It is crucial that we adopt and transition to deep decarbonising technologies in order to move towards climate resilient and low carbon-emission pathways. At CSTEP, our focus is on identifying and assessing the viability of implementing technology solutions, preparing greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories and State Action Plans for Climate Change (SAPCC), and designing monitoring and evaluating frameworks for mitigation action.
Environmental Rating of Coal-Based Thermal Power Plants
Studies point out that despite the Government of India's renewable energy target of 450 GW by 2030, electricity generation from coal-based thermal power plants (TPPs) will still be more than half of the total supply. TPPs release pollutants, such as sulphur dioxides (SOx), oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and particulate matter (PM), which have a serious impact on human health. Coal mining and fly ash from coal combustion pollute both surface and ground water. Additionally, TPPs are responsible for around 40% of India’s total GHG emissions.
State Action Plan 2.0: Time to Get Vocal for Local
Nineteen extreme weather events in 2019 claimed 1,357 lives, with heavy rain and floods accounting for 63% of deaths in India. Between 2013 and 2019, there has been a 69% increase in the number of heatwave days. Many Indian states are increasingly experiencing extreme weather events such as heavy rainfall, heat waves, and super cyclones. These are projected to increase even further in the future. These changes in India's climate will be an additional stress to ecosystems, agricultural outputs, and freshwater resources, and could also damage the infrastructure.
Walking on thin ice
Changes in the climate system over tens of thousands of years brought about ice ages and interglacial warming periods. Science confirms that climate change, which is a large-scale and long-term change in the earth’s weather patterns, is human-induced and not due to natural causes.
Globally, the past five years have been the hottest on record, extreme weather events such as heat waves, floods, and droughts have gone up five-fold, and economic losses have increased seven-fold over the past 50 years.
India’s newly planned vehicle scrapping policy: A 2-in-1 solution to curb air pollution and revive the auto industry
Nearly 4 million commercial vehicles in India are expected to ride into the sunset soon. The much awaited vehicle scrappage policy, expected to be notified shortly by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), aims to scrap older commercial (more than 15 years) and private vehicles (more than 20 years). Currently, the total number of vehicles older than 15 years in the country is around 28 million (including all categories), of which nearly 4 million are commercial.
Implication of emission regulation on cost and tariffs of coal-based power plants in India: A system modelling approach
•The study estimated the investment required to meet new emission standards for coal power plants in India till 2030.
•The cost of electricity generation from coal power plants will increase by 9–25% with pollution control technologies.
•Study also highlighted the challenges in implementing emission standards and provided suitable policy recommendations.
India’s Climate Strategy — Need for Emissions Control
With the world waking up to climate emergency, most countries are looking at controlling emissions, including a reduction in Greenhouse Gases (GHG). Most mitigation measures take the command and control approach that relies on use of standards to achieve a change in emissions. These measures often take the form of environmental standards (such as National Standards for Effluents and Emission), and performance standards (such as Standards & Labeling Programme).
Water-reduction potential of air-cooled condensers in coal power plants in India and anticipated trade-offs
Wet cooling towers (WCT) are widely used to reject the unutilized heat in coal thermal power plants (TPPs). But this comes at the cost of excessive water consumption. Adoption of air-cooled condensers (ACC), also known as dry cooling systems, in all proposed Indian TPPs would reduce their water consumption by 26% in 2030. However, power producers are reluctant to install ACC due to technical and economic disadvantages such as high capital investment and land footprint.
Climate Mitigation Policy Evaluation for the State of Gujarat - June 2020
This report contains the following elements:
▪ A listing of the policies/ programmes/ schemes/ missions/ laws applicable within boundary of the state of Gujarat considered for analysis across the sectors
▪ Analysis of achievement of targets under the policies/ programmes/ schemes/ missions/ laws. and an its assessment of GHG emission implications
▪ An assessment, wherever possible of the positive and/or negative impacts of the implementation of these policies on the climate
Industries - Enablers for 1.5 degree Celsius aligned NDC ambitions
As parties to the Paris agreement prepare to enhance their NDCs next year, non-party stakeholders have a crucial responsibility in leading the governments to take concrete measures to urgently align their growth and climate actions with the 1.5 degree Celsius target. Bridging the emissions gap and enabling a transition to a low carbon economy will require concerted efforts from industries: take responsibility for their contribution to the overall emissions by leveraging and using their strength to rapidly deploy innovative technologies at scale.