India aims for 100 million tonnes (MT) coal gasification by 2030 with investments worth over Rs. 4 lakh crores, said Shri Pralhad Joshi, Union Minister of Coal and Mines. Its no longer an aspiration but a requirement now.

3 phase implementation

    1. First phase (2020-2024): 4 million tonnes of coal to be gasified with an investment of Rs. 20,000 crore.

    2. Second phase (2020-2026): 6 MT of coal to be gasified with an investment of Rs. 30,000 crore.

    3. Third phase (2022-2030): 90 MT of coal to be gasified with an investment of Rs. 3.6 lakh crore.

Steps taken so far

    • CIL has also planned to set up at least 3 gasification plants (besides Dankuni) on BOO basis through global tendering and has signed an MOU with GAIL for marketing synthetic natural gas.

    • To encourage use of clean sources of fuel, government has provided for a concession of 20% on revenue share of coal used for gasification.

    • A Steering Committee has been constituted in this regard under the chairmanship of Dr. V.K. Saraswat, Member, NITI Aayog comprising of members from the Ministry of Coal.

About Coal Gasification

Coal gasification is the process of producing syngas—a mixture consisting primarily of carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen (H2), carbon dioxide (CO2), natural gas (CH4), and water vapour (H2O)—from coal and water, air and/or oxygen. In other words, instead of burning the fossil fuel, it is chemically transformed into synthetic natural gas (SNG).

Gasification, as opposed to combustion, is the most thermally efficient and cleanest way to convert the energy content of coal into electricity, hydrogen, clean fuels, and value-added chemicals.

Historically, coal was gasified to produce coal gas, also known as "town gas". Coal gas is combustible and was used for heating and municipal lighting, before the advent of large-scale production of natural gas from oil wells.

    • Coal gasification is advantageous from economic and energy perspective since it can dwindle down the local pollution but its overall carbon emission is more than a traditional coal plant.

    • Secondly, such an effort is a water-intensive forms of energy production but where coals are found, mostly the areas suffer water shortages.

    • Thirdly, transportation of SNG is economically much cheaper than the coal.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants. The views expressed here are personal.)