12-14 September, 2011, Lucknow - Earth Science India

National Conference on Science of Climate Change and Earth’s Sustainability: Issues and Challenges ‘A Scientist-People Partnership’
12-14 September, 2011, Lucknow
MEETING THE CHALLENGE OF CLIMATE CHANGE
THROUGH GREEN MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGIES
OF ENERGY
Mrinal K. Ghose
Asian Development Bank in Vietnam, 113 Regent Estate, Kolkata -700092
Energy security means ensuring that a country can supply lifeline energy to all its
citizens at an affordable cost. The paper focuses on the consumption of different
primary energy sources and it identifies that coal will continue to remain as the prime
energy source in foreseeable future. However, direct use of coal leads to environmental
pollution. This paper emphasizes the need to develop green manufacturing technologies
where coal can be refined in coal refineries to obtain different fractionated products
having different quality – grade – class (QGC) of fuels. Liquefaction of coal affords
liquid fuels from coal for further refining for reducing the import of petroleum. The use
of ultra clean coal in gas turbines directly will enhance the efficiency of power
generation to 52-55% from the existing efficiency of pulverized coal power generation
of 33 - 38%.It discusses the mechanisms that are driving global climate change. It
highlights the impact of climate change on energy sector and its engineering solutions
like clean development mechanism through efficient technologies in terms mining
technologies, extraction of coal bed methane and underground coal gasification are
discussed in this paper. Challenge lies in de-linking economic growth and
environmental degradation. Power plant performance improvement is required to
support public and private power plant operators. To reduce green house gas emission it
has become important to justify the use of nuclear energy. The danger of radiation due
to the damage cased by earthquakes and tsunamis are discussed. The Renewable Energy
Potential like solar energy, energy from agricultural wastes, wind energy, carbon
sequestration, integrated gasification combined cycle, fuel cells are also discussed in
this paper. The paper concludes that green manufacturing technology as proposed here
can meet the energy security of a country in a sustainable manner.
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