National Geographic - August 2022

“We have missing stones there and missing CRYPTIC CIRCLES ATLANTIC
stones here,” he says. “But what we’ve got now OCEAN
is good evidence that the people who were Stonehenge, the most complex and
building the circle at Waun Mawn stopped in famous stone circle in the British Isles, is Stan
the middle of making it. They dig a hole for the just one of about 1,300 of these prehistoric
next stone and then don’t fill it. What happened? monuments. Several late Neolithic mega- Outer Hebrid e s Lewis
Where did they go? Where are the stones?” sites, including many giant earthwork and
timber circles, provide clues that their Callanish
Archaeological evidence—or the lack of it— builders traveled long distances to take The Min
suggests that few people were living at Waun part in these communal projects.
Mawn after 3000 B.C., a date that dovetails Pobull Fhinn
nicely with the idea of a migration from Wales. Cringraval
“But an absence of evidence isn’t evidence
of absence,” says Parker Pearson, who hopes kye
to return to the Preseli Hills to study ancient Inner Hebrides . Chann
pollens that could reveal whether the grazing STONE AGE SITE, MODERN WORLD South Vatersay Sea S
lands reverted to wilderness around that time. If of the
so, the finding would add weight to his theory A controversial plan to build a two-mile tunnel
that the area was abandoned about the time for improving traffic near Stonehenge has been Hebrides
Stonehenge was built. temporarily halted by a court order.
Mull
And if Stonehenge’s curiously shaped stone
62 can’t be conclusively linked with the stone To Avebury and BRITISH
circle in the Preseli Hills, research by geologists Associated Monuments I S L E S Cultoon
Bevins and Ixer has pinpointed the outcrop from
which it came, a little to the east of Waun Mawn. Larkhill Durrington Islay Mach
“It’s an outcrop that no archaeologist has looked NM
at yet,” Bevins says. “As geologists, we can’t tell Durrington Walls
the human side of the story, but we can certainly
give them a fresh place to pick up the trail.” Till Woodhenge Londonderry

I T’S ABOUT A FOUR-HOUR drive ASTONEHENGE 303 A303 NORTHERN
from Waun Mawn to Stonehenge, the
last few miles of which are along the A303 Stonehenge von UNIT
A303. This narrow, potholed, notori- and Associated
ously traffic-choked highway passes so close to A Amesbury Donegal Bay IRELAND B
Stonehenge the famous monument is almost a Ba
roadside attraction. Monuments
If the intention of the original builders of
Stonehenge was to create a landmark that would Carrowmore Ballynoe
capture the imagination of generations to come,
they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. 1 mi Newgrange
The global icon is one of Britain’s biggest tourist 1 km
draws, attracting more than a million visitors a IRELAND
year before the COVID-19 epidemic. Virtually LATE NEOLITHIC-ERA MONUMENTS Galway Bay
all of them get here on the A303, which is also a Dublin
major truck artery and the road taken by millions (map key)
of vacationers to popular seaside resort towns. Shannon
In recent decades the A303 has been upgraded Limerick
. GeorgeLough Gur
52 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
Stone circles are Henge enclosures Killarney St
thought to be civic often surround timber Cork
gathering sites, or stone structures.
worship centers, A henge is a banked,
or burial sites. circular ditch.

Celtic Sea P
o

Monumental mounds Palisaded enclosures There are two main stone types
of earth can be found are fences made of at Stonehenge: two-to-four-ton
not far from promi- timbers driven into bluestones from 175 miles away in
nent enclosures. the ground. Wales and 20-to-40-ton sarsens
(sandstone) sourced nearby.

THROUGH THE AGES Henges
Stone circles
Early earthworks were often tombs. By the
late Neolithic, grander projects were taken LATE NEOLITHIC
on by a mobile society that raised livestock. 3000
Stonehenge construction stages
Stone, flint, and bone tools

MESOLITHIC NEOLITHIC

4000 B.C. 3500

Farming introduced to Britain around 4000 B.C.

Shetland Hjaltadans
Islands Loch of Strom

nch BRITISH HOW MEGALITHS
ISLES
OPE ANCIENT BRITONS ARMED ITH STONE, ROPE, AND TIMBER
Ring of Brodgar Orkney EUR
nding Stones of Stenness Islands

s Aultan Broubster AFRICA

Carriblair Moray Firth MYRIAD RINGS Work was both dangerous Hammers of sarsen
and plentiful; entire families could weigh from
A popular monument type had roles in the construction. two to 65 pounds.
for thousands of years, stone
HIGHLANDS circles range from just a few
stones to complex arrange-
Loch Ness ments of over a hundred.

SCOTLAND

Leadketty Cambrian Mountains F orteviot Stone circle prevalence

Temple Balbirnie Firth of Forth none many A
Wood Edinburgh Yadlee Lintel

n Glasgow Borrowston Rigg 50 mi
50 km

hrie Blackshouse Meldon The Stonehenge and
oor Burn Bridge Avebury units form the
Stonehenge, Avebury
e s Channelnel nrargoiutgGhldeuniql uMicokteen Newcastle and Associated Sites
Du World Heritage site.

DTED KINGDOM

Belfast Castlerigg THE Marne
Barracks
allynahatty Burn Moor rkeld
York
SwinsideGunne PENNINES North
Isle of Man Sea

Irish Sea Manchester GLAND
Arbor Low N
Druids' E Trent Wash
Circle

Anglesey The

WALES Birmingham
Avebury and
Cardigan Associated
Monuments
Bay Hindwell
Avebury
Waun West Kennet
Mawn Silbury Hill

Preseli Severn LONDON
Hills

Possible route Cardiff Marlborough Mound
Marden Henge and Hatfield Barrow
of bluestones ENLARGED AT LEFT
Bristol Channel Stanton
Drew

Knowlton Henges and Great Barrow Avon

Greyhound Yard

Mount Isle of n e l
Pleasant Wight
hC h a n
ngli
E s

FRANCE BUILDING THE CIRCLES

Palisaded enclosures A wealth of sarsen Moving great weights Sculpting the stones
Monumental mounds
Land 20 miles from Stonehenge Sledges were likely pulled across Every stone had to be turned to
Metal tools was littered with huge sarsens timber tracks to reduce friction shape each side. The inner-facing
COPPER of fine, hard sandstone. and support weights up to 45 tons. side was always the smoothest.
2500
BRONZE 1500 B.C.
2000

Main stone circle erected

Woodhenge

FIVE GIANTS These may have
been houses for key
These colossal monument sites of southern families—or spirits.
Britain transformed over time with dynamic bursts
of collective and creative activity. Construction At the end of the settle- Ditch B Bank
was especially active during a Neolithic building ment’s use, its perimeter
boom that peaked around 2500 B.C. was encircled by a pali-
sade of wooden posts
(A), then later by a large
henge (B), possibly in
an effort to memorialize
the site’s history.

Timber monuments were
often found in larger enclo-
sures and may have been
shrines or temples.

