Coal Must Be Used But Use Clean Tech

The point is to bring down greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, not to obsess over any particular fuel deemed dirty. Coal is India's most abundant fuel and is the dirtiest. There is every reason to demand that use of unabated coal should be phased out and not just brought down. While India has got the COP26 climate summit to accept phasing down rather than phasing out coal, India's attempt should be to over-deliver on this commitment. And, given the quality of air in India's major towns, there are reasons beyond climate change to clamp down on polluting coal.

Increasing the thermal efficiency of coal plants is the most straightforward method of reducing emissions from thermal power generation. Advanced supercritical plants have thermal efficiency rates some 80% higher than that of our legacy state electricity board plants. Scrapping and replacing old plants with modern ones is the first step. Installing kit to clean up the flu gas is another. Carbon capture and storage is costly, but doable, especially with climate funding made available as per rich-country promise. Coal can be gasified and burning gas to produce power reduces emissions by 50%, compared to burning coal. There could be further innovations, through chemistry right now at experimental stages, such as splitting natural gas into hydrogen and carbon, the carbon being available in the form of carbon fibre. Blue hydrogen, that is, using coal-generated power to produce hydrogen while the carbon dioxide from burning the coal is captured and stored, is another way to render coal relatively less harmful.

India must step up its research and development efforts to make use of India's plentiful coal endowment in a relatively emission-free fashion. While India has the right to demand funds and technology transfer from developed countries for clean use of coal, India should put its own vast research manpower to work to advance clean-coal technologies, while realising existing ambition to raise the output of nuclear power using the thorium route, even while adding to renewable power capacity.