Coal news and updates

Indian coal plants causing fog, pollution in Pakistan

It is alarming that India is consuming 98% of the total 685 million tons of coal in South Asia, mostly consumed in the power sector. But the most of all alarming is its highly dangerous environmental effects affecting Pakistan because most of its coal consuming power projects are located along the Pakistan border.

The recent letter written to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, by eminent climate expert Arshad H Abbasi of SDPI, rightly warns that the trans-boundary air pollution, caused by the Indian coal plants along the Pakistan-India border line, is not only creating dangerous fog inside Pakistan, but also inflicting millions of dollars loss to the country’s environment and economy.

“India has itself acknowledged in the international courts while defending the controversial hydropower project on Pakistan’s rivers, arguing that the thermal electric power generation based on coal is not sustainable environmentally. India says: “Our coal based thermal power plants are emitting ash, causing serious pollution and helping to forming fog in the subcontinent.”
India further maintains in the international courts to justify the erection of hydropower projects on Pakistan’s rivers that the ash generation was not only polluting the environment but also adding fuel to global warming.

This very fact was also endorsed by former DG Met Office Dr Qamar Zaman Chaudhry, who is currently associated with LEAD-Pakistan as Senior Adviser on Climate Change. He confirmed that the carbon emissions from the coal based power houses in India is the main reason of fog in many areas of Pakistan’s Punjab, that is visibly hazardous most particularly on the Motorway’s section from Kallar Kahar-Bhera area to Lahore.

He said two years back the Met Office had conducted a study on fog and reached the conclusion that coal based power plants in India’s Punjab are contributing a lot in generating fog in eastern part of Pakistan’s Punjab. “We are witnessing extended fog in Pakistan and this phenomenon has started occurring in last 7-8 years.”

He quotes an interesting report by Ce­ntre for Study of Science & Tech­nology, Bangalore that reveals that the Indian coal’s quality is very poor having 35%-45% ash content, low heating value thus generation of one unit electricity emits one kilogram of Carbon Dioxide and almost annually, 200 million tons of ash is generated using coal in power sector.

The Indian coal unlike the rest of the world has the highest arc contents, 25%-45%, with low heating value, thus to generate one unit electricity, coal power plants emit one kilogram of carbon dioxide. The emission of other more hazardous gasses, such as sulphur oxides, nitrogen, fly ash, and suspended particles are responsible for the greenhouse effect.

The energy mix in India is heavily dependent on coal, and electricity generation on coal fuel is 71%, the highest in South Asia. Yet, the coal in India is of poor quality, with high ash content and low calorific value.

The environmentalists in India must also be concerned about the negative environmental effects of coal, and they must realize that this should not be at the expense of Pakistani citizens’ health and environmental sustainability in the region.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, while making peace with India - which is a call of time - must take up this case with Indians and together find out a mechanism to save the region in future. Peace and citizens’ environmental safety essentially co-relate.

Source: The Frontier Post