Avenue A DIAMETER
1,600 ft
AREA SHOWN
River BELOW
Avon
Great Britain
UNITED Silbury Hill Avebury
KINGDOM
Stonehenge Durrington
IRELAND Walls
Mount
BRITISH Pleasant
ISLES

STONEHENGE Winter solstice DURRINGTON ALLS
sunset
The circle is precisely arranged to frame Britain’s biggest henge—two miles from
the sun during the solstices. With at least ARE APPROXIMATELY TO SCALE. Stonehenge and thought to be home
64 cremations, it has more burials than any to its builders for about 10 years—is the
other late Neolithic cemetery in Britain. Football field largest known Neolithic settlement.
360 ft
3000 B.C. 1520 B.C. 2500 B.C. 2300 B.C.
N
160+ 2500 B.C. Years of construction and use Heel Stone 1,000 IN THE NEOLITHIC SETTLEMENT
DIAMETER 40 tons Some 4,000 people came from
STONES ERECTED AT STONEHENGE 360 ft
Carpentry techniques to interlock Summer solstice HOUSES near and far to work, trade, and
the stones led to unprecedented sunrise feast during farming off-seasons.
strength and durability.

Excavated bone fragments

Tongue and Bluestone Sarsen Human Durrington
groove Average weight: Average weight: Stonehenge Walls

two tons 20 tons Animal 80,000
50,000

Full 16 x 16 ft
stone:
29 ft

31 tons

One smaller sarsen doesn’t match the Possible Bluestones were regularly Chalk plaster Central Bed
others. Some experts speculate that altar rearranged; their exact posi- over timber hearth
the circle was damaged or incomplete. tion in 2500 B.C. is unknown.

An earthen mound may
have provided a vantage
point into the henge.

Stone circle Stone circle Timber and
29 stones 27 stones stone monument

Great Obelisk The outer ring—originally Palisaded
21 ft tall of about a hundred stones— enclosure
is the world’s largest
prehistoric stone circle. Gate Gate

Posts were later burned,
possibly as part of an
attack—or a ritual.

DIAMETER DIAMETER
1,475 ft 1,280 ft

Entrance 100 ft tall Ditches

AV E B U RY SILBURY HILL MOUNT PLEASANT

For about six centuries, Avebury was Built over several generations, Europe’s The monument was dominated by a
altered as its use likely shifted with time. largest artificial mound holds no known timber fence just inside its henge. Closely
Two avenues of stones linked it with human remains. Its purpose may have spaced posts suggest that access—physical
other nearby ceremonial sites. been the communal act of building. and visual—was carefully controlled.

2850 B.C. 2250 B.C. 2460 B.C. 2285 B.C. 2580 B.C. 2440 B.C.

36 CUBIC FEET OF CHALK REMOVED Earliest Bank 7.5 HOURS OF LABOR TO BUILD 1,600 MADE UP THE PALISADE
mound
MILLION Gleaming white when freshly dug, MILLION What began as a modest pile of TIMBERS Postholes are all that’s now left of
ditches and banks cut into chalk-rich Ditch gravel grew upward and outward— rotted timbers, perhaps carved,
ground made for a striking visual. quarry fed by an encircling ditch. charred, or used to support lintels.

Modern Timber DIAMETER Approximately 25 ft
ground level retaining wall 525 ft

Entrance Retaining walls of
chalk and sarsen boul-
ders held soil in place. 17 tons

Bank

Deer antlers, common digging Ditch The stones were variable FERNANDO G. BAPTISTA, 5 ft
tools, were used as picks to 30 ft in size and unshaped, MATTHEW W. CHWASTYK,
break off chunks of chalk. deep unlike at Stonehenge. AND EVE CONANT, NGM SOURCES: MIKE PARKER PEARSON, UCL INSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGY; SUSAN GREANEY,
STAFF; LAWSON PARKER ENGLISH HERITAGE; MIKE PITTS, BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGY; JIM LEARY, UNIVERSITY OF YORK;
BARNEY HARRIS, UCL INSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGY; ORDNANCE SURVEYS OF GREAT BRITAIN,
N. IRELAND, AND IRELAND; CANMORE SCOTTISH HERITAGE; HISTORIC ENGLAND; UNESCO

MARKED THE LAND Stanton Drew

BANDED TOGETHER TO BUILD UNPRECEDENTED BEHEMOTHS. A sprawling ceremonial
complex in its day,
Mortise COMPLEX LOGISTICS Stanton Drew boasted
Tenon timber circles, two
The monument required meticulous planning avenues of standing
to achieve equal heights and allow space for stones leading to the
workers and timber supports. Its carved and nearby River Chew,
interlocking stones make it unique among and one of the largest
Neolithic monuments. stone rings in Britain,
some 370 feet in
diameter. Today 26
stones remain, and
ground-penetrating
radar has revealed nine
rings of timber posts.

REUBEN WU; IMAGE MADE WITH
18 LAYERED EXPOSURES

Great Sarsen
trilithon circle
12
34
Order of
construction

5 Bluestones

Levers rock the lintel side Workers may have
to side; inserted wedges needed up to 1,000
and timbers slowly raise it hammers to shape
to the top of the stones. the largest stones.

B

SHOWN ABOVE

Lifting the megaliths A Matching the heights B Final touches

Levers, wedges, timber posts, and Once upright, stones were Hollows are carved into the lintel
ropes helped move stones down leveled and tenons carved, to match the tenons; then the
ramps into upright positions. shaving off up to a ton of stone. lintel is slowly raised into place.



‘EVERYBODY
AGREES THAT
SOMETHING
NEEDS TO BE
DONE ABOUT
THE A303.
THE QUESTION
IS, WHAT?’

V I N C E GA F F N E Y,

ARCHAEOLOGIST

Stanton Drew

Druid Adrian Rooke Raising a sword for
(above) communes peace, not war, a
with a standing stone Druid priestess (right)
at Stanton Drew. An blesses the attendees
18th-century Anglican during a summer
priest promoted the solstice celebration at
idea that Britain’s Stanton Drew, where
megaliths were tem- the congregation
ples built by ancient includes a herd of cows.
Druids, a notion now Modern versions of the
long disproved. But religion focus on rev-
modern-day Druids erence for the natural
feel a special connec- world and veneration
tion to the stone circles, of ancestors—including
where they gather the builders of Britain’s
for rituals marking the ancient monuments.
cycle of the seasons.
ALICE ZOO (BOTH)

62 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

to a four-lane highway for much of its length, but A controversial proposal to build a two-mile-
not the few miles either side of Stonehenge. Con- long, four-lane tunnel to bypass the Stonehenge
stant traffic jams mean that it can take locals an site drew fire from archaeologists and sparked
hour to drive from one nearby village to another, protests by a coalition of environmentalists and
while endless rumbling trucks detract from the Druids. Last year Britain’s High Court found in
experience of visiting Stonehenge. favor of the protesters and put the $2.2 billion
project on hold.
“Everybody agrees that something needs to
be done about the A303,” says Vince Gaffney, Ironically, the surprise discovery of a milewide
professor of landscape archaeology at the Uni- ring of enormous pits around the nearby henge
versity of Bradford. “The question is, what?” at Durrington Walls, dug by Neolithic excavators
about 4,400 years ago near the peak of the build-
Stonehenge is the centerpiece of a 20-square- ing boom, played a role in thwarting the 21st-
mile UNESCO World Heritage site, which in century tunnel diggers. The pits were detected
turn abuts areas of environmentally sensitive in 2015 by a high-tech remote sensing survey of
land, a military base and proving ground, and 3,000 acres of the Stonehenge landscape that
many small communities, so there are few revealed dozens of unexpected monuments.
uncontested options for rerouting the highway.

