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.

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.

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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