DOES COAL-BASED GENERATION HAVE NO FUTURE?

By Sankar Mukhopadhyay

Rising global temperature has put the environment under severe threat, and society is experiencing the apprehension of global warming with its possible odds. The rise in temperature and its snowballing effects on climate, agriculture, economy, health, and overall sustainability is a matter of immense concern today. Scientists, technocrats, economists, and policymakers are making efforts to stop turning the green world into a grey planet.

To overcome the disaster, the countries of the world joined hands to form a conference of parties (COP) in 1995. Every year in the annual conference COP, parties disseminate new ideas to identify some remedial measures to decelerate the rate of warming. The foremost idea is to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the prime greenhouse gas.

CO2 is released when any hydrocarbon is burnt, hence thermal power is a major source of CO2 generation. Therefore, putting restrictions on thermal power becomes significant. In COP 21, in Paris Climate Change Conference in 2015, a key decision was taken that all participating countries would try to reduce their CO2 production at a given target and prioritize green power. Similarly, India also declared in INDC (internally nationally determined contribution) that reducing CO2 emissions by 35-40% by 2030 and augmenting green power to 175 GW by 2022. This has developed an indirect pressure on the expansion of thermal generation.

In the beginning of 2023, a few more meetings of COP took place. Most interestingly in 2021 in Glasgow, the idea of phasing out of thermal generation was promulgated but India objected and coined a new word of phasing down of thermal generation considering the rising energy demand and meeting the demand with low cost and reliable thermal energy.:

• Achieve about 50 % cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources by 2030

• Create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030

• Reduce Emissions Intensity of its GDP by 45 percent by 2030, from 2005 level

• Build capacities, create domestic framework and international architecture for quick diffusion of cutting-edge climate technology in India and for joint collaborative R&D for such future technologies

• Put forward and further propagate a healthy and sustainable way of living based on traditions and values of conservation and moderation, including through a mass movement for ‘LIFE’– ‘Lifestyle for Environment

It is to note that, even as the commitments have been updated, India has also taken a stand under the ambit of “differentiated responsibilities, equity, and nationally determined nature of climate commitments” that meeting the long-term goal of the Paris Agreement requires phase down of all fossil fuels and not phasing out use of fossil fuel to meet country’s energy demand.

It is evident that thermal plantsplay a big role in CO2 generation but what can be the best alternative in India? Moreover, is thermal plants are only responsible for CO2 production, can we not make a compromise, what happens when the focus is turned to transport sector, the vision is drifted to gas production and gas use. If such discussions are tabled without any preconceived notion, the logics may not be very convincing rather show that the decision of phasing out may appear as coercive measure to the developing countries like India, Africa and some more who neither have the economic strength to buy the best technologies for high-capacity storage or nuclear fuels nor endowed with the natural resources. So, for countries like India, thermal energy cannot have any provision of phasing out at the present situation. On the contrary, enough precaution must be taken to manage the environment and reduce CO2 production in thermal plant operation.

It is better to concentrate on the technical studies with a question that is India capableof managing the future power demand with green power only. Truly speaking, the answer is NO. Whatever be the renewable generation in India, it is impossible to run the power system in India without a stable source of power and in India it is thermal power.