“We noticed these strange anomalies at the In the case of Stonehenge, transporting
time but were too busy with everything else to dozens of huge sarsen blocks weighing on aver-
follow it up,” says Gaffney, who co-led the survey. age 20 tons each for 15 miles and then erecting
“Later, when we went back, we saw we had these them on-site would have required great wooden
huge pits forming a giant arc around the henge. sledges, an enormous amount of scaffolding,
It was on a scale nobody had ever seen before.” and possibly miles of wooden tracks over which
the heavily burdened sledges could be dragged.
It was so huge and unexpected that when the (Contrary to popular myth, the one method they
team announced their find in 2020, their claims didn’t use was rollers. “Rollers just don’t work,”
were met with widespread skepticism, and the says Pitts, citing evidence from many experi-
house-size pits were dismissed as naturally ments. “They jam up constantly.”)
occurring sinkholes. Additional research, how-
ever, proved the ring of pits had indeed been dug Whatever the means of transport, movement
by people toward the end of the great Neolithic of the massive stones across the landscape likely
building boom, adding yet another layer of mys- attracted crowds of festive onlookers. “It would
tery to the era. have been like watching the space shuttle go by,”
Pitts says.
The tunnel proposal has divided archaeolo-
gists, with some seeing it as a workable compro- A S IMPRESSIVE as Stonehenge is,
mise for solving the traffic bottleneck. “Sooner you need to drive another 20 miles
or later, something is going to have to be done,” to the north to the mega-henge at
says archaeologist Mike Pitts, editor of British Avebury to grasp the sheer scale and
Archaeology. “The fear is they’ll just take the diversity of the building boom. While Stonehenge
easy way and widen the existing highway to has global name recognition and those famous
four lanes, and that is something nobody wants.” sarsen trilithons, Avebury, as the 17th-century
antiquarian John Aubrey put it, “does as much
As for the creators of Stonehenge, the Durring- exceed in greatness the so-renowned Stoneheng
ton pits, and countless other monuments, one [sic], as a Cathedral doeth a parish church.”
can’t help but think they would have loved the The Avebury henge is almost a mile in circum-
tunnel idea, given the havoc they wreaked on ference, so large that nearly its entire namesake
village—including a pub, thatched cottages, and
MOVEMENT OF THE pastures dotted with sheep—fits comfortably in
MASSIVE STONES its embrace. The stone circle within it, at more
LIKELY ATTRACTED than a thousand feet in diameter, is the largest
CROWDS OF FESTIVE in the world. Two more circles lie inside that,
ONLOOKERS. and a grand avenue of standing stones leads
‘IT WOULD HAVE BEEN away from it, stretching a mile and a half across
LIKE WATCHING THE the countryside to an outlying stone and timber
SPACE SHUTTLE GO BY,’ circle. And for good measure, the eerie mass of
SAYS ARCHAEOLOGIST Silbury Hill, composed of 500,000 tons of soil
MIKE PITTS. and the largest human-made mound in prehis-
toric Europe, is only a 20-minute walk away.
their surroundings by their building binge. Hidden beneath this sleepy patch of bot-
Britain’s ancient forests bore the brunt of it, not tomland along the River Kennet, just a mile
only in the thousands of huge oak trees felled or so downstream from Avebury, lies what
to build those enormous palisades but also in Josh Pollard, a professor of archaeology at the
the thousands more needed to erect Stonehenge University of Southampton, refers to as the
and other megaliths. “People don’t realize the “sleeping giants” of the Avebury landscape: a
vast amount of timber that would have been
required,” Pitts says.

64 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

Stonehenge Stonehenge’s uprights woodworking—wears Stone 60 appears to
bear witness to the a patina of moss melt over a concrete
long march of time and and lichen. Victorian filling installed in 1959
visitors. Clockwise from tourists chipped off to stabilize the upright.
top left: A trilithon— pieces of the stones as Faint traces of a dagger
held together by a souvenirs and carved and axe-head likely
mortise-and-tenon their initials, as did date to the Bronze Age.
joint borrowed from one H Bridger in 1866.
ALICE ZOO (ALL)



Stonehenge

Sunset brings peace
but not quiet to
Stonehenge, which is
bordered by a busy
highway. “One thing
that was jarring,
even at night, was
the constant noise
of nearby traffic,”
says photographer
Reuben Wu. “I found
myself imagining
how the place would
have felt thousands
of years ago.”

REUBEN WU; IMAGE MADE WITH
13 LAYERED EXPOSURES

Stonehenge Stonehenge visitor not allowed near the Stonehenge attracts up a connection with the many rises
Hanna Lingard greets stones. But solstice to 1.6 million visitors a Earth by removing the story o
the sun as a chilly dawn and equinox are open- year, yet many connect their shoes and walking says Nicho
breaks on the morning house occasions, and with the structure in barefoot on a warm, with Engli
of the autumn equinox. celebrants relish the personal ways. For Lon- late summer evening. the charita
To protect the fabled opportunity to venture doner Gary Forrester “People like to see sites zation tha
monument from dam- inside the stone circle. and his baby daughter, that have endured over the monum
age, most visitors are Vivienne, it was forging time and come through
ALICE ZOO ALICE ZOO

series of wooden palisades that were built from monument building a reaction to the changes
the trunks of more than 4,000 ancient oaks. they knew were coming? Did they sense this
During excavations last summer, Pollard and was the end of the era? Or could it have been
his team discovered yet another timber enclo- the monument building itself that caused a col-
sure, some 300 feet in diameter, and within it the lapse in the society or its belief system that left a
footings of an enormous rectangular great house vacuum that others came to fill? Was there some
more than a hundred feet long, with walls made kind of a rebellion against an authority that was
of gigantic timbers towering as much as 40 feet ordering all this unsustainable construction?”
above the ground. “This would have been a truly
astonishing sight,” Pollard says. A more chilling possibility is that a pandemic
may have played a role. Scientists have found
Yet for all Avebury’s grandeur, and that of the plague bacillus in a Neolithic tomb in Sweden,
other monuments nearby, it’s the River Kennet, and earlier this year it was identified in a Bronze
flowing through the sleepy Wiltshire countryside Age grave in Somerset. The ancient variety
a few hundred yards away, that Pollard believes doesn’t appear to be as virulent as the one that
to be the key to understanding the minds of the swept Europe in the 14th century, but there’s
Neolithic people who built all these things. no telling what its effects might have been on
Britain’s Neolithic people.
“I think the river was more important to them
than the monuments they built along it,” he says. “It could be that unbeknownst to them, the
“You can see it in the creation of Silbury at its diaspora who were on the move at the dawn of
source, and in the river’s relationship to the pali- the Bronze Age were spreading an epidemic,
sades. It has a connecting role with the monu- wiping out populations and opening up new
ments here just as the River Avon does with the areas for people to move into,” says the Univer-
monuments in the Stonehenge landscape.” sity of York’s Jim Leary.

