, uh, on the top of most people's minds. 

David Keith: Uh, let me jump into electric vehicles and, and Sara may come in a minute, but, uh, I was struck that I didn't see very many electric vehicles on my trip. Obviously there's been, as, as probably many Canadian listeners won't know this, amazing conversion to CNG, uh, uptake of CNG and especially these three wheel scooters and other vehicles, but, but relatively few electric vehicles on the cities.

And, and I was traveling with people who work in the Ministry of Transport and were involved with this and. They had a bunch of what I felt were kind of bureaucratic answers about they need some big complicated way to build, uh, recharging stations, and yet, especially for two wheel vehicles, that is Sara has been sending us the data are like, just, it's huge fraction of, of total energy use and, and, and transportation.

You know, two wheel vehicles, even the big ones have like a two kilowatt hour batteries. And those can easily be charged by regular you know, wall plugs. Oh, I don't need to tell you all around Delhi already city, there's all these very poor people sitting on the street selling things, and it seems like it'd be very easy to have them sell a plug connection and meter it without any, you know, just kind of bottom up Indian capitalism.

No complicated, uh, certifications and that would allow you to recharge, um, huge number of, of two wheelers without a lot of, um, new bureaucracy. So I guess I, I mean, am I right that it's slow? And if so, why? 

Dr. Jai Asundi: The initial aspect is the fact that, the cost of electric vehicles is on the high side. Uh, that, that especially if you are looking for capacity, so it's a, it's a combination question, is that if you take a small bike, then you are, you have range issues.

That is, you can't go very far because the batteries are smaller. And as the battery size increasing, you are spending a lot of the cost of the vehicle goes up. That said, um, I think, it is an ecosystem play, right? I mean, today people are used to, uh, taking out their vehicle and they know that any road they take within a certain number of miles, they will find a gas station.

And I think that's a very big part of it. While you know, and this is obviously anecdotal, when I talk to a lot of people who do buy regular vehicles, ask them why and they say, well, we travel to these, these, these places. And so while the penetration or, or the. Uptake of electric vehicles in the big cities is, is quite big and I see a lot in my areas, of course, but these are also I have found it by and large to be the wealthier people buying electric vehicles rather than people who are looking at it from a third total cost of ownership and saying, oh, this is actually cheaper.

And so we can do this. I think there are some of those issues related to, not just range anxiety, but also the issue of our charging station. So let's, let's leave the four-wheelers aside because we need dedicated, but the two-wheeler, as you pointed out, definitely. But at the same time, I think in many of these places many people have a challenge with related to parking, and parking close to a charging place.

So some of those challenges o obviously come up and I think, uh, you know, I, I. I honestly have not seen any research to say why people are or not, not. And you know, it's something that we would definitely want to see you know, the uptake being to greater because it also contributes to better air quality, especially in certain parts of the country where the grid emission factor is fairly low.

David Keith: So I'm struck by the fact that all that you just said is basically exactly the same as a story in Canada or the us. You know, richer people buying them, range anxiety, parking, close to, uh, recharging, all those same issues. Although, of course India is really different because there's far more of these two and, and three wheelers is a fraction of, of transportation.

Maybe what I'd like to do is, is turn it over to, to, uh, Sara first and then Ed uh, get some questions on the table. Then I wanna come back to this question of managing grid intermittency, where I heard some really exciting stuff about, uh, grid reform. 

Sara Hastings-Simon: Great. Thanks David. Yeah, I have a couple areas I wanted to touch on.

Maybe just picking up from, from the one on electric vehicles. So I know that, um, as David said, yeah, I think it is interesting how it's, you know, it's the same kind of challenges that we're seeing worldwide and we of course see progress. Despite those challenges being made, I know that there's some targets in India around the, say, the two and three wheelers to be electric.

Um, I think I, I read something like 80%, the goal is 80% of two and three wheelers purchases, um, should be electric by 2030, which is not dissimilar from the kinds of targets people are talking about, say, here in Canada, where at least for now we have a 20. 35, um, electric vehicle mandate, which is a little up in the air, but, but in principle.

And so I'm curious if you think that that's achievable or what else it's going to take to, to get there, say to that, that kind of target. 

