The finance minister’s announcement of setting up of four coal gasification plants by Coal India Ltd marks the maturing of the country’s coal sector and announces its readiness for a clean energy future.
Gasification allows the value of our coal resources to be unleashed in a non-combustible means, thereby averting emission of toxic gases otherwise embedded in coal at the point of combustion. These projects will produce products like methanol, DME, ammonia and ammonium nitrate that are building blocks for the energy and chemical industries. With a bold energy transition towards renewables already underway in electricity sector, our vast coal resources can now be diverted to non-combustion industrial uses, gasification being a prominent one. The adoption of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies with gasification would help deploy India’s vast coal resources without causing…
How ready is India for clean energy technology?
