Tata Exergen CHTD, page-21

Victoria's LV coal has an extremely low ash content which gives it a competitive advantage, along with its very low overburden strip ratio making it extremely cheap to mine in comparison to many O/S resources.

Remember, drying doesn't remove ash.

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To mitigate the environmental impacts of doubling down on coal production, the country hopes to increase the number of its "super-critical" power plants, which burn coal with higher efficiency. India's coal has a high ash content, which makes it dirtier and less efficient than coal in other countries. Only about 6 per cent of India's power comes from such plants.

In the Singrauli region - which straddles the states of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh - the rapid industrial development has brought more-reliable power to the area, along with jobs. Yet the human risks involved with continued coal dependence are on full display in the villages surrounding the power plants and mines.

The small village of Chilkatand sits between a coal mine to the north and the government-owned National Thermal Power plant to the south.

Living so close to these sites has severely impacted the residents of this small village, according to Manonnit Ravi, 28, a local activist. He worries about what they will do when mining is expanded.

"If production increases, blasting will increase. Our houses already have cracks in them. And we don't have an option to move anywhere," he said.

Trucks from the nearby coal mine rattle past 24 hours a day, and villagers gather by the side of the road to collect the fallen scraps for their hearths. In the evening, the smoke from those fires mixes with the pollution from mining and power generation and makes visibility difficult. Everything is coated with a thin layer of grit.

Almost everyone in the village has a respiratory ailment. Others have begun to suffer more serious health effects from drinking water contaminated with mercury and arsenic and other chemicals from what environmentalists say is coal waste seeping into groundwater and being dumped into the local reservoir. Sludgy pools of floating ash gather at the shoreline.

A report from Greenpeace found that residents in the area suffer unusually high rates of asthma and other respiratory ailments, tuberculosis, and chronic skin diseases.

R. B. Singh, a surgeon and senior medical officer in the area, has called coal pollution a "slow poison."

"It is near impossible to go out for a morning walk or morning run here," Singh said in an interview. "During the day it's hot and dusty and polluted, then at night all that coal and dust settles on the ground, on the plants, on everything, because of the dew. That's the air we inhale when we wake up and head out. You can imagine how unhealthy and uncomfortable it is. No surprise how many people report wheezing, lung and skin problems."

A spokeswoman for the power corporation, which operates three plants in the area, said in an email that ash is disposed of in "scientifically designed ash ponds," turned into a slushy substance and "is being re-circulated to a large extent at present." But ash ponds can create their own environmental hazards.

Ashwani Dubey, a Supreme Court lawyer who grew up in the Singrauli region, successfully argued before the country's National Green Tribunal - a body that oversees environmental offenses - that companies working in the area should be made to supply clean water to the villages. So far about 90 filtration centers have been installed, serving about 50,000 residents. He says power plants and coal companies that contributed to polluting the area should not be able to expand until cleanup is completed and additional controls are in place.

"Production should be there, but it should not be at a cost of lives of the people," he said. ""


Can high ash BCE ever be known as clean coal?

B Rubes