India is reviewing a decade-old $30 billion programme requiring coal-fired power plants to install equipment to cut sulphur emissions after government-backed studies showed they had little impact on curbing pollution, according to a document reviewed by Reuters. Nearly 540 power plant units were required by 2026 to install flue-gas desulphurization (FGD) systems that remove sulphur from the plants' exhaust gases, but only about 8% have done so, including those run by state-run NTPC and privately held JSW Power.
The government previously said expensive foreign technology and manpower were some of the hurdles in achieving the target. But with cities like New Delhi and Kanpur some of the most polluted in the world, India's government is under pressure to reduce the impact of the sector's emissions. Instead of FGDs, government officials have proposed deploying locally made electrostatic precipitators, according to a document from the Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor to the government summarizing a Nov. 13 meeting between it and the ministries of power, coal, and the environment. The precipitators, which remove fine particles such as dust and smoke from emissions, are one-fifth of the cost of an FGD system.
Representatives of the ministries and Ajay Kumar Sood, the principal scientific adviser who chaired the meeting, did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment. The document showed several of the attendees agreed Indian power plants would be better off focusing on cutting emissions of tiny particulate matter that can lodge deep in the lungs rather than on sulphur reductions. While more than 100 nations wanted to cap plastic production, a handful of oil-producers were prepared only to target waste.
It cited a study by the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) that said Indian coal, which is used to generate 92% of the country's thermal power, has a sulphur content of only 0.5%. Sulphur content is 0.9% on average for coal imported into India and more than 1% for coal used in China, where FGDs developed by companies like GE and Mitsubishi Power are common, said R. Srikanth, head of the engineering school at NIAS.
"There was really never any case for having FGDs in India, in every place, every thermal power plant in the country," Srikanth, who attended the meeting, told Reuters on Tuesday. "All our cities actually suffer from high particulate-matter pollution, not from sulphur dioxide pollution," he said.
Srikanth said more than 200 FGDs are currently waiting to be installed in India because companies are reluctant to shut down their power plants for nearly 45 days for the purpose. The NIAS study said Indian coal's high ash content was a bigger problem for power plants, and high-efficiency electrostatic precipitators would be better at curbing that pollution. The document also cited government-backed studies by the Indian Institute Of Technology (IIT) Delhi and National Environmental Engineering Research Institute that showed plants with the FGD systems showed negligible improvement in air quality. An FGD system costs 12 million rupees ($141,000) per megawatt of capacity.
Insisting on FGDs could hamper India's goal of increasing coal-fired capacity by 37% by 2032 to meet surging power demand, it said. A decision will be made based on further consultations, the document showed. India's government policy think tank, NITI Aayog, earlier this year proposed halting FGD installations. The document also showed that while the government is working on its decision, the power ministry last month asked the environment ministry to extend the deadline for FGD installation by another three years beyond 2026. The original deadline was 2017.
Environmental groups say coal-fired plants account for about 80% of industrial emissions of sulphur and nitrogen oxides in India, which cause lung disease and acid rain. According to a 2019 Greenpeace report, India was the world's largest emitter of sulphur dioxide, with most coming from coal-fired power plants. "The installation of FGD systems and carbon capture technologies should not be used as a smokescreen to justify the continued power generation from these unsustainable, CO2-intensive sources," IIT Delhi said in its report.— Reuters
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