Our dependence on fossil fuels is killing us literally and
figuratively. The toxic fumes from coal-powered thermal power plants and petrol
and diesel–fuelled vehicles and generators which are the norm for power backup
have created a toxic atmosphere the equivalent to smoking about 5 to 10
cigarettes daily. The average Indian city dweller has lung quality equivalent
to that of a smoker
according to many leading lung specialists across the nation. And health care
costs a bomb. The soaring petrol and diesel prices also is breaking the back of
the average citizen’s budget – killing a person figuratively under the
financial burden.
petrol being sold at ₹ 78.52 per litre and diesel at ₹ 70.21 per litre Delhi. The petrol price has been increased by ₹ 0.22 per litre since Thursday and diesel price by ₹ 0.28 per litre in the national capital. The surge in fuel prices is largely due to rise in the cost of crude oil and high excise duty levied on transportation fuel in the country. The Brent crude oil is currently priced around $76.68 per barrel.
-- NDTV Auto
The Indian power grid’s hunger for dirty coal is not only
bad for global warming – triggering climate change – but also bad for our
lungs. As Indian courts, activists and TV News channels debate the call for a
ban on fire crackers in the NCR as wedding season and winter smog season
approaches, the more obvious solution of shutting down and phasing out thermal
power plants, promoting electric vehicles and electric public transport
including electric buses, protecting urban green cover and forests, as well as
curbing construction and demolition seems to have minimal support. Band-Aid to
a severed artery rather than a necessary tourniquet to staunch it.
Source: Asian Power, 7 December 2017.
While Greenpeace India’s efforts promote rooftop solar and
closing down or cleaning up power plants, it hasn’t yielded policy change at
the national level. Even as the #MyRightToBreathe hashtag trends on Twitter,
special exceptions
continue for coal power plants from the Ministry of Environment, Forest &
Climate Change (MOEFCC). While way back in 2015, the MOEFCC policy called for
tighter norms on emissions from India’s 474 thermal power stations and adoption
of high efficiency low emission (HELE) technologies such as supercritical and
ultra-supercritical combustion technologies, till date the MOEFCC in practice
still seeks to exempt power plants from pollution and emission control norms.
This divergence in policy and practice is harming the planet and our health. India
also continues to commission newer thermal power stations while other economies
are decommissioning
(China) or demolishing
(Canada) them – no wonder India’s carbon emissions increased
this past year when that of other top carbon emitters, even China, plateaued
and even reduced!
Source: The Hindu, 29 July 2018.
Thermal power stations are one of the biggest contributors
to air pollution in India, as long as coal and other fossil fuels remain
central to India’s energy mix, we will have an air pollution crisis and fail to
take the climate action we committed to when we signed and ratified the Paris
Climate Agreement. The energy mix is basically the primary energy sources
proportion from which secondary energy such as usually electricity is produced.
Coal, petroleum, and gas dominate India’s energy mix making both the energy
mix, the Indian electricity grid toxic and retrograde to climate action.
Air pollution from our fossil fuel dependence adds to
national mortality and morbidity. The very young and the very old as well as
those with preexisting respiratory problems are at great risk thanks to the
predominantly toxic energy mix and electricity grid. Fatalities have increased
even as India emerged on top of the charts of nations and cities facing down
“bad air.” The cost of treatment and health costs even for the previously
healthy thanks to the effect of smog, haze and poor air quality both indoors
and outdoors add up to millions across urban India.
The grid’s fossil fuel habit fuels climate change and
calamity as well. The record-shattering levels of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere have already manifested in devastating natural disasters in India
and across the globe. While we get battered by the monsoon cloudbursts, the
temperate part of the world reels under the effect of unprecedented heat waves,
forest fires as well as drought. The climate calamity is costing lives and
billions of dollars yet fossil fuel companies and state-owned power companies
still add to stranded assets continuing to explore for and extract fossil fuels
from under prime forests and ecologically sensitive zones in addition to
building more thermal power stations.
Take for example the clearance
to ONGC to explore for oil and natural
gas biodiversity hotspots such as the Gulf of Mannar region, Sakkarakottai, Mel
Selvannur, Keel Selvannur and Chitrangudi bird sanctuaries in the
Ramanathapuram-Tuticorin stretch as well as prime watershed forests of the
Eastern Ghats. This echoes the global trend of continuing seabed oil exploration,
giving out fracking and Arctic drilling permits when the obvious solution to
the climate change crisis remains “keeping oil in the soil and coal in the hole,”
decarbonizing the economy and preventing the use of fossil fuel reserves.
India is now the third largest carbon emitter in the world
after the United States and China. While we are adding to our renewable energy
assets on track to add 175 GW of renewable energy sources of which 100 GW is
solar power by 2022, our continued backing of coal power is hurting our climate
commitments. With the skewed Dollar-Rupees exchange rate and the soaring crude
prices that’s translating into horrendous fuel prices across India, the time is
ripe for de-carbonization. Promoting innovation and “jugaad” to convert polluting
and carbon guzzling internal combustion engines into electric or hybrid ones
while manufacturing and adding electric vehicle, electric public transport and
clean energy powered charging station network and infrastructure could create
new jobs and boost the economy while protecting the environment thus ticking
many of the Sustainable Development Goals hence improving our international
standing.
With previous WHO reports on the crippling health costs of air pollution (air pollution deaths costs global economy US$225Billion) and recent reports on how air pollution affects our brain activity and effectively affects our intelligence are economic, medical, and demographic imperatives to turning to cleaner power and energy sources.
Taking fossil fuels out of the Indian energy mix, the
electric grid and vehicles will result in a major detox as well as the obvious
de-carbonization. Blessed as we are with abundant sunshine, wind and coastlines
we should be betting wholly on solar power, wind power, tidal power and hybrid
onshore and offshore renewable energy stations instead of obsolete and
polluting thermal power for the sake of our health and that of the planet. The point of it being called an energy mix is the fact that a nation does not bet on only one energy source - here's hoping India diversifies to cleaner options as the mainstay of its energy mix.
