Clean utilisation of coal is the future, important for sustainable development: Coal Secretary

New Delhi: Delivering the 62nd Holland Memorial Lecture of MGMI, Coal Secretary Amrit Lal Meena on Saturday assured stakeholders that India is increasing its coal production and expanding the evacuation infrastructure in tandem, which will ensure the availability of coal for coal gasification and production of blue hydrogen. “Coal evacuation infrastructure is getting major thrust under PM Gati Shakti. The evacuation infrastructure planned will not just cater to the evacuation of coal produced in the near future but will also facilitate evacuation for future coal projects, especially for captive and commercial mines,” said the Secretary.

With the GDP projected to be at USD 32.8 trillion by 2047, India’s energy requirement will rise significantly and coal will play an important role in meeting the country’s energy needs, said the Coal Secretary. “The share of coal will be about 31 percent by 2047 and we must find ways to ensure the clean utilisation of coal,” he added.

Coal India will support any R&D effort in blue hydrogen: CMD

In his special address at the 62nd Holland Memorial Lecture, Coal India Ltd (CIL) Chairman Pramod Agrawal batted for blue hydrogen, saying that it can supplement Green hydrogen and can serve as a bridge fuel until green hydrogen becomes cheap. He assured full support for any research and development (R&D) effort in the field of blue hydrogen.

India has the world’s fifth-largest coal reserves which it can use to make blue hydrogen by employing coal gasification and carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) technologies.

“In the future, the consumption of fossil fuel will have to be done in a way that is sustainable. This is where blue hydrogen is of use,” said Agrawal. “Ultimately, green hydrogen will be the choicest option. But green hydrogen is costly today. Blue hydrogen in the meantime can serve as an alternative to grey until green becomes cheap,” said the Coal India CMD.

Hydrogen gets its colour from the process which is employed to produce it. While grey hydrogen produces the maximum amount of carbon emission since all the CO2 produced in the process gets released into the atmosphere, blue is comparatively cleaner as 80-90 percent of the carbon produced in the process is captured before it enters the atmosphere and is utilised (using CCUS), while green hydrogen does not emit any C02 into the atmosphere.

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