Use Of Coal In Odisha’s Angul Increasing; India Needs Over A Trillion Dollars In 30 Years To Move Away From Mining, Power: Study

“The associated costs include rehabilitation and repurposing of 343,504 hectares (ha) of coal mining land, green repowering of 124,789 ha of land available at TPP (thermal power plant) sites,” the iForest (International Forum for Environment, Sustainability and Technology) report said.

The study highlighted that there were 417 operational coal and lignite mines in India and that only 12 districts across nine states produced 72 per cent of the country’s coal and lignite. Singrauli in Madhya Pradesh, Angul in Odisha and Korba in Chhatisgarh alone accounted for 42 per cent of India’s coal.

The study divided the costs of transition into green energy costs and non-energy costs. Green energy costs accounted for nearly 52 per cent of the total costs and comprised the cost of building green energy plants, repowering existing thermal power plants through other sources of power and upgradation of the electricity grid.

About 48 per cent of the transition costs are non-energy costs such as “just transition costs”, which refers to supporting workers and communities dependent on coal to get livelihood alternatives and costs of economic diversification which can create green jobs.