State of the Coal
WWF-India's Climate Change and Energy Programme is looking towards publishing a State of Coal Report for India. It will be a document looking at the macro statistics and impacts of Coal Mining and Utilization essentially. Further it will provide a rigorous demand projection of Coal Utilization in the Indian Market in different scenarios over the next 30 years. The Report will make recommendations on the impacts of Coal mining and utilization in India, both in the medium to long term.
India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. The infrastructure sector particularly the energy sector has to grow to meet the developmental needs of the country. The present demand and supply gap is almost touching a high of 12%. This has prompted the government to plan and execute a huge capacity addition in the electricity generation arena. For historical and economic reasons [sufficient availability of indigenous coal reserves] the future capacity addition will be biased towards coal. This will compliment the present 70% installed capacity based on coal.
The general understanding about coal is that it is indigenous, cheap and that we have reserves to sustain over a long time period. The State has planned the future power sector development heavily dependent on coal based resources, completely overlooking the social and environmental issues associated with coal extraction and utilization. The current Asia Pacific Pact for Clean Development, signed by Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the Unites States of America, is most probably a vehicle for bringing in Cleaner Coal Technologies as well as coal from Australia into India.
Governmental and Bureaucratic bias towards this energy source definitely has caused them to ignore the impacts of coal utilization and excavation activities that are turning local eco systems into ecologically un-revivable territory. There has at times been an intentional deviation from truth in projecting the actual costs associated with the use of coal, its associated problem and its future in India. Making coal the backbone of our Energy mix will not necessarily address the country’s energy concerns in a sustainable manner.
It is to tackle this single minded approach towards ensuring Energy Security for a nation with approximately 1/6th of humanity resident within its boundaries that we need to build our own capacity to send out a clear concrete message to People and Policy makers in India. We are looking towards providing a succinct document which will clearly give a picture of the negative impacts of current efficiency and utilization practices in this industry and the gains to be had from a less carbon intensive growth. We will attempt to look at both the opportunities from clean coal technologies and through higher efficiency standards which can be applied across the board.
India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. The infrastructure sector particularly the energy sector has to grow to meet the developmental needs of the country. The present demand and supply gap is almost touching a high of 12%. This has prompted the government to plan and execute a huge capacity addition in the electricity generation arena. For historical and economic reasons [sufficient availability of indigenous coal reserves] the future capacity addition will be biased towards coal. This will compliment the present 70% installed capacity based on coal.
The general understanding about coal is that it is indigenous, cheap and that we have reserves to sustain over a long time period. The State has planned the future power sector development heavily dependent on coal based resources, completely overlooking the social and environmental issues associated with coal extraction and utilization. The current Asia Pacific Pact for Clean Development, signed by Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the Unites States of America, is most probably a vehicle for bringing in Cleaner Coal Technologies as well as coal from Australia into India.
Governmental and Bureaucratic bias towards this energy source definitely has caused them to ignore the impacts of coal utilization and excavation activities that are turning local eco systems into ecologically un-revivable territory. There has at times been an intentional deviation from truth in projecting the actual costs associated with the use of coal, its associated problem and its future in India. Making coal the backbone of our Energy mix will not necessarily address the country’s energy concerns in a sustainable manner.
It is to tackle this single minded approach towards ensuring Energy Security for a nation with approximately 1/6th of humanity resident within its boundaries that we need to build our own capacity to send out a clear concrete message to People and Policy makers in India. We are looking towards providing a succinct document which will clearly give a picture of the negative impacts of current efficiency and utilization practices in this industry and the gains to be had from a less carbon intensive growth. We will attempt to look at both the opportunities from clean coal technologies and through higher efficiency standards which can be applied across the board.
Key Contacts
Shirish Sinha
(Head - Climate Change and Energy Programme)
WWF India,
New Delhi Main
T: +91 11 43516245
(Head - Climate Change and Energy Programme)
WWF India,
New Delhi Main
T: +91 11 43516245
