Saving water while producing power.

SA Aiyer strongly advised against any more nuclear power plants for electricity generation in India. Although he supported the George Bush-Manmohan Singh deal in 2005 he now thinks that nuclear power is too expensive and, after the Fukushima disaster, too risky. Westinghouse is bankrupt and Areva's 3G technology is a failure. Electricity generated from coal costs Rs 4 per unit while that from the recently commissioned Kudankulum 3 and 4 nuclear power plants costs Rs 6.30 per unit. Westinghouse will cost Rs 9, while Areva will cost Rs 12 per unit, definitely useless, considering that solar power was recently offered at Rs 2.44 in Rajasthan. The government has set a target of 100 GW of solar power capacity by 2022 so companies are bidding aggressively for massive contracts. Such low rates would would make thermal power uncompetitive and those plants may default on their loans, thus increasing bad loans in banks. Between 2010 and 2015, utilities in Europe wrote off assets worth 120 billion Euros. Ghosh and Prasad fear that the bids are too low and those who win contracts will suffer from 'winner's curse'. One expert has calculated that the cost of solar power was Rs 9 per kWh in 2016 while a group of experts predicted that it will fall to Rs 4.45 per kWh by 2030. India is heavily dependent on China, which dumps thin solar films at unjustified low prices, which has killed the domestic industry in India. Thin solar films need rare earth metals on which China has a virtual monopoly. Dust in the atmosphere will reduce solar output by 17-25%. Thermal power plants will become increasingly unviable due to competition from renewable energy and the pressure to reduce harmful emissions, wrote Vishwamohanan and Aggarwal. Solar power is not all it is made out to be, wrote Rosenkranz and Puri. A plant in Gujarat is operating at only 18.2% of its total capacity. "For obvious reasons -- night, monsoons, dust, storms, -- solar power is neither produced all day nor throughout the year. Thus, the total maximum capacity of a solar power plant is never met to its fullest." Since output will never match installed capacity our reliance on fossil fuels will continue. Prof Muddu of Indian Institute of Science has studied loss of water through 'evatranspiration'. India has 17% of world population and just 4% of water resources. 443 million schooldays are lost each year through water related diseases. Some places, such as the Western Ghats, lose 50% of rainwater through evatranspiration. Since land is so expensive, would solar panels covering rivers and lakes save water while producing electricity? Companies could be paid for water saved.