By the dawn of the 25th century B.C., the peo- One way or another, within a century of
ple of Britain surely must have been aware of Stonehenge’s completion, waves of genetically
the momentous technological changes unfold- distinct settlers once again were coming over
ing on the Continent with the development of from the Continent. History was repeating itself
metalworking. In fact, they already may have a hundred generations later, except this time
been using copper tools acquired by trade. the newcomers’ ancestry stretched back thou-
sands of years to the Eurasian steppes instead
“It’s hard to imagine something like the Ave- of to Anatolia. The so-called Beaker people
bury palisades being made without copper brought new beliefs, new ideas, their distinctive
tools,” says Pollard, adding that any such tools beaker-shaped pottery, and metallurgical skills
would almost certainly have been reused and that would define the coming age.
recycled many times over during the centuries
that followed, making it unlikely that any will be The Neolithic farmers who built Stonehenge
unearthed at Neolithic building sites. and scores of other monuments faded into his-
tory, their DNA all but vanishing from Britain’s
W HAT SPARKED the extraordi- gene pool. The landscape around Stonehenge
nary building boom, and how would continue to be an important burial site,
but the era of mega-monuments was over.
and why it came to an end, remain
“Monument building is usually a kind of peak
unsolved mysteries. But archae- of a civilization,” Leary says. “But I don’t think
this was the peak of a civilization. I think it was
s and falls in ologists note an intriguing connection in time the mad, manic, final throw of the dice of a
of humanity,” society that knows its time is up.” j
ola Tasker with the rise of the Bronze Age, which arrived in
sh Heritage, Living on the south coast of England, longtime
able organi- Britain by way of another mass migration from contributor Roff Smith is writing a book
t oversees about cycling. Photographer Reuben Wu is a
ment. the Continent. multidisciplinary artist who uses technology
to conceptualize time and space in storytelling.
“The dates are awfully close,” says English Alice Zoo is a documentary photographer
whose work explores ideas of ritual and
Heritage’s Susan Greaney. “Was this splurge in meaning. Fernando G. Baptista is a senior artist
for National Geographic.

B R I TA I N ’ S S T O N E A G E B U I L D I N G B O O M 71



Stonehenge

On the evening before
the autumn equinox, a
crowd of Druids, pagans,
and pilgrims gathers
to chant and celebrate
the change of seasons.
Says Druid Arthur Pen-
dragon, “Stonehenge
is at once a great solar
clock, a pagan temple,
a sacred burial site, and a
place of Druid reverence
and ceremony.”

ALICE ZOO

A tri-spine horseshoe
crab kicks up sediment
along the muddy bot-
tom of the Pangatalan
Island Marine Protected
Area in the Philippines.
After a decade of resto-
ration work to the islet’s
bay, its green waters are
rich with plankton and
ready to welcome back
bigger animals.

UNDER THE

BIG TOP

HORSESHOE CRABS HAVE LIVED
ON THE OCEAN FLOOR FOR 450 MILLION YEARS.

NO THEY PLAY A KEY ROLE IN MEDICINE—
B U T I T C O M E S AT A C O ST.

BY
AMY MCKEEVER
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
LAURENT BALLESTA

75

A horseshoe crab hides
an ecosystem within
its shell. The hairlike
objects along its body
are hydroids—tiny, fuzzy
invertebrates related to
jellyfish—and there are
at least eight shrimps
clinging to the crab’s
pincers. Horseshoe crabs
are relatively unstudied;
little is known about
how they interact with
other species.



H H O R S E S H O E C R A B S A R E B U I LT T O L A S T. With
spiky tails, shells shaped like combat helmets,
and sharp pincers at the end of eight of their
10 legs, these ancient invertebrates have been
scuttling along the ocean floor relatively
unchanged for some 450 million years.

They managed to survive the asteroid that

killed the dinosaurs. Surviving humans may

prove more difficult. Like many marine animals, horseshoe crabs are

overfished for food and bait, and coastal development has destroyed

spawning sites. But they also are collected en masse for their blue blood,

which contains a rare clotting agent critical for the development of safe

vaccines. The blood may be lifesaving for humans, but its harvest often

kills the animals—particularly in much of Asia, where they are drained

of all their blood rather than just a portion of it.

Tri-spine horseshoe crabs have lost more than half their population in

the past 60 years. But on the Philippine islet of Pangatalan, the species is

an unexpected symbol of resilience. For years the island’s 11 acres were

degraded: trees cut down for timber, mangroves burned for charcoal, and

coral reefs overfished with dynamite and cyanide. By 2011 these horseshoe

crabs, about 15 inches long, were among the biggest creatures left.

Now a marine protected area, Pangatalan is starting to thrive again. Efforts A tanklike horseshoe
crab pushes itself
to restore its reefs and plant thousands of trees have led many animals to across Pangatalan’s
reef, which has bene-
return, including rare giant groupers that grow to some eight feet long. fited from the planting
of mangroves and
Horseshoe crabs may not be as charismatic as elephants or pandas, but creation of artificial
reefs. Members of the
perhaps they’ll inspire people to care more about wildlife. Appreciation class Merostomata—
which means “legs
for horseshoe crabs has grown thanks to their role in COVID-19 vaccine attached to the
mouth”—horseshoe
development. Conservationists hope that regard will translate to stronger crabs are more closely
related to spiders
habitat protections and wider adoption of a synthetic alternative to crab and scorpions than
to crustaceans.
blood—saving horseshoe crabs just as they’ve helped save us. j

Amy McKeever is a senior staff writer. Laurent Ballesta, named ildlife
Photographer of the Year in 2021, is also a marine biologist.

CANADA IA Ranges of
S horseshoe crabs
A
ATLANTIC OCEAN American
China Sea JAPAN Limulus
polyphemus
NORTH AMERICA BANGL. C H I N A
Tri-spine
UNITED STATES INDIA VIETNAM Tachypleus
tridentatus
Gulf of MYN. TAIWAN
Mexico Mangrove
MEXICO PA C I F I C Carcinoscorpius
rotundicauda
1,000 mi Bay THAI. PHILIPPINES
1,000 km of Indo-Pacific
CAMB. Pangatalan I. Tachypleus
SOREN WALLJASPER, NGM STAFF Bengal S. OCEAN gigas
SOURCES: STINE VESTBO AND OTHERS,
FRONTIERS IN MARINE SCIENCE, MAY BRUNEI
2018; DAVID SMITH AND OTHERS,
REVIEWS IN FISH BIOLOGY AND M A L AY S I A
FISHERIES, MARCH 2017; JOHN AKBAR
AND MARK BOTTON, IUCN SSC SINGAPORE
HORSESHOE CRAB SPECIALIST GROUP
INDO NESIA

IN D
IAN
OCEAN

AUS.

78



This isn’t an alien
landscape—it’s an
extreme close-up
of the topside of
a horseshoe crab’s
abdomen. The gills
are on the underside,
and the dashes and
indentations mark
where they attach to
the exoskeleton. The
dark points beneath
are minute spines
that may function as
whiskers do on a cat.





Golden trevallies swim
above a horseshoe
crab, hoping to catch
leftovers as it digs in
the mud for clams and
other prey. As bigger
fish slowly return to
the reef, horseshoe
crabs may no longer
rule the ecosystem. But
they remain symbols
of its resilience.

83

INDIA’S ENERGY
CHALLENGE

BY YUDHIJIT BHATTACHARJEE P H OTO G R A P H S BY ARKO DATTO

C A N T H E N AT I O N M E E T T H E DEMANDS

OF A BOOMING MIDDLE CLASS

H I L E CURBING C A R B O N E M I S S I O N S ?
T H E P L A N E T ’ S FUTURE

MIGHT DEPEND ON THE ANS ER.

