Is Black Diamond Really worth it ?

Coal, the most abundant form of fossil fuel that is available to us and one of the largest source of electrical energy on the planet.

In a fossil fuel power plant the chemical energy stored in fossil fuels such as coal, fuel oil, natural gas or oil shale and oxygen of the air is converted successively into thermal energy, mechanical energy and, finally, electrical energy. Each fossil fuel power plant is a complex, custom-designed system. Multiple generating units may be built at a single site for more efficient use of land, natural resources and labor. Most thermal power stations in the world use fossil fuel, outnumbering nuclear, geothermal, biomass, or concentrated solar power plants.

Combined heat and power

Combined heat and power (CHP), also known as co-generation, is the use of a thermal power station to provide both electric power and heat (the latter being used, for example, for district heating purposes). This technology is practiced not only for domestic heating (low temperature) but also for industrial process heat, which is often high temperature heat. Calculations show that Combined Heat and Power District Heating (CHPDH) is the cheapest method in reducing (but not eliminating) carbon emissions, if conventional fossil fuels remain to be burned.

Cost of Electricity Production

Even though the cost of electricity production using the other sources of energy has come down the cost of electricity by fossil fuels still remains the lowest. It costs around ₹3-4 Crores to build a coal based power plant and the production cost being just ₹2.35/unit, which is still the lowest amongst all forms of energy in the world. But as the time passes the maintenance and running cost of electricity increases drastically making it more expensive not only resulting in increased cost of electricity but at the same time being more damaging to the environment. In 2020 think tank Carbon Tracker estimated that 17% of coal-fired plants were already more expensive than new renewables and that would be 85% by 2025.

Coal power plants are the main source of air pollution in the world with China(30%), USA(15%) and India (7%) being the largest producer of air pollution. This alone causes around 34 lakh deaths each year on the planet.

Coal and it's use in India

India has the world's 5th largest proven coal reserves. In India, coal is the bulk primary energy contributor with 56.90% share equivalent to 452.2 Mtoe in 2018. India’s coal production has only fallen once in the last 30 years when the figure fell from 319 mt in 1997 to 316 mt in 1998.

India is also the second-largest importer of coal 141.7 Mtoe in 2018 and the second-largest consumer of coal with 452.2 Mtoe in 2018. India is also home to the world’s largest coal company, Coal India Ltd, which controls 85% of the country’s coal production with 7.8% production share of coal (including lignite) in the world.

The primary energy consumption in India grew by 2.3% in 2019 and is the third biggest after China and USA with 5.8% global share. The total primary energy consumption from coal (452.2 Mtoe/ 55.88%), crude oil (239.1 Mtoe/ 29.55%), natural gas (49.9 Mtoe/ 6.17%), nuclear energy (8.8 Mtoe/ 1.09%), hydro electricity (31.6 Mtoe/ 3.91%) and renewable power (27.5 Mtoe/ 3.40%) is 809.2 Mtoe (excluding traditional biomass use) in the calendar year 2018. In 2018, India's net imports are nearly 205.3 million tons of crude oil and its products, 26.3 Mtoe of LNG and 141.7 Mtoe coal totaling to 373.3 Mtoe of primary energy which is equal to 46.13% of total primary energy consumption. India is largely dependent on fossil fuel imports to meet its energy demands – by 2030, India's dependence on energy imports is expected to exceed 53% of the country's total energy consumption. About 80% of India's electricity generation is from fossil fuels. India is surplus in electricity generation and also marginal exporter of electricity in 2017.

India's electricity sector consumes about 72% of the coal produced in the country. For utility power generation, India consumed 622.22 million tons of coal during 2019-20 which is less by 1% compared to 628.94 million tons during 2018-19. However coal imports for utility power generation increased by 12.3% during year 2019-20 at 69.22 million tons from 61.66 million tons during 2018-19. A large part of the Indian coal reserve is similar to Gondwana coal: it is of low calorific value and high ash content, with poor fuel value. On average, Indian coal has a gross calorific value (GCV) of about 4500 Kcal/kg, whereas in Australia, for example, the GCV is about 6500 Kcal/kg . The result is that Indian power plants using India's coal supply consume about 0.7 kg of coal per kWh of power generation, whereas in the United States thermal power plants consume about 0.45 kg of coal per kWh. In 2017, India imported nearly 130 Mtoe (nearly 200 million tons) of steam coal and coking coal, 29% of total consumption, to meet the demand in electricity, cement and steel production.

