The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-29)

SUNDAY, MAY 29 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A21

coal power. The last-minute change sparked international criticism and an apology from COP 26 President Alok Sharma, who described the summit’s con- clusion as “deeply disappoint- ing.” Like India, China has also raised its annual coal production target in recent weeks — by 80 million tons — while its miners broke a one-day output record. India’s coal production is widely expected to expand in the coming years as the government looks to meet surging power demand and secure energy inde- pendence. The country is the world’s second-largest coal pro- ducer behind China, according to the International Energy Agency, and will contribute the largest increase in global coal output in absolute tonnage be- tween 2021 and 2024. About 80 percent of its coal output comes from Coal India, the state- owned giant.

Speaking publicly this month, officials defended their coal pol- icies as necessary to meet the nation’s thirst for electrical power. The coal minister, Pralhad Joshi, predicted that India’s coal requirements will double by

His deputy, Anil Kumar
Jain, said the government was
being unfairly blamed — both for
producing too much and too
little — and he urged more
private companies to enter the
mining business.
“Earlier we were hailed as bad
boys because we were promoting
fossil fuel, and now we are in the
news that we are not supplying
enough of it,” Jain told reporters.
The country of nearly 1.4 bil-
lion is e xpected to s ee its demand
for electricity more than double
by 2030, according to the IEA. By
205 0, the agency estimates that
India will consume 15 times
more energy for cooling than in
2018, largely b ecause the number
of air conditioners in use will
skyrocket. Even though India is

building out renewable energy sources, it still derives 70 percent of its power from coal, an abun- dant natural resource. But Coal India saw its production stagnate from 2019 to 2021, because of a failure by the government to appoint senior man- agement and fund mining ex- pansions, said Anil Swarup, a former coal secretary. If any- thing, he predicted, India will be scrambling to increase output. “The current crisis will per- haps be managed,” he said. “But I’m quite sure this crisis will surface again if long-term plan- ning for ramping up coal production is not done.” This spring showed how In- dia’s power crunch could be further compounded in a world that is only getting hotter. Heat waves in northern India are 100 times more likely in the era of anthropogenic climate change, according to an analysis by Brit- ain’s national weather service. Beginning in March, India’s

power plants, which had already been importing less coal because of high global commodity prices, underestimated how much of the fuel they would need to keep in stock just as temperatures in parts of north India suddenly spiked, analysts said. By the end of April, government data showed that India was consum- ing 20 percent more electricity than in April 2019 — the last comparable month before the pandemic. “Nobody anticipated a two- month-long heat wave across the country,” said Swati D’Souza, an energy researcher at the Insti- tute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, who described the government ap- proach as doubling down on both coal and renewables. The wild card, she said, will be extreme climate. “These events will be a lot more frequent than they were in the past,” she said. “So we need to start preparing for them.”

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES A worker loads coal into a rail car last month at the Amrapali mines in northwest India. Energy consumption for cooling skyrocketed during a historic heat wave, and officials have approved large increases in coal production to help cover the demand for electricity.

BY GERRY SHIH

new delhi — Prime Minister
Narendra Modi has long touted
his vision of turning India into a
leader in renewable energy. Re-
cent weeks have revealed a more
complicated reality.
In the past month, as India
broiled under a historic heat
wave and consumed a record
amount of electricity for cooling,
the Coal Ministry announced it
would reopen old mines and
increase output by 100 million
tons. As cities went into rolling
blackouts because of electricity
shortages, the Power Ministry
ordered plants that burn import-
ed coal to run at full capacity.
The Environment Ministry
has given coal mines permission
to boost production by up to
50 percent without seeking new
permits, according to a May 7
memo. The memo attributed the
relaxed environmental regula-
tions to “huge pressure on do-
mestic coal supply in the coun-
try” and said “all efforts are
being made to meet the demand
of coal.”
The developments highlight
the persistent, even growing, re-
liance on coal in the world’s
third-largest emitter of green-
house gases — and one of the
foremost victims of climate
change.
Although analysts acknowl-
edge that India faces a genuine
dilemma in how to meet its
soaring energy demands, many
say the government is sending
mixed policy signals by promot-
ing coal mining and power gen-
eration as it trumpets its green
ambitions on the international
stage. In the run-up to the 2015
Paris climate agreement, Modi
pledged to install 175 gigawatts

of renewable energy capacity by

He later raised that target
to 450 gigawatts by 2030.
But India has installed less
than 100 gigawatts of solar and
wind power so far, and most
Indian analysts say the 175 giga-
watt goal is beyond reach this
year.
Had India stuck to its pledge
on renewables, it would not have
faced a power shortage this
spring, according to estimates
from the Climate Risk Horizons
consultancy in New Delhi. Even
on April 29, when Delhi reached
110 degrees — t he second-highest
temperature for that month in 70
years — and peak electricity
demand hit a record high, India
could have met the need had it
been on track to install 160
gigawatts of solar and wind pow-
er by the end of the year, said
Ashish Fernandes, the consul-
tancy’s chief executive.
“India’s continued support of
coal mining and power plant
expansion is worrying,” Fer-
nandes said. “It would be a pity if
India’s entrenched coal lobby
forces the government to go slow
on its energy transition plans, as
analysis shows that any contin-
ued coal growth will in fact
undermine India’s renewable en-
ergy targets and climate commit-
ments.”
How India manages its energy
transition is of paramount im-
portance because of its size and
rapid growth, say international
researchers and climate policy
officials. President Biden’s cli-
mate representative, John F. Ker-
ry, made repeated visits to New
Delhi last year ahead of the
COP 26 climate conference to
nudge the Modi government to
make more ambitious pledges to
cut coal and reduce emissions,
with scant results.
In November at the COP26
meeting, India and China wa-
tered down the language in the
summit’s final statement, which
ultimately said participating
countries pledged to “phase
down” rather than “phase out”

I ndia falls back on

coal as searing heat

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