Dr. Jai Asundi: Like I, like I mentioned, I mean, it's an ecosystem play. Uh, one is of course, uh, the more people adopt electric vehicles, the more people will see the general acceptability of the electric vehicle and the fact that it is, it is working and it's fine.

You know, they were of, of course they were, they were concerned at some point in time about, uh, accidents and fires, which actually happen with certain vehicles. So safety is always an issue, but otherwise. I think it's a, it's an ecosystem play. Once people see that there's, uh, availability of charging stations, uh, a ability to charge the vehicles at various places, because again, if you've got limited slots and, and by the time you reach there, they're occupied, then what do you do for one one hour, uh, or that period of time?

And so I think people also are very conscious of how much time, I mean, they're, they, they're getting on a two wheeler because they wanna save time. If they're ending up wasting time, then it, it defeats that purpose. So. People have their own sense of when to transition and they take their time, uh, to do that.

Uh, what will be needed, of course, is this idea of building out better infrastructure, uh, better ways. I think there are some, uh, entities that are coming up with this idea that a. We will do battery swapping. So you buy the vehicle without the battery, and then you, so there are different business models that can actually accelerate.

What you are talking about is this 80% uh, sales of two wheelers being electric. So I'll just give you a climate sense here. Is that a a, a few years ago, CSTEP actually worked with their local distribution company to set up a charging station for electric vehicles, which was. Purely charged by solar panels, and we had, they had solar panels on the roof, and we created a electronic system that basically says that whenever a person comes to charge, it'll draw power from the panels, and when the, there's nobody charging, then the power goes to the grid.

So. So we are also not, you know, doing that slate of hand, which is saying that, oh, uh, power is from the, uh, from, from renewables. No, we, we, we made sure that it, actually, you could say that it came from the panels because the circuits were created in that manner. And, you know, that, that that entire enterprise won awards.

Now, the, the thought for us was that here is a proof of concept. Hopefully people will, uh, duplicate it and, and, and repeat it. And elsewhere, unfortunately we've not seen, uh, much of that and. I'm waiting, you know? 

Sara Hastings-Simon: Yeah. Again, sounds sounds quite similar. I mean, I think also it's interesting that you say that it's, um, that the purchases are going but to the wealthy people first.

Um, 'cause to me that indicates also sort of a desire to, you know, somehow these are, are, um, desirable options to drive an ev , when people have that choice and a and ability. 

Ed Whittingham: This EV conversation is fascinating 'cause I also saw that India has a target to try to get to not just, uh, the targets that, uh, Sara mentioned for two wheeled and three wheeled vehicles for all wheeled vehicles.

It's one third by 2030, and it sounds like, unless I'm missing it. Um, India has as comprehensive a plan for getting there as many rich, industrialized western countries, which is, say, not very comprehensive at all. A great aspirational target. And I say this as an EV owner. That, and, and I've got a nice ionic five, uh, Hyundai that I managed to get secondhand.

So it was within my price range earlier in the year, but just recently went out to two charging stations and both of them failed to charge my vehicle because. Uh, according to Hindu, Canada because of software issue. So even here where we have lots of charging infrastructure, it still has a long way to go, but, sorry, that's a, a preamble to actually then talk about oil and oil imports.

In India, uh, we, we live in an oil and gas producing region of Canada. And we often hear all sorts of wild and wooly predictions from, uh, the oil and grass gas crowd about different countries and supposedly their voracious appetite for Canadian energy projects and, uh, energy products including oil and gas.

And so I do hear about India, and especially now that we're seeing China oil consumption really leveling off. That people talk about India in terms of being the new China in terms of oil consumption and that, uh, its surge is expected any day now. But when I actually look at actual import data, it looks like the growth has been very uneven in recent years, and it doesn't show this big surge in picking up the slack from where China's leaving off.

And I wonder if you have any comment on that. And is it, you know, I'm kind of surmising, is it because India's economy is just less oil dependent, has fewer oil intensive sectors than China's economy? And I'm thinking of construction and chemicals in particular. 

Dr. Jai Asundi: Oil has always been. Expensive in India. And I think the government has also, uh, made sure that they have continued to place tariffs on oil. So in fact, we sometimes feel insulated from any price fall in the international market. That said, I think there is a serious concern from the perspective of energy security. So if you look at the energy mix that comes from.