85



Pedestrians, motor- PREVIOUS PHOTO
cycles, and taxis crowd
a street in Mumbai, An illuminated
India’s financial center. Mumbai sprawls
About 21 million peo- toward the horizon in
ple live in the city and this view from India’s
the surrounding urban tallest residential
area. India is poised to building, a 76-story
overtake China as the luxury tower. The
most populous nation. vibrant city reflects
That growth poses a the ambitions of the
challenge as India tries growing middle class,
to reduce its green- which is placing more
house gas emissions. demands on the coun-
try’s electrical grid.



Turning sunlight into
electricity is key to
India’s alternative
energy future. Utilities
are offered incentives
to build plants at large
solar parks. This one
in Bhadla, Rajasthan,
in northwest India, is
one of the world’s larg-
est. At 22 square miles,
it’s nearly the size of
Manhattan and can
power a million homes.

SAUMYA KHANDELWAL

O Chetan Singh Solanki,
O N A WA R M A N D H U M I D M O R N I N G in the central a solar energy profes-
Indian state of Madhya Pradesh last September, sor, spreads his message
Chetan Singh Solanki stepped off a bus he’d been that solar power can
living in for the past 10 months and walked into make the country
a high school auditorium in the small town of energy independent.
Raisen, where 200 students, teachers, and offi- He was inspired by
cials had gathered to hear him speak. Mohandas Gandhi’s
famous 1930 march,
A solar energy professor at the Indian Insti- which moved tens of
tute of Technology (IIT) in Mumbai, Solanki is a thousands to protest
slender man in his mid-40s with a boyish and demand freedom
appearance and a quick smile that are assets from Great Britain.
for the mission he’s on. In late 2020 he took
a leave to make an 11-year road trip around
India to inspire action to fight climate change.
Solanki’s vehicle is a mobile demonstration of
the utility of renewable energy: Solar panels
generate enough electricity to run the lights,
fans, computers, stove, and television on board.

90 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

After being garlanded and welcomed on the feeling distressed because some fans have been
stage, Solanki made an unusual request. turned off? Thinking, Oh God, how am I going
to make it?” The audience laughed.
“I see 15 ceiling fans in this room. It’s the mid-
dle of the day, there’s so much sunlight outside, The point Solanki was making is one of two
yet we have so many lights on in here,” he said. that he hopes will persuade Indians to achieve
“Do we really need all of these fans and lights? what he calls Energy Swaraj, or energy self-
Let’s turn some of them off and see if we’ll be reliance. One idea is to save energy directly by
OK with it.” reducing usage and indirectly by consuming less
stuff. The other is to generate electricity locally
A couple of students got up to do what he from renewable resources such as the sun, so
asked. “Leave some of them on, though!” Solanki every town becomes self-sufficient. During the
joked when one student got carried away. next decade, India’s greenhouse gas emissions
are projected to increase steeply as the economy
With half the lights and fans switched off, the expands and the population grows to 1.5 billion,
auditorium felt warmer and darker. But, Solanki surpassing China’s population.
asked, did it really matter all that much? “We can
see one another just fine, which means there’s “Humankind’s lust for never ending economic
sufficient light in this room,” he said. “Is anyone

I N D I A’ S E N E R G Y C H A L L E N G E 91

A tunnel below Gujarat
International Finance
Tec-City near Ahmed-
abad in western India
holds utilities that
help make it an envi-
ronmentally friendly
“smart city.” These
include centralized
cooling, efficient water
use, and wastewater
recycling. GIFT City’s
high-rises are being
built to green stan-
dards, a third of its
land will remain open
space, and its streets
will be lit with LEDs.



growth is rapidly changing the planet’s climate,” many out of poverty. But it also will mean a tsu-
he warned. “Our arrogance makes us think we nami of new consumers who will want spacious
can keep increasing consumption without con- homes and air conditioners and appliances and
sequence. But the world has finite resources. cars, significantly increasing the country’s car-
Unless we change our ways, future generations bon footprint.
will have to endure great suffering.”
On August 15, India will celebrate 75 years of
Solanki grew up in a small village and was the independence. The country has made monu-
first in his family to get a college degree. At IIT, mental progress during that period: achieving
he founded a center for solar cell technology. self-sufficiency in food production, creating
Aiming to kick-start a grassroots solar revolu- a space program that launched an orbiter to
tion, he started a nonprofit called the Energy Mars, supplying vaccines to about a hundred
Swaraj Foundation, which trains rural women countries, and transforming into a technological
to assemble and sell solar lamps and rooftop powerhouse and the sixth largest economy in
panels. Three years ago he started thinking the world.
about how Mohandas Gandhi—whom Solanki
idolizes—might have responded to the climate Now, as an emerging world power, India is
crisis. That’s how he came up with the road trip: stepping up to tackle climate change. With the
He’s hoping to spark a mass movement, just as creation of 45 solar parks; a plan to have 40 per-
Gandhi did when he led a historic 25-day, 241- cent of buses, 30 percent of private cars, and 80
mile march during India’s freedom struggle percent of two- and three-wheelers go electric by
against British rule. 2030; and a mission to become a global leader in
the production of hydrogen as an alternative to
Solanki’s exhortation to live simply may seem fossil fuels, the country is making strides toward
surprising in a country with such low per capita greening its future—and the world’s.
consumption. On average, Indians use goods
and services worth about a thousand dollars a Even so, India faces more daunting challenges
year—one-fortieth of what Americans do. Yet than any other country. The rapid expansion of
Solanki’s approach could be critical to India’s its middle class will drive up energy consump-
efforts to reduce its contribution to global tion during the next two decades more than any-
warming. At the country’s current rate of eco- where else. To meet the demand, India likely will
nomic growth, the middle class is expected to remain heavily dependent on coal—an abun-
double by 2030, to 800 million. This will be a dant resource—for many years while continuing
welcome milestone for India because it will lift to increase its petroleum imports. The stakes
couldn’t be higher. The planet’s future hinges,

TOP EMITTERS Annual carbon emissions 2020 Rank:

Greenhouse gas emissions by country, top six emitters 1. China
have climbed as countries, many
without strong carbon-curbing 10.7 billion
regulations, have grown wealth-
ier. China and India have low per metric tons
capita emissions compared with
such high-consuming nations as 10 of CO2
the United States. But they’re
home to a combined one-third of billion metric tons of CO2 tons of CO2
the world’s population, elevating per capita
both into the list of top polluters. Annual CO2 1 Change from 1990 to 2020 (circle size)
emissions 10 China and
Global population share, 2020 per capita, rising
metric tons

India

5 4. India An urbanization boom has 2.5
caused China’s emissions billion
1990 2.4 billion to surge. As the populations
of both developing coun-
2.5 1.8 tries moved out of poverty,
billion 2.1 fossil fuel use increased.

