PDF: 2962 pages, 5.2 MB - Bay Area Council Economic Institute

Global Reach
install 14 biomass projects in Punjab State that will together generate 147 megawatts of
power and employ 3,000 people.
• The Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources (MNES)’ Programme on Energy
Recovery from Urban Wastes has facilitated more than 46 megawatts of waste-to-energy
projects linked to vegetable markets, slaughterhouses, tanneries, sewage treatment plants
and pulp and paper mills.
A June 2008 study by The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India
(ASSOCHAM) estimates that as much as 2,500 megawatts of electricity could be generated in
urban areas throughout India by plants collecting and burning municipal and industrial wastes.
The study suggests that building the waste-to-energy plants to produce this power might cost a
total $2 billion in city and state funds. Environmentalists and NGOs have been critical of the
proposal, however, citing the power likely required to run these large plants and the potentially
toxic emissions they would produce.
India is the world’s third largest methane-emitting country. Methane released from India’s more
than 500 coal mines is estimated to have a gas production potential of 105 million cubic meters
per day for 20 years. Coal mines are vented to allow methane gas to escape so as to prevent explosions.
Oil and gas wells also release large amounts of methane during the drilling process and
must be vented for safety reasons. Methane is 21 times more damaging than C0 2 in terms of its
contribution to greenhouse gases.
Methane capture in the petroleum sector has been a government priority since 1997, when the
Ministries of Coal and Petroleum & Natural Gas signed a memorandum of understanding to
cooperate on sites and projects. Begun in 1997, a $19.2 million demonstration project involving
methane extraction, surface capture, and storage at the Jharia coalfield in Jharkand state was
funded by the UN Development Program and a Global Environment Facility Grant, and was
completed in 2007.
Since 2004, India has been a signatory to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Methane-to-Markets Partnership, a global initiative to share methane capture technology and
methods. Among the activities funded by EPA grants:
• pump tests to measure methane levels at the Deonar landfill near Mumbai;
• organizing dairy producers in Maharashtra and Gujarat to develop a program for
methane capture from livestock wastes; and
• studying the feasibility of converting landfill gas to LNG and using that LNG to fuel
buses and garbage trucks in Maharashtra.
Biofuel production is constrained by the fact that prime agricultural land can’t be used for energy
crops. Degraded lands, however, are eligible. India is aggressively pursuing biodiesel fuel production
from the jatropha curcas plant, a drought-resistant and pest-resistant tropical succulent
that can be grown throughout the country. Jatropha seeds have a yield up to 40% oil that can be
182