Coal 2.0
Cleaner than hydrogen
I spent over thirty days at coal mine locations last year. Mainly thanks to the hospitality of Coal India. Contrary to popular misconception, coal is and will continue to be the main source of energy for India. Coal production made massive strides during the reign of my IIT peer Pramod Agrawal who managed to transform Coal India beyond belief. Production has now crossed a billion tons pa and selling price is around Rs 3 per kg. Not even solar comes near in Rs per KWH.
This disruptive change was made possible by just two paradigms. Outsource soon and outsource more. This has kept profitability high, production high, livelihood generation high and morale high. It has also kept imports in check.
However what we have failed in as a country is in extracting energy from this coal. A very large percentage of this coal goes to NTPC. A monopoly of sorts which is a lethal combination of technological obsolescence, organisational incompetence and leadership failure. Their r&d centre Netra is starved of financial resources, devoid of quality manpower and lacking in both – perspective and perseverance. They are right ahead of the global race to be among the leading polluters of the planet. It is not Coal India which causes pollution but NTPC. 75% of the energy in coal is wasted. 5% is used up in transportation. For every unit of power produced, several thousand cc of fresh water is consumed. In addition to co2, they produce particulate matter, nitrous oxides and all possible forms of pollution.
It need not be so.
The task now is to eliminate polluters or to tax them sufficiently so as to generate enough resources to be able to support new age startups who can extract more energy out of coal without generating any green house gases or convert the coal into other hydrocarbons like methane or methanol.
Coal gasification is not the answer. The South Africans have been struggling with the Sasol process for over 50 years. Tata tried with Tata Sasol to finally give it up. Jindals thought they were smarter but gave up without much of a fight. Now a bunch of public sector companies with fictional excel sheets are claiming viability for a process which is dead and has no future. So far 100,000 crores has been committed to gasification. Any first year ChE student should be able to calculate a basic material and energy balance – to show it doesn’t make sense.
The answer lies in not just thinking out of the box but in throwing the box away. Coal cannot be burnt in air. That generates co2, particulate matter, nitrous oxides, sulfur compounds and truckloads of ash. Transporting coal costs too much. It generates pollution. So coal has to be converted into energy at the pithead. It has to be changed into electrons which can move on wires or biomethanated into methane which can go by pipeline. And this needs to done without generating green house gases. It is completely possible.
Just that someone has to do it.
And do it now.