China All other nations 0.6 billion 17.1
18.5% 0.7 $20,000
India Four other top
17.7% emitters, 13.5% 0/$0 $10,000

Gross domestic product per capita*

TAYLOR MAGGIACOMO, NGM STAFF
SOURCES: HANNAH RITCHIE, OUR WORLD IN DATA; THE WORLD BANK

in many ways, on how India navigates the path that climate change needed to be tackled by
ahead, balancing its pursuit of strong economic industrialized nations, such as the U.S., because
growth with the need to curb emissions. they had been pumping carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere long before India had much of a
I NDIA IS THE FOURTH BIGGEST carbon footprint. The disparity in the share of
responsibility for the problem is hard to miss. All
emitter of greenhouse gases, one needs to do is compare lifestyles in the West,
behind China, the United States, where personal car ownership, air-conditioned
homes, and other energy-intensive comforts are
and the European Union. Prime the norm, with the way that most Indians live,
even today—in a state of extreme austerity.
Minister Narendra Modi has
As the changing climate sparked increasing
pledged to reach net-zero emis- alarm in the mid-2000s, India became more
willing to search for solutions. “There was a
sions by 2070—20 years past the growing feeling that we need to go beyond
ascribing blame,” says R.R. Rashmi, a former
deadline set by the U.S. and 10 years later than bureaucrat who represented India in climate
negotiations for many years and is now a fellow
China’s. India also has promised to reduce its at the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in
New Delhi. “It’s a global problem; everybody
emissions intensity—the volume of emissions must share the burden.”

per unit of gross domestic product—before the India has plenty of reasons to be worried. The
country’s 4,670-mile coastline is under threat
end of the decade, to 45 percent lower than it was from sea-level rise, especially the low-lying east-
ern coast, which could be calamitous for tens of
in 2005. The country’s total emissions, however, millions of people. This spring, after the hottest
March on record, an extended heat wave sent
are predicted to keep rising until about 2045. temperatures soaring above 100 degrees across
much of the country, withering crops in the
The long horizon to get to net zero and the field. Droughts also are becoming more severe.
Cyclones are lashing the coasts with increasing
insistence on using emissions intensity, rather fury, flooding urban areas.

than emissions, to track progress disappointed

some environmental activists, but Indian offi-

cials say the country is doing more than its fair

share within the constraints of a developing

nation. Until about 15 years ago, India’s stance,

still common among developing countries, was

Russia’s Soviet legacy Europe’s efforts pay off The U.S. keeps emissions in check

Emissions fell when the Soviet The European Union, through Regulations, as well as a shift from
Union collapsed in 1991 and a mix of policies and low-carbon coal toward cleaner energy sources
Russian industries declined. fuel sources, saw a 24 percent such as natural gas, helped emissions
Country and per capita emis- drop in emissions even as its drop 20 percent after they rose in
sions are still below 1990 levels. economy grew by 60 percent. the 1990s and early 2000s.

5.1 billion 2. United States

20.3 4.7 billion

3.9 bil. 3. EU Japan evens out 14.2
The 2011 Fukushima nuclear $60,000
9.2 5.8 2.6 billion disaster led to a spike in fossil
fuel use. Emissions remain
5. Russia† 6. Japan‡ high but have returned to
1990 levels and stabilized.
1.6 billion 1.2 bil. 1.1 billion
10.8 9.3 8.7 $50,000
$40,000
$30,000

*GDP DATA IS BASED ON PURCHASING POWER PARITY †1990 DATA IS FOR THE RUSSIAN REPUBLIC OF THE U.S.S.R.
IN CONSTANT 2017 INTERNATIONAL DOLLARS. ‡2019 DATA

Coal power plants in
the southeastern city
of Chennai are blamed
for polluting Ennore
Creek and its fishing
communities with fly
ash, the residue cre-
ated when pulverized
coal is burned. India
has pledged to reach
net-zero emissions
by 2070 but plans to
continue using coal,
an abundant resource,
for decades.



Primary energy source ASIA
by state or territory, 2018

Coal Srinagar Leh
Oil JAMMU AND LADAKH
Traditional biomass
KASHMIR

Total energy consumption, 2018 INDIA

(all sources)

INDIAN

800 HIMACHAL OCEAN
terawatt- PRADESH
50 200 400 PUNJAB
hours Shimla
Ludhiana

Chandigarh Hazardous burning

Dehra Dun Widespread use of traditional

Population density UTTARAKHAND biomass fuels, such as firewood

and farm waste, is a national

Low High esert HARYANA health crisis. Some 660 million
Indians are exposed to harmful
DELHI indoor pollution from cooking.
New Delhi

Bhadla i a n D Bikaner UTTAR PRADESH SIKKIM*
d Agra G A N G E Gangtok
In
Jaisalmer Jaipur Lucknow
t
I
Grea S PLAIN
Ea
RAJASTHAN Gwalior N D IBIHAR
s
t Prayagraj Patna
e
rKota Varanasi
n
Gujarat Rewa JHARKHAND

Dhanbad

Gandhinagar Gujarat International Raisen Jabalpur Ranchi WEST
Jamshedpur BENGAL
GUJARAT Finance Tec-City Bhopal CHHATTISGARH
Ahmedabad Indore Kolkata
Raipur
Rajkot Dholera Smart City MADHYA
N
Dholera PRADESH

Surat

Nagpur ODISHA

MAHARASHTRA Bhubaneshwar

Nasik DECCA

Thane Palava s
Smart t
Mumbai City a
h
OTHER UNION Pune PLATEAU
TERRITORIES n

INDIA’S CENTRALLY rSholapur G Vishakhapatnam
ADMINISTERED AREAS ARE
STATISTICALLY COMBINED, e Hyderabad Amaravati
EXCEPT DELHI AND t
JAMMU AND KASHMIR. s TELANGANA
e
PanajiW Kurnool Coal drives emissions
India imports coal even though
GOA ANDHRA it has the world’s fifth largest
PRADESH reserves. Coal fuels 72 percent
KARNATAKA of India’s electricity; coal-fired
power plants are the country’s
Pavagada Kadapa biggest source of emissions.

Ananthapuramu More oil to fuel more cars
Demand for oil doubled over
The rise of solar power Bengaluru Chennai the past two decades, driven by
In country rankings, India is Mangaluru a fivefold increase in personal
now the world’s fourth larg- sMysuru Ariyalur vehicle ownership since 2000.
est generator of energy from t At 75 percent, India is second
the sun. By 2030, solar is a TAMIL only to China in net oil imports.
expected to have outpaced NADU
all other renewables here. h
Coimbatore
Large solar park G

100 mi KERALA Madurai
100 km
Thiruvananthapuram Adani
Kamuthi

RILEY D. CHAMPINE AND DIANA MARQUES, NGM STAFF; KIM MIHALIK. SOURCES: PETER ZENIEWSKI, INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY;
JIGAR SHAH, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY; OUR WORLD IN DATA; WORLDPOP; INSTITUTE FOR ENERGY ECONOMICS AND FINANCIAL ANALYSIS

INDIA How the nation will supply energy to its quickly grow-
POWERS ing and urbanizing population has profound implications
for the effort to slow climate change. India is projected
UP to account for a quarter of the growth in global energy
demand by 2040. A pivot from Earth-heating fossil fuels
toward renewable energy, such as solar and wind, would
make India a leader in sustainability.

