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India, Once a Coal Goliath, Is Fast Turning Green

nytimes.com

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Re: India, Once a Coal Goliath, Is Fast Turning Green

#151

Post by golergka »

mabcat wrote: post #147
golergka wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's so weird. Why does he have to come up with weird justifications to digging up and selling something that people are willing to buy?

Digging up and selling our coal has a range of horrible environmental effects both short and long term. Short term includes: massive use of water that we need for agriculture and environmental flows, destruction of marine environment from dredging so coal ships can get in, giant holes in landscape. Long term: more of the same ocean warming that's killed about 50% of the Great Barrier Reef already. Google Adani coal m…

So, fix the taxes to correctly represent environment costs. The problem is not in the decision to dig or not to dig, it's in the costs of these decisions - and I think it's obvious that these two things have to be responsibilities of different government or private bodies.

Re: India, Once a Coal Goliath, Is Fast Turning Green

#152

Post by babayega2 »

danbolt wrote: post #20
kornish wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In many ways it's similar to how telephony spread in the developing world. They skipped landlines entirely and went straight to GSM. And also how banking/payment is spreading in Africa: mobile-to-mobile, skipping credit cards entirely.

I love the elegance and futurism of paying with mobile phones like that, but do the telephone companies operate in a similar manner to financial institutions there? For instance, if I deposit money, do I receive interest? What happens to my funds if the phone company goes bankrupt? Are there similar regulations to banks?

For example in my country, Burundi, Mobile Network Operators are required to run their mobile money business under a different "legal" entity run like a bank so that there are some security to the client deposit. Even if the MNO collapses, the Mobile business isn't affected.

Re: India, Once a Coal Goliath, Is Fast Turning Green

#153

Post by sfifs »

digital_ins wrote: post #83
digital_ins wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true. As anyone in the power industry will tell you, Indian coal, tho voluminous in availability, has a relatively very low calorific content and relatively much higher Ash content. As a result, disposal of ash is far more expensive than project economics can sustain. As a result, imported coal IS the standard, domestic coal may be used as a supplement, and long term supply contracts from local traders who…

Also, you're absolutely wrong about imported coal plants being rare. I don't know of any critical or super critical plants that could use 100% domestic coal without having to blatantly lie on their EIA study about ash disposal. It's just not viable.

Don't know what your sources are but see this article based on coal ministry data which suggest coal imports are a small fraction of India consumption and rapidly coming down. Specifically to your point - "Goyal added that no power producer has approached CIL for supply of imported coal this year."

https://www.platts.com/latest-news/coal/newdelhi/indias-coal...

Re: India, Once a Coal Goliath, Is Fast Turning Green

#154

Post by davchana »

shriphani wrote: post #114
orasis wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was the last time you earned a noteworthy amount of interest on a bank deposit?

Indian banks offer very good interest rates and are sort-of backed by the gov (might be wrong on this).

backed in the sense of too-big-to-fail. Otherwise, deposits of only upto Rs 100,000/- are insured, that too per person, irrespective of how many bank accounts. Insured in the sense that if bank tanks, Customers will get back minimum (of deposit or) 100,000 Ruppees back after all the bankruptcy proceedings.

Re: India, Once a Coal Goliath, Is Fast Turning Green

#155

Post by dwd »

mabcat wrote: post #147
golergka wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's so weird. Why does he have to come up with weird justifications to digging up and selling something that people are willing to buy?

Digging up and selling our coal has a range of horrible environmental effects both short and long term. Short term includes: massive use of water that we need for agriculture and environmental flows, destruction of marine environment from dredging so coal ships can get in, giant holes in landscape. Long term: more of the same ocean warming that's killed about 50% of the Great Barrier Reef already. Google Adani coal m…

The thing is the railway line which is baseline to enable the development of the Galilee Basin was never really about Adani. There are other miners to gain from it who have poured a lot of money into the election of certain members of Parliament.

Quid pro quo.

Re: India, Once a Coal Goliath, Is Fast Turning Green

#156

Post by andygates »

e9 wrote: post #124
matt4077 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> am I wrong? Yes. Area doesn't consume energy, people do. Otherwise Russia would be the most eco-friendly country in the world, and something like Luxembourg should be considered an abject failure of environmental policy.

I am just stating that more pollution per square foot will destroy that part of earth more and therefore damage environment more. So objectively speaking you are correct, social issues aside, Luxembourg should be considered an abject failure of environmental policy. But the issue of pollution is complicated and involves social issues so my perspective is not very helpful when you make policy decisions or include fair…

Some pollution impacts are felt locally (heavy metals), some regionally (acid rain from upwind sulphur oxides), and some globally. CO2 is one of the global ones. It's very well-mixed in the atmosphere.

If we could point to a plume of obviously-warmed land downwind of a city, it'd be a much easier sell to the layman.

Re: India, Once a Coal Goliath, Is Fast Turning Green

#157

Post by archeopetrix »

sonink wrote: post #104
pvsukale3 wrote: post #87

I am a young Indian. I have a dream . The dream that we are running electric vehicles. We have banned plastic everywhere. We have stopped burning our garbage. We have improved air quality. I think we can start with auto-rikshaws and public transport. Auto rickshaw constitute to a lot of traffic and pollution in the cities. We could replace them with smart electric ones. They move around only in cities so it won't be…

Auto-rickshaws are already ALL electric in some cities. Haridwar for one.

I was in Haridwar last month and only auto-rickshaws I saw there were diesel guzzling Vikrams

Re: India, Once a Coal Goliath, Is Fast Turning Green

#158

Post by crazystar »

pvsukale3 wrote: post #130
rajangdavis wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India is a large country.

Yeah. But we have got to start somewhere. First we can focus on cities and then move towards rural India.

50%* of our workforce relies on agriculture. Bringing up their standards of living i.e. rural India is what we need to focus on first.

*https://www.ibef.org/exports/agriculture-and-food-industry-i...

Re: India, Once a Coal Goliath, Is Fast Turning Green

#159

Post by pvsukale3 »

crazystar wrote: post #158
pvsukale3 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. But we have got to start somewhere. First we can focus on cities and then move towards rural India.

50%* of our workforce relies on agriculture. Bringing up their standards of living i.e. rural India is what we need to focus on first. * https://www.ibef.org/exports/agriculture-and-food-industry-i...

Yeah. I sometimes think about it. The problem is most of the farmers have very less land. Also they use unsustainable methods and weather has been inconsistent in recent years. We need another agricultural revolution. But it's lot more complicated to get people on board. People in the rural area are really hard to work with ( not all of them ).They suffer , but they don't want change , they want subsidiaries , free loans. maybe we don't understand them because we live in the cities.

Re: India, Once a Coal Goliath, Is Fast Turning Green

#160

Post by SophosQ »

rsync wrote: post #149
matt4077 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CO_2 emissions are the same if it goes up in big black smokes of clouds next to some school, or if it's burned in the best incinerator money can buy, or even if it's thrown in the ocean and slowly degraded by organic means. The only thing that makes a difference is recycling.

"CO_2 emissions are the same if it goes up in big black smokes of clouds next to some school, or if it's burned in the best incinerator money can buy" Is that really true ? I was under the impression that the very best incinerators (what nordic countries use for garbage disposal as well as cities like Zurich, etc.) had carbon capture mechanisms ... Is that not true ?

I believe carbon capture is a newer innovation whose development had been stalled due to its prohibitive costs. The first carbon capture experiments were scheduled to be conducted in 2016. Albeit I'm not aware of their results.
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