Coal news and updates

Kicking the coal habit

The issues of global warming and climate change are looming larger and larger in the public consciousness as the weather becomes more unpredictable and extreme and cyclones become more frequent. (From Andhra Pradesh and Odisha to the Philippines, it has been a year of cyclones.) The new global emission reduction treaty that has to be finalised in just over a year will put pressure on all countries - particularly large consumers of fossil fuels - to put forward a credible rationale for the energy paths they are following and outline how they are doing their bit to combat global warming.

What is critical for India is that it is seriously dependent on coal. Eighty per cent of the coal produced in the country is consumed by its power sector. India has traditionally drawn comfort from the fact that it has abundant coal reserves. But now coal has become the bad boy in the energy pantheon. More than half the limit of 1,000 gigatonnes of carbon that the world can safely emit before global warming and climate change get out of hand was already crossed by 2011. If the world goes ahead and burns its known fossil fuel reserves, the remaining carbon emission quota will be finished in three decades, with coal accounting for more than half.

The tipping point will be reached if the world actually goes ahead and "burns its known coal reserves using current technologies," says Andrew Steer of the World Resources Institute. The official development agencies have introduced new restrictions on financing coal-fired power plants, and the days of conventional coal power are over.

Where does this leave India, which has told the world that it will reduce emission per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 20 to 25 per cent by 2020 from 2005 levels? The bad news is that, in the first five years (2005-2010), India actually fell behind - its emission per unit of GDP went up by 26 per cent. So, achieving that target by 2020 has become that much more difficult. As things stand, during the period 2010-2020, emission intensity has to go down by a massive 37 per cent to meet the original 2020 target.

The good news is that a beginning has been made in going in for supercritical thermal power generation. This process lowers carbon dioxide emission since it raises the energy efficiency of generation to 40 to 42 per cent from 35 to 38 per cent in the case of subcritical generation. In the process, less coal is consumed. In view of this, the ministry of power has decided to give preference to supercritical capacity in fixing coal linkages for new capacity. During the 11th Plan, 6,000 megawatts of supercritical thermal capacity was commissioned, accounting for over 10 per cent of new capacity. In the last fiscal year alone, 5,800 MW of supercritical capacity was added. More than 40 per cent of the new capacity expected to be installed in the current plan will use supercritical technology.

However, adoption of supercritical technology is dependent on using coal with low ash content (more washed coal) and blending better-grade imported coal with domestic coal. But the progress made in washing coal is poor. Indian coal has high ash content, of 40 to 45 per cent, and the current requirement - that coal transported over more than 1,000 kilometres has to have an ash content of less than 34 per cent for non-coking coal - may be revised to bring down the distance to 500 km. With the capacity of domestic coal washeries being only 135 million tonnes against a coal output of 570 million tonnes, most of the coal supplied is not washed. Hence Coal India has planned 16 new coal washeries with private participation on a build-operate-maintain basis.

The 17 coal washeries of Coal India have a capacity of 40 million tonnes. The coal ministry earlier had plans to set up 20 washeries with a capacity of 111 million tonnes. This target now appears to have been scaled down to 16 washeries in the 12th Plan period at a cost of Rs 6,000 crore. It plans to place orders worth Rs 2,000 crore for seven washeries with a total capacity of 15 million to 16 million tonnes in the current (2013-14) fiscal year. Not a single coal washery could be set up during the 11th Plan (2007-2011).

Again, there is some good news from another area. In three years, the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission Phase 1, which was launched in 2010, has raised solar power capacity from 30 MW to 2,000 MW. This is set to make India a global leader in solar power. Indian solar power is now cost-competitive compared to the rest of the world at 15 cents (Rs 9) per unit, says a World Bank study. This is among the lowest in the world of grid-connected solar photovoltaic power. Good news must pick up and drive away bad news.

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