Energy demand by source, India Emissions by source, global, 2017

ARUNACHAL 18,000 NUCLEAR 3 Metric tons of greenhouse
PRADESH* RENEWABLES† gases per gigawatt-hour
terawatt- of electricity produced
hours
43
TRADITIONAL
BIOMASS 230

Itanagar 1% NATURAL
3% GAS
ASSAM* OIL

Dispur NAGALAND* 9,000 20% COAL 490 Fossil fuels emit
Kohima 720 much more
AShillong 6% CO2 than other
26% sources for
MEGHALAYA* Imphal NORTHEAST the same unit
of electricity
MANIPUR* STATES generated.

TRIPURA* *THESE EIGHT 44%
NORTHEASTERN
Agartala Aizawl STATES ARE
MIZORAM* STATISTICALLY
COMBINED.

2000 2019 2040 820

MANY STATES, Energy consumption varies widely among India’s 28 states and
GROWING NEEDS eight territories, generally reflecting income level and industrial
activity. Yet electricity use is skyrocketing nationwide. Since 2000
around 900 million people have connected to the power grid,
which is primarily supplied by coal-fired plants.

Per capita energy consumption, megawatt-hours, 2018

Rich and urban states Selected states Electricity Renew- Traditional Fossil Oil Natural gas Coal
and territories demand ables biomass fuels
City dwellers, increasing
in number, consume more DELHI
energy for personal use— KARNATAKA
especially electricity for TAMIL NADU
appliances and gasoline MAHARASHTRA
refined from oil for cars.

1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 3 4.5

Industrial states GUJARAT
CHHATTISGARH
The main producers of
iron, steel, and cement ODISHA
are the top energy users JHARKHAND
per capita. Coal is the
main resource powering 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 3 4.5 6 7.5
India’s building boom.

Poor and rural states WEST BENGAL
MADHYA PRADESH
Burning of traditional
biomass, including ani- UTTAR PRADESH
mal waste, is common BIHAR
in these states, where
many can’t afford
cleaner cooking fuels.

1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5

†INCLUDES WIND, SOLAR, HYDROELECTRIC, AND GEOTHERMAL ENERGY, AS WELL AS MODERN BIOMASS
(AGRICULTURAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND ANIMAL WASTE CONVERTED INTO TRANSPORTATION FUEL OR ELECTRICITY GENERATION)

“A deep depression may take the form of RIGHT
a cyclonic storm, a cyclonic storm may become a
severe cyclonic storm, and a severe one may turn Rakesh Kumar (stand-
into a very severe cyclonic storm,” says Suruchi ing) and his father,
Bhadwal, a researcher at TERI. “So the nature of Selvadurai, fishermen
the events is changing.” from the southern state
of Tamil Nadu, ply the
India’s vulnerability to climate change is a waters of Pichavaram,
prime motivation for the country’s policymakers the world’s second larg-
to act, but concern over India’s energy security— est mangrove forest.
the country will spend a hundred billion dollars The trees store a mod-
this year on oil imports—is another driver. est amount of carbon
in the soil, but climate
“India is really starting well,” says Niklas change is bringing less
Höhne, a researcher at the NewClimate Institute rainfall, variable salinity,
in Germany, citing, in particular, the expansion and higher tempera-
of renewable energy and the development of tures, which could
transportation systems that don’t rely on fos- decrease the forest’s
sil fuels. But he points out that not all of India’s carbon capacity.
steps are in the right direction. The country
relies on 285 coal-fired plants—and plans to BELOW
build 48 more by the end of the decade.
A municipal worker
T O TRY TO UNDERSTAND waters a newly planted
tree in Dholera Smart
India’s dependence on City, a development
coal, I visited Jharia in the in Gujarat near the
Gulf of Khambhat.
coal-rich eastern state of A planned solar park
there is raising con-
Jharkhand. Standing on cerns about how it
might affect marshes
the edge of a 30-foot-deep used by migrating
birds. Rising seas and
pit the size of a few foot- flooding are already
eroding the coastline.
ball fields, I watched workers load explosives into
mining at the Indian Institute of Technology in
holes drilled in a far corner. Somebody handed nearby Dhanbad with years of experience in the
industry. A soft-spoken man who had helped
me a hard hat, and a supervisor ordered the organize my visit, Bhattacharjee is a member of a
government panel studying the future of coal in
charges detonated. The sound echoed across India. According to the panel’s projections, the
country’s demand for coal is expected to reach
the coal mine. Rocks flew high in the air. A dust about 1.4 billion tons by 2035.

cloud billowed over the site of the explosion. “We cannot afford to not increase our pro-
duction,” Bhattacharjee told me. “Once we get
This quarry is new. Miners will blast out sev- to 1.4 billion tons, we may plateau for five to
10 years and then start declining. But that’ll be
eral more feet of earth to get to the coal seam. by 2050 or so.”

India is opening more mines like this one to A giant dump truck trundled past us, loaded
with rocks and soil. Rubble from mines has left
meet its growing needs. The choice to continue the landscape dotted with hillocks. Bhattachar-
jee described a conversation he’d had days
burning coal, instead of switching to cleaner earlier with a senior official from Coal India, the
world’s largest coal producer, who’d told him:
fuels, is driven by a simple fact: India has enor- “I’m getting so many calls from either the coal
secretary or the coal minister or power plants—
mous coal reserves, nearly a tenth of the world’s everybody’s asking for coal, coal, and coal.”

total. And yet its production capacity of about

850 million tons a year isn’t enough. The country

imports about 200 million tons annually.

After the blast, I walked over to a corrugated

metal shed where workers congregate and talked

with Ram Madhab Bhattacharjee, a professor of

100 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

I N D I A’ S E N E R G Y C H A L L E N G E 101

Phasing out coal also is challenging because better access to coal than do the newer ones,
nearly four million Indians rely on it for their which utilize it more efficiently.
livelihoods. Besides mine workers, thousands of
people make a living by scavenging for lumps at “When you shut down some of these older
mines and lugging sacks of stolen coal on bicy- plants, your overall coal demand will come
cles to sell on the black market for use in homes, down,” Pai says. Places dependent on coal,
restaurants, and factories. “There’s already a lot like Jharkhand, will need to create alternative
of unemployment here,” Jitender Singh, a mine sources of employment—a challenge facing
worker, told me. “If you end coal production, it other parts of the world, such as West Virginia
will make things worse for this region.” in the U.S. “Some of these states have really
good tourism potential,” Pai says. Another idea
None of the workers I spoke with, includ- is to reclaim abandoned mines for agriculture
ing Singh, knew much about climate change. and other purposes—a task that could employ
“I haven’t had any time to watch the news on a great many people for years.
television,” Rajesh Chauhan, a supervisor, told
me. “I work my shift here, then I go home and I NDIA ALREADY IS MOVING
take care of my family.” Talking with the work-
ers about global warming felt embarrassingly toward a future in which a large
esoteric and far removed from their concerns share of its energy will come
of everyday living. Some wondered how they
would survive if the mines were shut down. from the sun, wind, and water.
Others were more optimistic. “There will always
be work to be found,” Chauhan said. Since 2010, when the Indian

The country needs to prepare for the tran- government set a modest target
sition away from coal, says Sandeep Pai, a
researcher with the Center for Strategic and of 20 gigawatts of solar capacity
International Studies in Washington, D.C., who
is collaborating with policymakers in India by 2022, the amount has grown dramatically.
to help shape these plans. One imperative is to
optimize coal consumption by extracting more This has been driven by the plummeting cost of
energy per unit. Because of their proximity
to mines and agreements with India’s coal- photovoltaic cells and a government initiative
producing companies, older power plants have
to create large parks where utility companies

are incentivized to build solar plants. India

DIVERGING PATHS Emissions rose steadily from 2000 until the COVID-19
pandemic, driven by the doubling of energy
If India makes no changes to its energy use, under a demand as the growing population urbanized.
business-as-usual model, the International Energy Agency
projects that emissions from coal, oil, natural gas, and bio- 2010
mass will continue to climb steadily. Alternately, if it fulfills
current governmental proposals to improve efficiency and *INCLUDES EFFICIENCY GAINS IN BUILDINGS,
invest in renewable energy and sustainable biofuels, India INDUSTRY, TRANSPORT, AND POWER GENERATION
will be on track for net-zero emissions by the mid-2060s.

