Beating central Indian states like Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra that are known for their coal power plants, Tamil Nadu has emerged as a leader when it comes to sulphur dioxide pollution, a new study has found.
Analysing data from NASA’s OMI (Ozone Monitoring Instrument) satellite, a report from Greenpeace found that India is the largest emitter of SO2 in the world – contributing to more than 15% of global emissions. “Nearly 97% of these emissions are from coal burning,” one of the authors of the report, Sunil Dahiya, told The Weather Channel. “What comes as a shocker is Tamil Nadu leading the country, despite having a lower capacity. This is probably because of lignite – which is of lower quality and produces more sulphur emissions,” he added.
India did not have norms to curb oxides of sulphur (SOx) and nitrogen (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) emissions from coal-fired thermal power plants till December 2015. This is when the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change introduced norms to cut NOx emissions by 70%, SOx emissions by 85% and PM emissions by 65%. For reducing SOx emission, all thermal power plants were to be retrofitted with Flu Gas Desulphurisation (FGD) technology. The initial deadline for this was December 2017, but has now been extended to 2022 through a Supreme Court order. “The primary reason for India’s high emission output is the expansion of coal-based electricity generation over the past decade. The vast majority of plants in India lack flue-gas desulphurisation technology to reduce their air pollution. Singrauli, Neyveli, Talcher, Jharsuguda, Korba, Kutch, Chennai, Ramagundam, Chandrapur and Koradi thermal power plants or clusters are the major emission hotspots in the country” says the report.
The Union ministry of coal recently approved a fresh supply of coal to two coal-fired thermal power plants with a combined capacity of 2,400MW. Both the North Chennai Thermal Power Station Stage-III (800MW) and the Uppur Super Critical Thermal Power project (1,600MW) are under construction. They would receive some two million tonnes of domestic coal. “The logic is difficult to understand. Why would a state that is already the biggest polluter get more coal to burn,” says Dahiya.
Though the state continues to invest in coal energy, it is also pushing forward with renewable energy. “Tamil Nadu already operates the most diversified electricity generation fleet in India, with renewables representing 35% of installed capacity as of March 2017, nuclear 8% and hydroelectricity 7%. Coal-fired power capacity represents 45% or 13.4 GW. Tamil Nadu represented almost one fifth (18.5%) of India’s total renewable energy generation in 2016/17,” read a 2018 report by the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). The proportion of renewable energy is expected to go up to 44% by 2023.
Extracting metal from ores, volcanoes and fuel burnt in locomotives, ships and other vehicles are other sources of SO2 emissions.
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Source: weather
