Coal news and updates

Burning more coal in Indian thermal power plants can have an adverse impact on rainfall locally. It could increase possibility of drought and the effects may travel across borders to the northern hemisphere, a new MIT study has indicated. "If this is indeed a fact, Asian thermal power generators, especially in India and China, will be under pressure to cut down thermal power generation and abandon new capacity addition plans," a senior analyst said.

Benjamin S Grandey and Haiwen Cheng from the Center for Environmental Sensing and Modeling, Singapore¬MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, have demonstrated that aerosol emissions in Asia may significantly impact the hydrological cycle, especially monsoon systems, affecting precipitation both locally and remotely in other parts of the world.

Their study indicates that "energy and air quality policy in Asia, through consequent effects on aerosol emissions, can have important implications for future climatic changes both locally and globally." Despite global pressures to cut down coal usages in thermal power plants India has decided to increase coal production from a present level of 500 million tonnes to a billion tonnes in the next five years.

"However, if the effect of burning coal travels to other regions, the country could be made to cut down thermal power addition plans," the analyst cited above said. AK Ghosh, director at Society for Environment & Development said: "Various scientists have conducted various studies on the impact of burning coal on rainfall over the last fifty years. It has never been conclusively proven that burning coal can affect monsoon or increase possibilities of drought."

"However, burning coal leads to sulphur dioxide emissions which when mixed with rain water turns into sulphuric acid — something generally known as acid rain. Although acid rain is undesirable it is mostly confined to industrial areas and does not travel much," he said. An analyst specialising on power plants in India said increased release of greenhouse gas can lead to asymmetrical concentration of rainfall where there could be heavy bouts of rainfall in certain areas leading to drainage of excess water into rivers instead of being absorbed by ground to restore underground water levels. Nevertheless, coal producers in India pay a cess of Rs 400 for every tonne of coal they sell. This money is used for green projects.

Source: Economic Times