For electricity that comes from oil and gas. It's very, very, very low. Right? It's absolutely very low and majority is coming from coal, and I don't think that is ever going to be the source of electricity, at least for India, because of the fact that we do not have any natural supplies of oil.

Now in terms of gas, there have been some gas fines, but I think the priority today as far as gas is concerned. Has been to. Provide clean cooking fuel. Uh, I think that's a big, big win for health and other issues. And so the priority has been on actually laying you know, piped natural gas networks in urban areas.

In fact, my apartment here in Bangalore got its. Pipe natural gas supply after the building was constructed. So it was not like it was part of the construction. In fact, I was living here for almost four to five years, and suddenly the gas authority of India, as they're called, which has a sort of monopoly on city gas distribution, they came and they said, okay, we can put it up in your apartment complex.

Who all wants to sign up? And I was surprised that only 50 or 60% of the people signed up. And, you know, the, the traditional way in India to cook food in, in urban areas has, has been through, uh, gas and cylinders, which is, uh, liquified, uh, petroleum gas, which is what we call LPG. Uh, and then of course what comes in, in, in the pipelines is pipe natural gas, slight difference in the type of gas that is pumped in in these places now.

I think the priority is going to be for that. And it's also be going to be for chemicals. So if you look at the, I a's report, I think talks about it and, and they talk about that majority of the gas is going to be used for, again, chemicals and these things. And while they also talk about the growth rate.

Increasing and gonna be higher than the rest of the country. Uh, my sense is that the, the absolute number is not going to exceed what some of these other countries, I mean, like China is consuming. I think China's fairly high already. So I think in some ways, I think the bigger sense. That we get in in India and uh, you know, sometimes we only get to hear it from the same sources that anyone else gets, is that energy security is a serious concern and I think that's going to be driving the energy choices and which is why was India so, uh, keen to go through.

Nuclear energy and go through the fast beater reactor program is because they add abundant supplies of thorium. So that's energy security and, and you know, uh, sovereignty is a very important aspect that I think policy makers are sort of constantly thinking about probably, and that's what drives, uh, the decisions.

Ed Whittingham: And, and, but on nuclear, you said India is very keen and partly because of its thorium reserves, but it's also, as you said earlier, it's a very small share of, it's still its electricity grid, but coming back to, to oil and gas and critical minerals and security. I wonder who, so in your view. Which of those dependencies pose the greatest, like strategic Ricks risk over the next decade?

Like who? Who is, is India most worried about being dependent on and for what? 

Dr. Jai Asundi: I think it's the critical, uh, energy materials and you know that, that the concern is global and I think everyone knows where it's, uh, majority of it is coming from. And I think that is a concern even in India that is the dependency and which is why.

There are certain import restrictions on certain items, and we always, uh, in all our work there has, there is a component which is called the domestic content requirement for some of these things in tenders in, in, in. And so they're trying to make sure that there is more. The word we use here is called indigenization.

I know it's not a word in English, but it's something that we've been using and I've been growing up with. So for me, it's part of the Indian, Indian language now is this idea of always developing something on your own and, and, and, and, and finding it, finding it local, which is why there are these production link schemes that also talk about how much domestic content is there in the sub supply.

David Keith: I wanna turn to, to markets and grids. Uh, and then we'll kind of come back to some of the oil and gas stuff. We've got a very political Canadian question at the end about gas substitution. So let's take it as a given that solar is gonna keep getting cheaper. There's this amazing excitement about building solar in India.

It's happening really fast. There's talk about hundreds and hundreds of gigawatts unless you disagree. Let's assume that. Batteries are definitely making great progress, but batteries are not gonna make the intermittency problem go away anytime soon. So the issue is how to manage the fact that we've got very cheap solar, but it's intermittent and, and you know, there's two parts of that, obviously.

One is building out the actual grid transmission infrastructure so we can move power longer distances. You and the other one, it's all about, demand flexibility, uh, uh, about getting, you know, a lot of, in some states, I guess, lots of energy for water pumping for agriculture and that obviously can pretty easily follow solar load.

Places that building cooling and some industry can fall, solar load. Maybe this is easy for a rich, privileged person to say, but it feels to me like in a place where there's a lot of very poor people, their willingness to just consume less or not have electricity on some days. It's not the the great answer in the long run, but it, it again provides more flexibility.

