By Arun Kumar, IANS
Washington : With the India-US civil nuclear deal stalled, a business lobby has suggested that the two countries focus on cooperation in other areas of energy security even as they work to put it back on track.
“The nuclear deal represents a watershed event that would lead India out of its nuclear isolation,” Sanjay Puri, president of the US-India Business Alliance (USIBA), Tuesday told a US House panel on Asia, the Pacific, and the Global Environment.
Puri, who led a team of Indian Americans to India to push the deal, said while they would like to see the deal be put back on track “its continued limbo shines a further spotlight on other areas of collaboration in the field of energy security.”
Both countries depend heavily on fossil fuel imports for their energy needs. India, like the US, imports 70 percent of its crude oil. But unlike the US, it also suffers a major natural gas shortage.
“India’s economic growth story speaks to a huge need for energy, a need that was a major catalyst for the US India Civil Nuclear Agreement in the first place,” Puri said. But they also have several synergies that predict increasing collaboration in the field of renewable energy.
India is attractive as a partner, not merely because of its large market, but because it takes the cause of research, development and indigenous manufacturing seriously, he said citing India’s growing capability in the wind-energy technology sector.
One of the world’s largest manufacturers of wind turbines, Suzlon, is an Indian company. They have set up a manufacturing facility at Pipestone in Minnesota, with a $14m investment and the creation of around 100 jobs.
From the US standpoint, renewable energy co-operation with India does not have to be limited to the transfer of technology and capacity to India, Puri said suggesting a discussion of how Indian companies such as Suzlon can be encouraged by US incentives to continue to look at the US as a manufacturing waypoint.
With projects in India in mind, the government of India itself has in place several incentives for foreign promoters of renewable energy projects, he said.
Both governments should deepen their discussion of how joint research projects, not just those focusing on power generation, can be undertaken and financed, Puri said.
As two of the largest consumers of fossil fuels, both the US and India should consider adoption of a joint path toward a Bio-Fuels Road Map, including transportation fuels for vehicles like trains, he said.
In doing so, they would set the bar high for a future of not just low emission transport, but fossil fuel independence.