Environmental Impact of the coal Industry

Coal is the only natural resource and fossil fuel available in abundance in India. Consequently, it is used widely as a thermal energy source and also as fuel for thermal power plants producing electricity. India has about 90,000 MW installed capacity for electricity generation, of which more than 70% is produced by coal-based thermal power plants. Hydro-electricity contributes about 25%, and the remaining is mostly from nuclear power plants (NPPs). The problems associated with the use of coal are low calorific value and very high ash content. The ash content is as high as 55-60%, with an average value of about 35-40%. Further, most of the coal is located in the eastern parts of the country and requires transportation over long distances, mostly by trains, which run on diesel. About 70% oil is imported and is a big drain on India's hard currency. 

In the foreseeable future, there is no other option likely to be available, as the nuclear power programme envisages installing 20,000 MWe by the year 2020, when it will still be around 5% of the installed capacity. Hence, attempts are being made to reduce the adverse environmental and ecological impact of coal-fired power plants. The installed electricity generating capacity has to increase very rapidly (at present around 8-10% per annum), as India has one of the lowest per capita electricity consumptions. Therefore, the problems for the future are formidable from ecological, radio-ecological and pollution viewpoints. A similar situation exists in many developing countries of the region, including the People's Republic of China, where coal is used extensively. The paper highlights some of these problems with the data generated in the author's laboratory and gives a brief description of the solutions being attempted. The extent of global warming in this century will be determined by how developing countries like India manage their energy generation plans. Some of the recommendations have been implemented for new plants, and the situation in the new plants is much better. A few coal washeries have also been established. It will be quite some time before the steps to improve the environmental releases are implemented in older plants and several coal mines due to resource constraints.

Ocean Acidification

"Ocean acidification is a global environmental issue caused by the man-made release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Ocean acidification is often called the "evil twin" to climate change, because both issues are rooted in carbon dioxide emissions. "

The oceans absorb almost 30 percent of the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but the rising amount of carbon dioxide emissions being created by human activity has surpassed what the oceans can healthfully absorb, changing ocean chemistry and making them more acidic.

The current rate of change in the ocean's pH is 100 times faster than any time in the last few hundred thousand years and is most likely unprecedented in the Earth’s history. This shift in the natural balance of the ocean’s chemistry will have major adverse effects on tropical as well as cold-water corals, and the loss of many coral species will negatively impact a variety of marine life and ocean-dependent economies, such as fishing and tourism.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop there. Ocean acidification may have negative impacts for many other marine species, especially those that produce shells. In some cases, these impacts are already occurring, and they have the potential to disrupt entire ocean ecosystems and disrupt food webs.

The only truly effective way of combating ocean acidification and climate change is to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions. If action is not taken now, ocean acidification may cause widespread disruption to marine ecosystems and a massive decline of corals within this century.

Oceana is working to reduce the cause and effects of ocean acidification by promoting government policies to cap CO₂ emissions, eliminate offshore drilling, and by advocating for energy efficiency and alternative energy sources such as wind power and more.

Rising Sea-Level

Rising sea levels in parts of the Indian Ocean, including the coastlines of the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, Sri Lanka, Sumatra and Java, appear to be at least partly a result of human-induced increases of atmospheric greenhouse gases, says a study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder. 

indian Ocean sea levels are rising unevenly and threatening residents in some densely populated coastal areas, particularly those along the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, Sri Lanka, Sumatra, and Java. This image shows the key player in the process, the Indo-Pacific warm pool, in bright orange. This enormous, bathtub-shaped area spans a region of the tropical oceans from the east coast of Africa to the International Date Line in the Pacific. The warm pool has heated by about 1 degree Fahrenheit, or 0.5 degrees Celsius, in the past 50 years, primarily because of human-generated emissions of greenhouses gases. 

The key player in the process is the Indo-Pacific warm pool, an enormous, bathtub-shaped area of the tropical oceans stretching from the east coast of Africa west to the International Date Line in the Pacific. The warm pool has heated by about 1 degree Fahrenheit, or 0.5 degrees Celsius, in the past 50 years, primarily caused by human-generated increases of greenhouse gases, said Han.