2 billion metric tons
of greenhouse gases

Emissions from Indian
energy production
1
2000

DIANA MARQUES, NGM STAFF; KIM MIHALIK
SOURCE: PETER ZENIEWSKI, INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY

passed the original target of 20 gigawatts four The solar park at Bhadla is one of the larg-
years before the deadline and is in a dash to est in the world, able to produce about 2.25
meet a revised one of 100 gigawatts before the gigawatts of electricity—enough to power a
end of the year. India’s current renewable energy million households. Several others have been
capacity is about 151 gigawatts from solar, wind, commissioned in Rajasthan, and more are in
biomass, and hydroelectric. But last year Modi development. I toured one near Jaisalmer,
announced that the country would generate a city close to India’s border with Pakistan best
500 gigawatts by 2030. known for a magnificent medieval fortress that
attracts tourists during the cooler months. An
In pursuit of this ambitious goal, India is official from the agency and I drove about
counting on the expansion of solar and wind 40 miles from the city into a flat, sandy expanse
projects in states such as Rajasthan, two-thirds sparsely dotted with vegetation.
of which is covered by desert. In the summer,
temperatures can soar above 110 degrees. Shim- Entering the park, we drove past thousands
mering heat and strong winds there often force of boxes of solar panels stacked one on top of
people to stay indoors for hours at a stretch another over an area the size of a city block,
during the day. The conditions are so inhos- waiting to be unpacked and mounted on rows
pitable that huge tracts are devoid of human of metal pillars. Several acres already had pan-
habitation. Subodh Agarwal, the top administra- els installed. Every few days, the panels need
tor of a district in the state’s desert region in the to be hosed down to remove the thick film of
1990s, recalls getting stuck in dust storms. dust that accumulates on their surface. Walking
“The roads would disappear under sand,” he says. between two rows, I heard the whir of a motor
tilting the panels a few degrees to adjust to the
Until recently, this foreboding landscape was angle of the sun’s rays as the day progressed.
viewed as a wasteland. But some of it has begun Inside a nearby building, a half dozen engi-
to undergo a remarkable transformation. At a neers were seated in front of computer screens,
place called Bhadla, a 22-square-mile area has watching for modules that needed trouble-
been turned into a sea of blue by row upon row of shooting. “Right this minute, we’re producing
solar panels. “It’s a color people aren’t used to see- 167 megawatts of electricity,” an engineer told
ing in the desert,” says Agarwal, who has played me, pointing to a graph on his monitor that
a role in this transformation as the former head showed the power output steadily rising since
of the Rajasthan Renewable Energy Corporation, morning. “We’ll hit peak between 12 and one,
a government agency that sets aside land and and then keep going down until sunset.”
finds investors for solar and wind projects.

Ways to reduce emissions 4
Renewables will need to meet new electricity
demand and displace coal. Broad energy- Reductions due to: 3
efficiency measures and the use of low-carbon fuels Increased energy 2
in industries such as cement also will be critical.
efficiency*
Business as usual
Renewables
Current governmental proposals
CCUS†
Emissions are expected Other‡
to peak around 2026
under this scenario.

PROJECTED 2030 Billion metric tons
2020 of greenhouse gases

1
2040

†CARBON CAPTURE, UTILIZATION, AND STORAGE ARE TECHNOLOGIES DESIGNED TO ‡INCLUDES OTHER WAYS TO LOWER EMISSIONS, SUCH AS
REMOVE CARBON DIOXIDE FROM INDUSTRIAL EMISSIONS AND THE ATMOSPHERE. NUCLEAR ENERGY AND REDUCED INDUSTRIAL CONSUMPTION

Residents of Palava’s
apartment towers take
an evening stroll on
manicured grounds.
As India’s middle class
grows, upscale devel-
opments with high
security and plentiful
amenities are prolif-
erating. Palava offers
a more affordable
middle-class lifestyle
than Mumbai, about
a 25-mile drive away.



One hurdle for India is the dearth of domes-
tic solar cell manufacturing. The panels at the
site I visited were entirely made in India, but
most solar installations rely on imports from
China. Earlier this year, the Indian government
announced a $2.6 billion program to accelerate
solar equipment manufacturing.

India is counting on large-scale projects, but
there’s also the hope embodied by Solanki that
Indians themselves will join the solar revolu-
tion. Farmers, for example, can take advan-
tage of a new government program allowing
them to lease their agricultural land—which
previously was restricted to farming—for
solar power plants and solar pumps. In sun-rich
states such as Rajasthan and Gujarat, home-
owners and businesspeople are installing solar
modules on their rooftops. And women in rural
Rajasthan and Maharashtra, with help from
Solanki’s Energy Swaraj Foundation, are start-
ing companies to make solar products.

I N D I A’ S T RA N S P O RTAT I O N Workers take a lunch
break at the Integral
minister, Nitin Gadkari, a Coach Factory in Chen-
straight-talking politician who nai, which makes pas-
senger railcars. One of
seems to have a perpetual smile, the largest such facil-
ities in the world, it’s
showed up earlier this year at also carbon negative,
using less electricity
parliament, in New Delhi, in a than the company gen-
erates from windmills
hydrogen-powered car. He was and solar power plants.

making a point. As he told reporters, the gov- CEO of NITI Aayog, the country’s chief plan-
ning agency. “India has been a champion of
ernment intends to make the country a leading renewable energy. The challenge for it now is to
become a champion of the clean molecule—and
manufacturer of green hydrogen. that is green hydrogen,” he says. The idea is that
driving down the price by scaling up production
The bulk of hydrogen produced today is will make it a viable alternative to petroleum—
especially for long-haul trucks, ships, and air-
derived from fossil fuels. Green hydrogen planes, which cannot be powered by batteries.

is made by splitting water through electrolysis, Nearly a quarter of India’s emissions come
from industry, which is under increasing reg-
using renewable energy. As a fuel for transpor- ulatory pressure to switch to cleaner fuels and
be more energy efficient. The country’s cement
tation, it would cut emissions since burning manufacturers—second only to the iron and
steel industry as a source of emissions, account-
hydrogen produces no greenhouse gases. It also ing for 8 percent—have become greener. A ton

would lower the carbon footprint of industries

that need hydrogen to make goods such as fertil-

izer and steel. And unlike wind and solar, which

are intermittent, green hydrogen can be stored

for future use, just like fossil fuels.

As the costs of renewable energy and electro-

lyzers come down, green hydrogen is expected

to become cheaper. India wants to reduce its

cost 75 percent by 2030, says Amitabh Kant, the

106 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C