India's installed capacity of thermal power stations is as below-

Hidden Cost

Air Pollution

Fossil fuels cause environmentally unsafe compounds to form in the atmosphere, depleting ozone levels and thus creating a spike in skin cancer rates. Burning coal releases sulfur oxide while the combustion of car engines and power plants gives off nitrogen oxides, which cause smog. Water and oxygen bonding with those sulfur and nitrogen oxides also causes acid rain, which damages plant life and food chains. Areas of high air pollution indexes have populations with higher rates of asthma than cleaner environments do.

Global Warming

Global warming occurs when carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere. Carbon monoxide is produced by the combustion of fossil fuels and converted into carbon dioxide. As a result, the surface temperature of the earth is increasing drastically. The increase is enough to distress the ecological systems. Implications include severe weather, droughts, floods, drastic temperature changes, heat waves, and more severe wildfires. Food and water supplies are threatened. Tropical regions will expand, allowing disease-carrying insects to expand their ranges.

Rising Sea Levels

The global warming caused by the use of fossil fuels leads to rising sea levels. The melting of ice at the poles and in glaciers can cause oceans to rise, which impacts both ecosystems and human settlements in low-lying areas. Since ice reflects sunlight and water absorbs it, the melting of ice also creates a feedback loop, causing global warming to speed up.

Consequences of Carbon Emissions for Humans

Carbon emissions contribute to climate change, which can have serious consequences for humans and their environment. According to the ministry of Environment(India), carbon emissions, in the form of carbon dioxide, make up more than 70 percent of the greenhouse gases emitted in the India. The burning of fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. These carbon emissions raise global temperatures by trapping solar energy in the atmosphere. This alters water supplies and weather patterns, changes the growing season for food crops and threatens coastal communities with increasing sea levels.

Shrinking Water Supplies

Carbon dioxide persists in the atmosphere for 50 to 200 years, so emissions released now will continue to warm the climate in the future. The EPA predicts that climate change will cause the demand for water to increase while the supply of water shrinks. Water is not only essential to human health but also to manufacturing processes and the production of energy and food. Climate change is expected to increase rainfall in some areas, thereby causing an increase in the sediment and pollutants washed into drinking water supplies. Rising sea levels will cause saltwater to infiltrate some freshwater systems, increasing the need for desalination and drinking water treatment.

Increasing Incidents of Severe Weather

Environmental degradation is a cause for worry financially too. The World Bank has found that India, which enjoys higher economic growth than many other countries, loses at least Rs 3.75 lakh crore each year due to environmental degradation and pollution. The destruction of infrastructure causes several human health issues, including disease transmitted when water and sewer systems are not working properly. The storms themselves and the damage to infrastructure they cause often result in a tremendous loss of human life.

Changes in Food Supply

Changing weather affects the agricultural industry and the human food supply. Carbon emissions contribute to increasing temperatures and decreasing precipitation, changing the growing conditions for food crops in many areas. According to the World Bank, carbon emissions are causing warming in India's Nothern planes that is projected to significantly reduce the yields of tomatoes, wheat, rice, maize and sunflowers in this region. Major changes in crop yield will cause food prices to rise around the world. In addition, climate change influenced by carbon emissions forces animals, many of which are hunted as food, to migrate to higher altitudes or northern habitats as the climate warms.

Geographical Changes

It takes only a small change in temperature to have enormous environmental effects; temperatures at the end of the last ice age were only cooler than today’s temperatures by 2.5 to 5 degrees Celsius (5 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit), but parts of the United States were covered by thousands of feet of ice, according to NASA. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated that carbon emissions will cause global temperatures to rise by approximately 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) over the next 100 years. This slight change can have dramatic effects on shorelines, especially those densely populated by humans where rising sea levels flood buildings and roads and influence shipping traffic. Mean sea level, on a global scale, has been increasing over the past century, approximately 1.8mm/yr due to the thermal expansion of the oceans and glacial melting.