And, and when I was there at this, uh, uh, Arthur meeting in Kochi, I heard some really exciting stuff that India might, uh, start a, a really, really new. Process for allowing essentially entity, entity on the grid to buy and sell. And I kind of wanna hear more about that and maybe just mention beforehand, I guess a precursor to that or a, an analog is, it, is, is.

Some listeners may have heard India had this extraordinary change in financial system where, where they had a, the government didn't impose it, the government built a standard that all sorts of different payment processors can come to that suddenly made India have in many ways a slicker, easier banking system than Canada or the us, uh, in an integrated way where everybody has access.

And my understanding is that they, it is to do the kind of same thing where, but, but I'd like you to take over and tell me what your understanding is of this plan and how seriously you take it. 

Dr. Jai Asundi: Yeah. So, um, so, so there is this, uh, I mean, and it's actually very, very recent, this notion of the digital energy grid.

And the idea is that the way digital systems. Created this, uh, I would say leapfrogging innovation in banking and finance. The thought is that that is something that we could do in energy, because energy is the lifeblood of any country society, and also source for, for, for development. Let's start with something, uh, important.

That is in 2013, India actually integrated its entire grid. That means. There's a one common grid for the entire country. So any energy sold in Kadu can be bought in some other state, in another part of the country, and you can figure out how to make energy flows happen. So it's not like they're all disconnected pieces.

Prior to that, you had situations where the wind developers used to have to shut down their plants because they could not sell power to the grid, and now it's possible to transfer it. So this brings the aspect of. Very robust grid. More important. Now, you talk about intermittency, but you also need to understand that sometimes you can also take advantage of the different geographies, uh, places that there's abundant solar may not need the energy.

They can actually ship it to parts that need the energy. So there is that ability to do those things is or does fall on the grid. You have grid at different levels, you get down to the lowest level. The question then becomes is essentially the example that I pointed out was that can you have a person who's got, say a solar panel and wants to sell that energy to a person who's got an electric vehicle?

Can we do that? How do we do that? And I think that conversation is being had, uh, internally. There's something called the unified energy interface. Which is again, the question of that protocol being talked about is can you have a protocol that all providers and all recipients will use that protocol to exchange information about energy products and also exchange information about transactions, which is you now.

Use the financial network to, can finish the transaction. Right. So you've, you've transacted on this on the energy side, and then you use this to transaction on the, on, on, on the money side Now. These are all right now a little early, and we feel that this is something that we are still, uh, working through.

Uh, there are issues related to safety. They're related to regulation. There are issues related to all of that that we will need to, uh, figure out and, and, and make. Make it happen, because I think there's immense potential in being able to do that because you might be able to suddenly provide a, a means of livelihood to a whole slew of people now who will say, okay, I could do this as part of my, uh, work.

And so that's the, I would say the broad aspect of, uh, this. Digital and energy coming together, right, uh, where you could, uh, see that happening and, and actually making a profound change in the ecosystem. I hope that answered your question and if there's something that I missed, please let me know.

David Keith: No, it answered it well. I mean the big picture answer I think is that you take this idea seriously and that means a lot to me because I was a newcomer when I went to this meeting. There was this talk on, on basically smart grids that wasn't quite the word, and my eyes kind of rolled. 'cause frankly, there's a lot of over hype.

And I thought, oh, I know about this. This won't be that impressive. And I was totally wrong. It was a really interesting talk and I think this sense that. That India can make these big changes in a way that, that I think is very hard to imagine in Canada, the US where bureaucracy are just more stuck. And I think that if India really did that in this environment with, with a rapid growth of solar, it could really unleash the ability to do do demand management in a cost-effective way, in a way that could be just really exciting and, and world-leading.

And I, I came away really excited about it. 

Dr. Jai Asundi: You know, uh, you know, this is where I tell some, I, I tell many of my colleagues is that some of these things are incredibly hard to imagine for most of us, despite being deeply steeped in technology. Uh, for a good example, I, I mean, the entire, I don't know whether you saw people transacting using the unified payment interface, the UPI code, and it's a QR code where you can, people pay people small amounts of money.

