Time to improve technology in coal-based industries: BHEL chief

The time has come to look for ways to improve technology in coal-based industries as India is having more than 70% coal-based power stations, a situation that would continue for at least the next 10 years, said A V Krishnan, the executive director of BHEL Trichy. Participating at the two-day conference on clean coal, carbon capture and storage technologies that has been organized by the Trichy Regional Engineering College Science Technology Entrepreneurs Park (TREC-STEP) in partnership with BHEL, Krishnan said that in a country like India where more and more coal-based power stations were bound to come up in the coming years, lessening the carbon-related emissions was of paramount importance. Krishnan said different technologies needed to be used for different coals. For instance, he said that BHEL was successfully using the newly-developed integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) technology that would greatly improve the efficiency level, that is to say a measure of how much heat energy embedded in coals was converted into electricity. Funded by the European Union, the project aims at disseminating the latest carbon capture and storage technologies among the Indian thermal power players as the anticipated growth in energy demand is expected to widen the usage of coal in energy sector in the coming years. To reduce the consumption of goal, and emissions (carbon, hydrogen, sulfur related), the IGCC would be one of the future technologies for green power generation, Krishnan said. In fact, BHEL has taken it up as a project and working hand in hand with TREC-STEP for the last three years, visited a number of power plants in the country to study what kind of technology was used at present, and what would be better-suited for the Indian conditions. more at: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/trichy/Time-to-improve-technology-in-coal-based-industries-BHEL-chief/articleshow/26759728.cms