Implementing Carbon Capture technology in India- key considerations

In an article on EPC World, Atanu Mukherjee, CEO, Dastur Energy writes –

As one of the fastest growing economies in the G20 grouping of large nations, India will need to adopt a host of measures and strategies in order to sustain its growth plans while ensuring that its commitment towards achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2070 does not get compromised.

On the energy front, moving from fossil fuels to renewable energy will take time due to the need to transition from the existing grid infrastructure to one that can handle the move to renewables. With India’s per capita energy demand set to increase to 2500kWh by 2050 on account of its expanding population1, the dependency on current thermal power generation will exist for quite some time. Therefore, the near-term approach would need to involve implementing technology to capture carbon dioxide emissions contributed by thermal power generation.

Economic growth is accompanied by increased production from industries supporting – infrastructural deployment, agricultural output, and transportation needs. These (Steel, Cement, Oil and Gas, Petrochemicals) constitute the ‘hard to abate’ industry sectors, which together contribute the most towards the total carbon dioxide emissions. Therefore, in parallel with driving economic growth, the country will need to drive adoption of carbon capture, utilisation and sequestration (CCUS) technologies across these industries in order to stay on track with India’s decarbonization goals2. It will be important to mitigate existing challenges to largescale adoption of CCUS technologies, and pave the way for sustainable economic development in the decades to come.