[Stoves] Off-topic: Open biomass burning and urban air pollution in India

Tue Oct 16 16:08:10 CDT 2018

Crispin:

You need a whipping boy.

The coal-fired power plant in Delhi was a disgrace. Anything like it would
have been shut down from day one. Last time I was passing by, I tried to
see if it even had a baghouse. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badarpur_Thermal_Power_Station#Power_plant.

Delhi buses and autorickshaws switched to Compressed Natural Gas perhaps
ten years ago.  Gas is the fuel of choice, imported or not. Besides, by now
there should be enough transmission lines and, but for the smog, Delhi
rooftop PV and PV farms nearby can easily supply enough peak capacity as
this power plant now shut down.

Another PM challenge is diesel for private power. Power reliability in
Delhi was the worst of any capital city I ever visited, so just about
everybody who could afford it  had a diesel generator and sometimes ran
them on kerosene.

I last looked into Indian coal some ten years ago. Coal India is a
government company and has orders - not contracts - to supply coal to
government-owned power plants and industry. Coal specifications are poor
and poorly adhered to.

I learned my lessons in energy policy from a retired Indian bureaucrat some
32 years ago.  I had earlier been cynical about the Report of the Working
Group on Energy Policy (1979). He schooled me on the historical, political
and legal aspects of energy policy and I accepted that the report was all
that could have been done at the time.  There were major policy reforms
over time, but i) the financing of the sector is a huge mess and can
unsettle the whole Indian financial system, and ii) there is no planning
and oversight capacity of any effect anywhere, regulators with little
insight having taken over whatever oversight there remains.

We did produce polluting punditry of Nobel Laureate R K Pachauri.  I don't
think he was ever asked for a study on reforming India's coal sector,
though.

Nikhil

On Tue, Oct 16, 2018 at 11:59 AM Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <
crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:

> Dear Nikhil
>
> In European Courts there was an official whipping boy. If the prince
> sinned and punishment was needed, the whipping boy took the whipping.
>
> When air pollution is a problem, flog the coal-powered meme.
>
> Instead of learning to burn local coal cleanly, they are banning it and
> substituting with imported natural gas‎, which they can't afford. It keeps
> the poor poor I suppose. Feeds the foreigners.
>
> Why don't they make fuel from stover the way they do in China? Too
> difficult to rett and pellet?
>
> Crispin
>
>
> From Washington Post link below.
>
> Maybe Kirk Smith can compute aDALYs for every farmer and every crop, and
> the Indian ministry of Health - or UN Foundation - can finance the
> incentives to farmers to avoid burning crop wastes.
>
> Nikhil
>
> "All it takes is a match.
>
> One by one, in the coming days, farmers in this compact village in
> northern India will set fire to the straw in their freshly harvested rice
> fields. Pungent gray smoke will rise into the air. Then it will drift
> southeast toward New Delhi, thickening the smog that has turned India’s
> capital into the most polluted major city in the world.
>
> Just weeks remain before the 29 million people living in greater Delhi are
> plunged into their annual battle with extreme air pollution. Each November
> the past two years, the level of particle pollution considered most harmful
> to human health has spiked to more than 30 times the limit prescribed by
> the World Health Organization. The air in the city remains hazy and dirty
> throughout the winter.
>
> The Indian government has a new action plan in place: It just shuttered
> the last coal-fired power plant in Delhi and recently banned the use of
> certain industrial fuels within the city. On days when the pollution soars,
> other measures will kick in, such as a halt to all construction activities
> and a ban on trucks entering Delhi."
>
>
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/india-is-trying-to-prevent-apocalyptic-air-pollution-step-1-stop-farmers-from-burning-their-fields/2018/10/15/79d3fd52-cb20-11e8-ad0a-0e01efba3cc1_story.html
> <https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fworld%2Fasia_pacific%2Findia-is-trying-to-prevent-apocalyptic-air-pollution-step-1-stop-farmers-from-burning-their-fields%2F2018%2F10%2F15%2F79d3fd52-cb20-11e8-ad0a-0e01efba3cc1_story.html&data=02%7C01%7C%7C9e10ea7e6ad943db34ae08d6337e4f54%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636753014915479134&sdata=4w4OCWfWIZSa2zdq0c9iiYImuyX4k14500N5RS8AVjI%3D&reserved=0>
> ?
>
> India is trying to prevent apocalyptic air pollution. Step 1: Stop farmers
> from burning their fields.
>  Joanna Slater, Washington Post October 15 at 4:29 PM
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