Insights EDITORIAL ANALYSIS : India’s changing goal posts over coal – INSIGHTSIAS

 

Source: The Hindu

• Prelims: Current events of national importance, Environmental pollution and degradation(Coal, Paris Agreement)
• Mains GS Paper III: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, Coal.

ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS

• The Finance Minister said India’s transition away from coal as a fuel for power would be hampered by the Russia-Ukraine war.
• The transition(away from coal)will be enabled by natural gas, lowering dependence on coal, and the speed with which we want to get out of it, will now be challenged.

 

Puucho ON THE ISSUE

Context

Coal:

• It originates from organic matter wood, when large tracts of forests are buried under sediments, wood is burnt and decomposed due to heat from below and pressure from above.
• This phenomenon makes coal but takes centuries to complete.
• Classification of Coal(on the basis of carbon content and time period):

Anthracite:

1. It is the best quality of coal with highest calorific value and carries 80 to 95% carbon content.
2. It ignites slowly with a blue flame and is found in small quantities in Jammu and Kashmir.

Bituminous:

1. It has a low level of moisture content with 60 to 80% of carbon content and has a high calorific value.
2. Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh have deposits of Bituminous.

Lignite:

1. It carries 40 to 55% carbon content and is often brown in colour with high moisture content thus, gives smoke when burnt.
2. Rajasthan, Lakhimpur (Assam) and Tamil Nadu have deposits of Lignite.

Peat:

It is the first stage of transformation from wood to coal with low calorific value and less than 40% carbon content.

 

• Top 5 States in terms of total coal reserves in India are: Jharkhand > Odisha > Chhattisgarh > West Bengal > Madhya Pradesh.
• The leading coal producers of the world include China, US, Australia, Indonesia, India.

 

Move away from coal is important:

• The threat of global warming is looming over the planet, bringing unprecedented natural calamities. An effective way to keep the danger at bay is to cut the use of fossil fuels coal,natural gas and oil. About 80% of the world’s energy requirements are met by these three fuels.
• Coal emits nearly twice as much carbon dioxide as natural gas and about 60% more than oil,on a kilogram kilogram comparison having a greater role in global warming.
• Combusting coal also leaves behind partially burnt carbon particles that feed pollution and trigger respiratory disorders.
• The power sector in India, which uses the majority of the coal, accounts for 49% of total carbon dioxide emissions, compared with the global average of 41%.
• Environmental issues associated with Coal Mining that is air pollution, water pollution, soil pollution etc.
• Opencast mining and underground mining of coal affect the vegetation pattern.
• Several occupational hazards are associated with coal mining: Pneumoconiosis (by inhaling coal dust), allergies and asthma, noise hazard etc.
• The freeway to coal will raise the local pollution in the country. The government has notified new emission norms for coal-based thermal power plants. But the implementation on the ground has been inadequate.
• Coal- and lignite-based thermal power plants on an annual basis emit 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent/year, which is a third of the total greenhouse gas emissions in the country.

Extent of India’s Dependence on coal:

• The installed capacity for coal based power generation across the country was 2.04 lakh megawatt (MW). This accounts for about 5% of power from all sources.
• Coal based power stations are retired periodically which happens all the time. But is not fast enough nor are new additions being halted.
• Coal is still most inexpensive compared with other present sources of energy.
• According to the IEA’s Coal Report 2021,India’s coal consumption will increase at an average annual rate of 9% to 1.18billon tonnes in 2024.

Difficulty for India to move away from coal:

• The international cost of natural gas has increased in the recent past from a level that was considered already too high to be financially viable.
• Of the 25,000 MW of gas based power plants, about 14,000 MW remains stranded, or idle, because they are financially unviable.
• While renewable energy sources are cheaper than coal, their ability to generate power consistently is subject to the whims of nature, the wind and the Sun.
• Storage technologies are still not mature enough to help renewable energy sources become reliable generators of power.

 

Reasons for increasing coal demand:

• Iron and steel production uses coal and there are not many technologies to replace the fuel immediately.
• Continued expansion of India’s economy is expected during 2022-2024, with annual average GDP growth of 7.4%, fuelled at least partially by coal.
• India’s push to domestic coal mining through both Coal India and auction of coal blocks to private companies, coal usage in India will increase as it plateaus in other parts of the world, including China.
• The central government has opened up coal mining for the private sector, claiming it as one of its most ambitious coal sector reforms.
• The government anticipates that it will bring efficiency and competition in coal production, attract investments and best-in-class technology, and help create more jobs in the coal sector.

 

Initiatives by India to shift to renewable energy:

• National Solar Mission (NSM): The 100 GW solar ambition at the heart of the world’s largest renewable energy expansion programme
• The Wind Energy Revolution: Leveraging India’s robust wind energy sector to boost clean energy manufacturing and the rural economy
• National Biofuels Policy and SATAT: Building value chains to reduce fuel imports, increase clean energy, manage waste, and create jobs
• Small Hydro Power (SHP): Harnessing the power of water to integrate remote communities into the economic mainstream.
• National Hydrogen Energy Mission (NHEM): Exploring the commercial viability of a versatile clean fuel
• Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme: Integrating India into the global clean energy value chains
• National Biofuels Policy and SAYAY: Building value chains to reduce fuel imports, increase clean energy, manage waste and create jobs.

 

 

Way Forward

• India must enhance investments in the deployment of clean coal technologies throughout the coal value chain. Government power utilities must show the way by investing in the deployment of advanced clean coal technologies.
• India should also be very cautious of adding new coal capacity beyond 2030 as it risks locking in resources.
• With government’s efforts to push renewable energy due to international conventions on climate change, increase in carbon cess and other initiatives for lesser use of coal, there is a need for ‘Vision 2030 for the coal sector’, which takes into account the environmental factors such as reduction of carbon footprint, abatement of global warming.
• Strategic Decommissioning of Old and Inefficient Power Plants: It may be prudent to let old capacity fade away in due course and saving some of them as they are efficient, while focusing on such detailed analysis and weeding out the needless capacity in the pipeline, to derive long-term economic and environmental benefits.
• We need an energy transformation through which we would realize the co-benefits of local and global emission reduction. We also need the right to energy for all, as energy poverty and inequity is not acceptable.

 

QUESTION FOR PRACTICE

The demand for coal energy is going to increase over the next decade. Critically analyze its impact on energy and environment. (200 WORDS, 10 MARKS)