Tuesday, May 28, 2013: “India lacks the vision to become an economic superpower” – a sad but possibly true sentiment echoed by N S Venkataraman, secretary of the Chemical Industries Association and Nandini Consultancy centre director. According to Venkataraman, India is totally dependent on imports of technology, while China is working out a strategy to become an economic superpower.
One of the steps taken by China in making this transition is the effective capitalisation on its chemical industries and ensuring energy security to its people. He said that the theories about China’s chemical industries struggling due to overcapacity are all untrue. Rather, he believes, that this is part of China’s strategy to strengthen its energy security and the broader plan to command the global economy.
According to him, the fall in the prices of panels in the Indian market is due to dumping of polycrystalline silicon photovoltiacs by China. And Indian policy makers are happy that the cost of solar energy has come down to around Rs 7. But he warned that this cost is likely to rise up to Rs. 14 in the next few years as the Chinese government has laid down rules specifying for restriction on production of polysilicon.
He also warned that while India is making ambitious plans to tap the potential for generating solar power, we do not produce polycrystalline silicon and are solely dependent on imports, which is to the tune of 4,000 tonnes per annum (polysilicon and wafers) as of now.
He suggested methanol economy as the future economy. Methanol economy is one where methanol replaces fossil fuels as a means of energy storage, ground transportation fuel, and raw material for synthetic hydrocarbons and their products. It works as an alternative to the proposed hydrogen economy or ethanol economy.
Coal is a major raw material for the production of methanol wherein it gets converted to methanol via synthesis gas, a mixture of carbon and hydrogen. China has a 57 per cent global installed capacity of methanol production. It increased it’s methanol production capacity from 11.30 million tonnes per annum in 2009 to 24.3 million tonnes per annum in 2012.
Venkataraman strongly suggested that Indian policy makers should take lessons from China in their focus on using methanol in automobile, which is much cheaper than gasoline. He said while India is still dependent heavily on importing technology, China, on the other hand, is preparing to safeguard its future by investing in Chemical industries as well as research and development. He also stressed on the need to set up chemical parks on barren lands to give boost to the chemical industries sector but cautioned the government on adopting a policy so that agriculture lands are not converted for industrial use as is done in China.
He said that China’s share is expected to double from the current six per cent in $2.2 trillion global chemical to 12 per cent in 2014 when the size of the industry is expected to be $3.5 trillion. India’s share is expected to grow by a meager 1 per cent.