Of course, in the US you call it Venmo. Uh, but that means that the person, of course, has to have a bank account. It's here too, but here it's, it's become so seamless. That you have illiterate people also. I mean, not that we have too many of them, but you, you, you can have an illiterate person be part of this transaction without having to know how to read or write.

They just know how to use a, a smartphone. Of course, 10 years ago I did not have a smartphone, so I, and, and I'm. Probably part of the one or the five percentile of the country. And I didn't have a smartphone. So to imagine every vendor, street, vendor, middle class person, uh, or a person below middle class having a smartphone, unimaginable, right?

And here we are 10 years later and we are almost take it for granted. So, which is why I sometimes feel that I'm not the best person to crystal gaze because we are too skeptical given. The challenges that we have seen in the technology development, but then there is a whole host of people that figure out how to make it really smooth and really easy and actually make it happen.

So, yes, of course you do. You do need that government push, not that, uh, a policy push that that is needed, like. We talked about the UPI. So the, so what the government also did was that they built the platform. That was the difference. It was not just that they said, here's the protocol. They also said, we will build the platform that you guys can leverage or sit on.

And actually today there are a lot of discussions going on is that the government is spending a lot of money on that platform. How should they monetize it? Because our transactions today, when I transfer you a dollar or a hundred dollars, a thousand dollars, I pay nothing. So now the, but there's a cost associated with who's paying for that, and I think that's a conversation that's being had.

And maybe that's the public good that. Maybe the government needs to pay for it, but then of course the question becomes is that there are people who use it more than others. And I think, I don't want to get into an economics argument right now, so, 

David Keith: so I'll, I'll pass this to Sara. I'll pass it to Sara in, in one sec, actually.

And we wanna get this question to sort of about, uh, the, the. P poll has questions about natural gas. I'll, I'll pass that to Sara. But first, just a little anecdote that's not about energy, but picks up on the stuff you said about the, the payment infrastructure and illiterate people using it. So at this meeting I was at in coaching, there was a very senior woman, I apologize for giving her name, a banker, and she was very concerned and her bank was working on the fact that fraud through AI has become frighteningly easy.

And as she said. People in villages had a way to deal with each other and do transactions, and now suddenly, uh, they're in a world where there are digital fakes and frauds that uh, they can't imagine that are pouring in. And because this system works so well, a farmer can transfer most of their life savings very quickly from their phone.

And, and it's a, I guess, a serious problem. But I think that the, the, that's a, that's an anecdote. The big. Point here is that the Indian government established a standard and then a standard energized private industry and transactions in its amazing way and it could happen for electricity. Over to you Sara.

Sara Hastings-Simon: Yeah. And before I, before I get to this other question, I just wanted to pick up on something, David, you were saying in response, which was, um, this idea that, you know, things can happen in a way we can't imagine here because of bureaucracy. And I think that here being in Canada, and I think that is. It's a good catchall word for a lot of different things that are going on underneath that.

Right. But it's sort of just this idea that when we try to apply the, you know, things that we know from the Canadian system to this other country for the way that systems might develop, we often, you know, inadvertently miss big things. And if I, if I go deeper into what that, you know, how I would describe that bureaucratic challenge, I think there is, there's.

Straight up bureaucracy and, you know, there are rules that, that make these things harder. But there's also just the customs that come about from, you know, in Canada we have been managing an electricity grid that has delivered pretty reliable power to people for, you know, going on a. Probably a hundred years now, even in, in, into rural Alberta, for example.

And so that creates its own inertia. You know, and again, rightly so in some ways, right? You, you don't want to be wildly changing the electricity grid in, in, in kind of, uh, health or skelter way. Um, but I think that sometimes we miss how much, as you were saying, how much that makes it harder to adopt new technologies and new approaches that are, you know.

On paper, just straight up better because of the people that are there. Right? And it's not even that they aren't say, allowed to because of bureaucracy, but. They're just not used to, or they're, they're not incentivized to doing things in this new way. And so, you know, really I'm just mostly agreeing with, with what you're saying, but, but I think it is an important point when, you know, sitting and, and that I think will lead into my, my next question, which is, you know, in Canada it is very tempting to kind of.

Look at the historical way that our energy systems evolved and kind of say, well, you know, that it kind of, it's not totally wrong, that in China that sort of happened for a while early on. And then to project that forward and say, well, that's gonna happen everywhere else. Then when we are sitting at a time where we have these new technologies that are sort of, it is a, it is a different world than when, you know, China was, was dramatically ramping up its energy demand.

