Page 26 - Mines and Minerals Reporter eMagazine - Volume October 2021

TECHNOLOGY

areas, viz. CMM recovery and CCS sub-clusters in
eastern India. Future analyses should focus on bet-
ter incorporating the role of such infrastructure in
systems-studies pertaining to long-term decarbon-
ization scenarios for India.

Disclaimer

These results presented in this article are outputs of
the academic research conducted under the DDP-
BIICS project as per the contractual agreement. The
academic work does not in any way represent our
considered opinion for climate negotiations and
also does not reflect the official policy or position
of the Government of India.
Acknowledgement

This study is part of the DDP Initiative (ddpinitia-
tive.org) and the International Climate Initiative
(IKI). This study has been partially funded by Indian
Institute of Management Ahmedabad and the Fed-
Figure 2. Sub-clustering of a prospective CCS hub in eastern India. It should be noted eral Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conser-
that the status of some ultra-mega power plants has changed since the original
publication but we estimate that the sub-clustering here could still be viable. vation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), who supports this
Source: Garg et al, 2017, reproduced with permission. initiative on the basis of a decision adopted by the
German Bundestag under the project titled “From
coal by 2030 and the government has allotted a concession of NDCs to Pathways and Policies: Transformative Climate Action
20% on the coal revenue for gasification. Development of the After Paris” [Grant agreement:18_I_326].
methanol pathway could be crucial for utilization of methanol
as a fuel/chemical but also due to the potential of methanol to References
act as an energy carrier and produce synthetic hydrocarbons.
Coal India has invited bids to construct a $813M coal-tometh- Andrew, R. M. (2020). Timely estimates of India’s annual and
anol plant in Dankuni, West Bengal.
monthly fossil CO2 emissions. Earth System Science Data,
12(4), 2411-2421.
Summing up
Bertram, C., Luderer, G., Creutzig, F., Bauer, N., Ueckerdt, F.,
The future of coal in India would depend on multiple factors Malik, A., & Edenhofer, O. (2021). COVID-19-induced low pow
including the climate constraints and the perceived role of
coal to operate in a low-carbon economy. Opportunities for
decarbonization and diversification of the coal sector exist
across the supply-chain as noted in this paper. While some of
the technologies have been proven effective at a global scale,
others are at a lower readiness level. Several of these clean
coal technologies have faced technical challenges in India due
to the unique geo-mining conditions, fuel quality as well as
operating conditions of the power plants. The government’s
thrust on the methanol economy and reduction of emissions
from the upstream coal sectors could be useful in creating
several methanol- and methane-based co-products and aid in
creating alternative streams of revenue. For long-term path-
ways with coal, there is a need to better conceptualize and
evaluate the relevant infrastructure necessary for CCS in In-
dia. Apart from providing the current technological status, this
paper also identifies key future opportunities in at least two

24 MINES & MINERALS REPORTER / OCTOBER 2021