Cement Energy and Environment

Environmental Protection & Resource Management Environment 'INDIA CEMENT FIRMS EMIT LESS C0 2 THAN US PEERS' Leveraging the latest technology, most cement manufacturing plants in India consume less energy and emit less carbon dioxide than their European and American counterparts, said Cement Sustainability lnitiative(CSI). An initiative of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), CSI is a 23-member organisation including nine Indian cement firms. CSI members produce two-thirds of the world's cement and 60% in India. "Member companies from India are more efficient. They emit less carbon-di-oxide than the firms in Europe and the US. Their energy consumption is also less," said CSis managing director Philippe Fonta in a media interaction here. The separator from Indian firms from· those in the US and Europe on these sustainability quotients is technology. Indian firms are blessed with latest technology since the growth of the industry is relatively a new phenomena. Besides home-grown Ultratech and Dalmia Bharat (Cement), seven global companies with operations in India like Holcim's ACC and Ambuja Cements. Lafarge, Heidelberg Cement, Zuari Ce– ment among members of CSI. Fonta said Indian companies can do better if they lay more emphasis on alternative fuel and energy, make use of municipal waste and others not only to position themselves as responsible corporate citizens but also for saving avoidable spending. Courtesy: The Financial Express, New Delhi, 19.02.2015, Pg. No.4 COAL·BASED POWER, TIME TO ADDRESS SUSTAINABILTIY CONCERNS TOO? India's powersector, based predominantly on coal-fired plants, is one of the most polluting sectors of Indian industry. To highlight key environmental issues and rate the performance of power plants, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) intensively studied the sector for two years, covering 47 coal- and lignite-based thermal plants with a capacity of 54 gigawatts (GW), half of the Indian capacity when the study began in early 2012. CSE's assessment found glaring inconsistencies between pollution data, especially stack emissions, reported by plants and actual conditions on the ground. Events like breach of ash dykes, which would be considered disasters in other countries, were taken in stride as common -a number of water bodies were found to be polluted with ash. No country in the world uses coal as poor in quality as India, so our pollution challenges are huge. But our practices to overcome this challenge were found wanting. India's standards for pollution and resource use lag far behind global norms, but its power plants fail to meet even such relaxed levels of performance, lacking the basic technologies to control pollution. With state pollution control boards understaffed to monitor performance, power plants routinely flout norms; nevertheless, the plants almost always report compliance. The situation is complicated by the fact that the power sector is a critical sector of the Indian economy. Thus, under the rationale of the need for power, even the most inefficient and polluting plants are allowed to operate. With one of the poorest levels of energy access and per capita consumption of electricity, at a third of the world average, India needs to rapidly expand its generation capacity. Co:~l is the fuel of choice. Being plentiful and easy to mine, it provides reliable and dispatchable power. Capacity of coal-fired plants is projected to double between 2012 and 2022 and will contribute nearly 75 per cent of generation. Current environmental practices will have to be improved to make this increase acceptable. Coal-based electricity entails heavy costs on the environment, resources and health. It is responsible for significant emissions of harmful particulate matter and oxides of nitrogen and sulphur. Domestic coal's high ash content introduces additional challenges of disposing off ash that has toxic heavy metals. Coal-based power consumes large amounts of water; coal mining has severe impacts on land, air and water which exacerbate the environmental footprint of coal-based power. Instead of capturing the full costs of coal– based power, India's tariff system subsidises it– land and water is provided at low costs and coal is subsidised; weak or non-existent pollution norms 17