Forwarded below is a news item of great concern. I had raised this issue in an e-mail soon after the CM of Orissa boasted as to how Orissa will become the power hub of the country.

This is the sort of environmnetal disaster we should be worrying about when people say that coal fired power stations are needed to meet our energy greed. When will our society learn to take the environmental scientists (and some common sense) seriously? Even if their predictions seem to border on scare mongering is it not better to be safe than sorry later? What are we going to do once the damage is done, many of which are known to be irreversible (like the loss of evergreen forest cover)?. Let is keep in mind that these proposed coal fired power stations are all expected to be of leading edge technology, where the project devleopers would like us to believe (as the developers of coal fired power station in Nandikur, Udupi) that the resultant pollution is almost nil and the impact on the society will be negligible.

I also wonder whether the acceptance of the need for coal fired power stations is relatively easier in case of city folks like us who need not worry so much about the impacts because they are not going to be in our backyard!!! What would be the public opinion if such high density of coal power stations were to come up in urban areas like Bangalore, Mumbai or Calcutta? Let us not dismiss this notion as imaginery, since Karnataka govt. also has decided to set up 5 more coal power stations in the state in addition to the one at Raichur, and the approved one at Nandikur and the proposed gigantic one in Uttara Kannada. Also, the way our society looks at energy as a commodity only, as though it has no relevance to other areas, and our refusal to learn from the harsh lessons of China, one need not be surpised if Karnataka govt. plans for more of such stations in our state. It is in this background we should look at projections of the Planning Commission, which say that the way things are going now our country will require to add about 700,000 MW of coal fired power stations. Most of this will be of indigeneous coal with high ash content. We only casually need to look at the amount of land acquisition, fresh water requirement and social displacement to get the horror image.

There is another corridor of similar high density of coal fired power stations in Madhyapradesh/Uttarpradesh border areas of Korba/Rihand complex, where another ultra mega coal power project of 4,000 MW is in the final stage of approval. May God help the poor people living in that area. As long as these power stations are pumping power for the Delhis, Mumbais, Bangalores; or for huge cement plants; or Air Conditioned residences in Mysore etc. we do not care. All we want is high GDP growth through large industries, and high index of per capita energy consumption. As far as we are concerned those tribals in coal belt are non-existant.

Such polluting power stations seem to acceptable to the city folks without much difficulty, whereas the poor tribals or rural folks do not have the voice to protest, even if their very existance is threatened by many related ills like severe pollution and/or displacement. We the city folks are happy as long as our profligacy for energy is met.

I think our society needs to worry more about such social and environmental issues affecting the entire society, than viewing energy as a simple commodity which could be produced at any cost at huge quantities, and which can be bought by those who can afford it.
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Fly-ash threat looms over Orissa

Press Trust Of India / Kolkata/ Bhubaneswar October 06, 2006


After having signed 13 MoUs with different companies for generation of 13,990 mw power, Orissa may well be on its path to become the country's power house but the state could also find it hard to dispose additional 22 million tonnes of fly ash with authorities battling with "poor utilisation efficiency".

If the current trend of disposing huge fly ash continues, the state may be pushed into an environmental disaster, environmentalists opined.

Till now, the state has been able to utilise 22.6 per cent of 93 lakh tonnes of fly ash generated every year while the remaining fly ash had been cumulatively stacked in ash ponds.

The state accounts for 10 per cent of fly ash produced every year in the country. With 40 MoUs signed in steel sector and 13 MoUs in power sector, the quantum of fly ash generation will increase manifold. The situation in the state might take a turn for the worse compared to other states as the locally available coal contained about 40 to 50 per cent ash content, they said.

As per thumb-rule calculations, one mega watt of power generation required combustion of average 12 tonnes of coal, which produces 4.5 to five tonnes of fly ash.

On September 26 last, the state government signed MoUs with 10 independent power producers (IPPS) for setting up coal-fired power projects, mostly in Angul, Dhenkanal and Jharsuguda districts taking the total expected power generation to 13,990 mw, official sources said.

Three MoUs had earlier been signed between IPPS and the state government.
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I had missed this post here though I tuned into you blog-power talk. Here's a link to the comment I left there:

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