Power was restored in India on Wednesday after two days of blackouts that had cast a huge shadow over the nation’s economic ambitions.
On Tuesday, the overburdened electrical grid had collapsed across the whole of northern and eastern India, depriving more than half the country, or around 600 million people, of power. It was the largest blackout in global history in terms of the number of people affected ”” about 10 percent of the world population.
“Superpower India, RIP,” said the banner headline in The Economic Times newspaper.
When we left Maharashtra state nearly five years ago it was experiencing rolling blackouts of up to four hours daily in the hot months, and Maharashtra wasn’t even part of the blackouts of the last two days. India’s power system is inadequate and overloaded. Rampant corruption and inefficiency in the government and public sectors mean this is only going to continue.
Someone should ask how far the US is from that same situation. With the upcoming closing of numerous coal plants in the NE, at a minimum we will see a significant increase in brown outs on the East coast…. Not too dissimilar from the rolling brown outs the West coast is experiencing…