Maybe that leads into my, my next question. Well, which is, you know, what does this mean for the global, um, demand and in particular for India's demand for Canadians, uh, natural gas, because, you know, similar to what Ed was saying earlier, when it comes to, um, gasoline and, and oil, uh, products, you know, there's, there's sort of this big push that like, well.

The biggest thing, let's see if I can, if I can channel my peer poly, but I think it goes something like the, you know, the best thing that Canada could do for climate is massively expand our LNG, our natural gas production and our LNG exports and, uh, displace coal in India with natural gas. Again, very much, you know, going off of what has happened here in Alberta, we have gone very quickly from having a lot of coal in our grid to not, and some of that's.

Been displaced by renewables, but a lot has been displaced by natural gas. I was interested in that question and so with some colleagues actually, we looked sort of at a very, um, pipeline based version of that, which was to say, where are the pipelines in India? And we found that, you know, the majority over 70% or something of, of, uh, coal plants in India.

Are more than 15 kilometers from a natural gas pipeline. So essentially, you know, you would have to build out a lot of infrastructure. But I know you also talked about, you know, the energy security angle and, and all these things. So, you know, what do you, I guess, what do you take when you hear that?

Is that a promising, uh, road either from a climate perspective or from an economic perspective for Canada? Or is that kind of missing the, the story. 

Dr. Jai Asundi: So it's, it's, it's interesting that you, uh, you know, I think you, you did allude to, you know, the, the background and the fact that, and I, I also mentioned this earlier, that energy security plays a major role.

I think India has not had natural gas in its energy supply. For a long period of time. It's only recent that we are starting to see, uh, a lot more natural gas in our, because there've also been some amount of fines. So the infrastructure for natural gas and, and you mentioned that, is that that has been playing out now in the estimates of how much.

Natural resource is available into the future. And I think there is obviously history also that is, I remember when renewables started making its way into the grid, there were a lot of people that said, no coal, coal, coal is the right way to do it. We've always done this. We should not move. And so there's a history to that.

And now of course now people have already moved over and you know, the fact that renewables, solar and wind form 25%, it's. You already seeing a big move. And now the, the. The government has also committed that 50% of our capacity by 2030 will come from renewables. Now what that number will be, we don't know.

Uh, because, you know, there are estimates of it being 500, it being four 50, it doesn't really matter. It's gonna be 50% of the total. And that's the estimate. And from that, I think one of the things that we will see is if, and then this is of course, based on what we are seeing from the projections from the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.

Is that there is going to be growth, there's no doubt about gas, both from the pipe natural gas or the LNG. The question is, what is it gonna be used for? I don't think it's gonna be used for the power sector. It'll continue to be used in transport. In fact, there is this whole notion of using LNG for trucks and trucking and trucks use a huge amount of diesel fuel, which contributes to huge amount of.

Air quality problems in India now that could actually, uh, make it different. Of course, there's also a conversation around electric trucks, which is another thing altogether. These are aspects that, uh, will play a role. I, and you know, if you and I, I mean, I can, we can share, you can take a look at some of the projections that, uh, the ministry has already said and they're saying that, oh, uh, natural gas will.

Grow considerably. Of course, commercial sectors will grow at a particular rate, and of course, industry will grow at a particular rate. And so. By and large, there is a sentiment that gas consumption is definitely on the rise. It is going to grow. Uh, where it's going to come from is, is the real question.

And I think that's where the infrastructure on LNG terminals and all that other starts playing out. And then there'll be the question of how will it be shipped across the country? Which brings back to your original question of, do we have the pipelines to be able to do that? 

David Keith: So, so just to sharpen up, so this, this gentleman, Pierre Poilievre a a potential next prime minister in Canada, leader conservative.

He would say we should export gas as an environmental measure because that will actually drive down global emissions. And I think what I'm hearing from you is if there was much more Canadian gas exports and so prices for LNG fell at the margin, India would be importing more gas at the margin economics works.

But I think what I'm hearing from you is that. Would be very unlikely substitute for coal that would be used in petrochemicals or that would substitute for oil. So in fact it would tend to then drive down oil prices at the margin. Is that a fair summary? 

