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• India in COP 26 of the United Nations Framework for Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC) maintained the stance of phasing down coal rather than phasing out coal.

Why move away from coal?

• The threat of global warming. The only effective way is to cut the use of fossil fuels – coal, natural gas and oil.
• Among them coal emits nearly twice as much carbon dioxide as natural gas and about 60% more than oil, on a kilogram-kilogram comparison.

India’s dependence on coal

• As of February 2022, India’s installed capacity for coal-based power generation across the country was 2.04 lakh megawatt (MW) i.e., 51.5% of power from all sources.
• According to International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Coal Report 2021, India’s coal consumption will increase at an average annual rate of 3.9% to 1.18 billion tonnes in 2024.
• As per World Coal Association, the coal in India will be a significant contributor to the energy sector even in 2040.

India’s phase-down of coal

• Natural gas has been dubbed as the transition fuel in India’s plans to move away from coal.
• While renewable energy sources are cheaper than coal, their ability to generate power consistently is subject to the whims of nature — the wind and the Sun.
  • Coal can give you power on demand.
• Storage technologies are still not mature enough to help renewable energy sources become reliable generators of power.

Coal availability in India

• The Power Ministry urged States recently to step up coal imports as the private sector would take till about 2025 to produce significant amounts of coal.
• Coal India, the country’s largest coal supplier of dry fuel is set to import coal for the first time since 2015 to avoid a power outage crisis.
• There is a 15% higher shortage than expected for the September quarter of 2022.
• The domestic supply stood at 154.7 MT compared with the requirement of 197.3 MT.

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