Not only construction dust, vehicular emission and stubble burning are responsible for polluting Capital's air but also the use of coal in thermal power sector is another factor that escalates values of Particulate Matters (PMs), sulphur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NO), say findings of Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) study.
According to the latest study of the green body, thermal power plants are operating at poor efficiency in India leading to high coal usage and generating around 10 per cent higher CO2 emissions compared to China. CSE's study on emission from coal-based thermal power plants has revealed that the total emissions from the industrial sector, the power sector alone contributes 60 per cent of the PM, 45 per cent of the SO2, 30 per cent of the NO and 80 per cent of the mercury emissions.
CSE researchers also said that coal-based power sector with the help of Ministry of Power and the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) is not complying with the new emission norms that will come into effect shortly.
It is important to mention here that these new norms about emission standards (PMs, SO2 and NO) were enacted by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF and CC) in December 2015 in view of the sector's massive contribution to air pollution and its huge water withdrawal.
"The industry was given two years to comply with the norms, however, there has been little progress so far, theses norms come to effect from December 2017, but the CEA is now recommending that plants be given another five years (which means the deadline should be extended from 2017 to 2022) to comply with the new norms," said Chandra Bhushan, Deputy Director General, CSE, adding, "CSE, however, has recommended to the MoEF&CC and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) not to accept the fresh timelines proposed by Power Ministry and the CEA.
"Another five years to meet these standards is unacceptable. Power plants have already wasted two years doing virtually nothing," he added.
Based on their recent findings on pollution generated due to coal based thermal plants, CSE officials emphasising that Implementing the new norms will provide significant environmental benefits and will help to cut emissions by 70-85 per cent.
CSE said that CEA's recommendations to give additional five years to coal based industry to comply the latest norms are not acceptable. "The sector has extremely high air pollution impact," said CSE.
CSE has proposed an alternate plan to the Environment Ministry and CPCB to tighten deadlines and meet standards in a staggered fashion between 2018 and 2020.
Since 2010, China has added close to 300,000 megawatts (MW) of coal power capacity. Its current capacity is about 950,000 MW-over three times that of India. However, between 2011 and 2016, the average operation hours of its plants have reduced-from 5,305 hours of the 8,760 hours in a year to 4,165 hours. This means coal power plants in China operated at less than half their capacity in 2016.