Dr. Jai Asundi: I, I would say you've, you've captured it at least in my mind.

And, uh, logically I will say yes. In fact, that is exactly, uh, what it, what it could be that oil prices will end up falling and Yeah. Right. 

Ed Whittingham: From another Canadian perspective, you know, uh, uh, those of us around us and Canadians are concerned about, uh, oil and gas exports. And who's buying? I know there's another export, uh, that Canada sends to India.

And that's whitewater rafting guides. And I say that because my son has worked in whitewater rafting and he has friends who've gone and they've, they've worked on the, the Rishi Ksh and the bra pur and some of those great rivers. But I'm interested in the, the Brahmaputra, which of course originates in China and it flows through India and Bangladesh and getting back to energy India.

I mean, it's, I, it, you know, you've got China that is damning upstream and by doing so, it affects in US hydro, its irrigation, its seasonal flows. And one hears about that in the news from time to time. What is the latest when it comes to India, China regulations when it comes to these major transboundary rivers that India really depends on, not just for energy, but also for other parts of the economy.

Yeah. 

Dr. Jai Asundi: Well, ed, you know, you have to ask me one question that's above my pay grade too, right? So this, this is that one. Um, my sense is that, you know, uh, these are issues that will constantly be happening in the. Indo Gangetic plane, be it India, China, be it Indo Pakistan, be it Indo Bhutan, uh, as you know, uh, you know, we export power to Bhutan and help them with their energy needs.

Small country, but, you know, you're helping them. So, and, and you know, I, I have seen the Brahmaputra once. One thing that hit me was how large that river was. And I, I, I can't imagine damning that, uh, river up. Um, obviously it's upstream and they're damming up a different part, but it's, it's a massive river and, and it is the, as they say, the lifeline of that entire region it covers and it goes all the way into Bangladesh where it meets with the Ganges.

I feel that there are obviously, uh, concerns, especially given those areas are also prone to earthquakes, uh, because the, the plate shifting between the Indian plate and the shin plate, uh, meeting and then, and, and, and shifting. So I think there are concerns around safety. When you dam up whatever, you have a lot of concerns there and I, I'm sure the, you know, the respective ministries on either side are talking about it.

I don't know whether we will see any resolution in the public domain, but again, like I said, there has to be one question that's above my pay grade, and this is. 

Ed Whittingham: Well, well, you seen the Brahmaputra once is once more than I've seen it. I would love to see it in the Ganji and the Rishi Kesh and the Bra Pui.

Uh uh. But yes, I, I gather they are massive and I hear the scuttlebutt again from these rafting guides who come back and say, is these are the most spectacular and wild rivers. 

Dr. Jai Asundi: Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, when I saw it from far, I was like, wow, I, you know, you're, you're just in awe because on a map it looks some like something, but then when you go there and see it, and then you get the magnitude of how, uh, big that river is and, and, and, and it's powerful.

And by the way, you know, you should look into, there is this, uh, particular, tour that you can do for 10 days where they will take you to a place and then you just. On a boat, get down the river. Why? And you keep stopping at various stops eating local foods and stuff like that, and continue so.

David Keith: Well, maybe we'll end it there. Thank you so much and just, uh, uh, I'll, I'll promote Indian tourism too. The pace of change is just amazing and, and the, the sense of energy, both physical energy and, and political energy for change is, is really exciting. So thank you so much for, uh, talking to us a bit, Jai.

Yeah. 

Dr. Jai Asundi: Thank you Sara. Thanks, Ed. Thanks David. It was wonderful talking to you and, uh, look forward to meeting you guys soon. 

Ed Whittingham: Thanks for listening to Energy Versus Climate. The show is created by David Keith, Sara Hastings-Simon and me, Ed Whittingham, and produced by Amit Tandon. Our title and show music is The Windup by Brian Lips.

This season of Energy Versus Climate is produced with support from the North Family Foundation. The Consecon Foundation, and you are generous. Listeners, sign up for updates and exclusive webinar access at energyvsclimate.com and review and rate us on your favorite podcast platform. If you enjoyed this episode, check out our show from season six, episode 13, call Energy Transition in Africa, and his climate dilemma with Dr. Rose Mutiso, research director at the Energy for Growth Hub.