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National Coal Gasification Mission

 

National Coal Gasification Mission: Relevance

  • GS 3: Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways etc.

 

National Coal Gasification Mission: Context

  • Recently, Ministry of Coal has prepared a blueprint for the ‘National Coal Gasification Mission’ to encourage investments in coal sector.

 

National Coal Gasification Mission: Key points

  • The Ministry has proposed 15% methanol-blending target with petrol to encourage investments in the sector.
  • The Ministry also proposes massive tax waivers to incentivise coal gasification, which can lead to eco-friendly alternate utility of the fuel.
    • According to the blueprint, such waivers will not entail any revenue loss as it is proposed only on incremental coal use only for gasification.
  • Last year, our Prime Minister had said that Rs 20,000 crore will be invested in coal gasification projects by 2030 to utilise 100 million tonnes of coal.

 

National Coal Gasification Mission_3.1

 

Coal gasification: Why needed?

  • Most of India’s known coal deposits are non-recoverable as they are deep, scattered and covered by forests.
  • Underground coal gasification could help extract this plentiful reserve.

 

Read about: Coal Crisis in India

 

Coal gasification process

  • Coal can be gasified to turn it into a cleaner syngas or synthesis gas which constitutes the basic building block of the chemical industry.
    • Syngas: A mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide.
  • Syngas can then be converted into a wide range of products such as methanol and olefins of which India is at present a net importer.
  • The syngas technology allows conversion of non-mineable coal/lignite into combustible gases through in situ gasification of the material.

 

National Coal Gasification Mission_4.1

 

Methanol importance

  • Domestic production of methanol from coal is seen to help in import substitution and ensure steady supplies at a less volatile price range.
  • Almost 90% of domestic methanol requirement is met through imports.
  • According to the experts, a typical gasification facility needs about $2 billion of investment and can produce between 1 and 2 MT of methanol a year and it is estimated that 5-6 MT of coal would be required to produce 2 MT of methanol.

 

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