French President Emmanuel Macron this week joined German leader Friedrich Merz in urging the European Union to ditch corporate sustainability legislation that has been hailed by environmental groups but disliked by firms.

European Commission spokeswoman Paula Pinho told a press conference on Tuesday that the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) text was still "alive".

Yet, coming from the heads of the bloc's two largest economies, the demand for a rethink may spell the end for the rules that took years to negotiate and is yet to come into force.

The CSDDD requires large companies to fix the "adverse human rights and environmental impacts" of their supply chains worldwide.

This entails tracking the deforestation and pollution they, as well as their suppliers and subcontractors, cause, as well as other issues like forced labour -- and taking steps to curtail them.

The text was proposed by the commission in 2022 after a parliamentary push inspired by the 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory building in Bangladesh, which left at least 1,134 people dead.

It was finally adopted in April last year at the very end of EU chief Ursula von der Leyen's first mandate.

The law was backed by a broad coalition including the left and the greens as well as centrists, including from Macron's own party, and some centre-right lawmakers.

The lengthy negotiations and lobbying that surrounded it even became the subject of a documentary coproduced by Factstory, a subsidiary of AFP, titled "The Compromise".

- 'Shocking' -

Yet, from the offset the rules have been attacked as too burdensome for businesses.

Such a view seems to be prevailing as the bloc throws its energy into making its companies more competitive in the face of fierce competition from China and the United States.

In February the commission, the EU's executive arm, proposed to postpone the CSDDD's implementation until 2028 in a bid to help companies better prepare.

This came amid a broader EU drive to slash red tape seen as hindering businesses, amid slow growth and international trade tensions.

But on Monday, Macron said that did not go far enough, telling a conference of corporate bosses that the CSDDD and other rules need "not just to be postponed" but scrapped altogether.

Earlier this month, Merz, Germany's new chancellor, had similarly cited the rules among a series that his government hopes it will "be able to repeal".

EU lawmakers who worked hard on the text are not impressed.

Macron is offering "immunity to multinationals," complained Manon Aubry of the Left, who says she toiled for 150 hours with her Dutch colleague Lara Wolters on the bill.

Speaking to AFP Wolters described the U-turn as "shocking" and "arrogant".

"Repealing EU rules on responsible business would signal companies have the right to pocket profits made through exploitation and environmental damage," she added on social media. "Europe is better than this."

]]> Fri, 23 MAY 2025 02:11:11 AEST Bangkok (AFP) May 20, 2025 - India's plans to massively expand coal-based steel and iron production threaten global efforts to reduce the sector's carbon emissions, a key contributor to climate change, a report said Tuesday.

The sector accounts for 11 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, and India aims to double production by 2030.

Switching from coal-dependent blast furnaces to electric arc furnaces (EAFs), which produce significantly fewer emissions, could reduce that figure.

EAF production is projected to make up 36 percent of the sector by 2030, but that falls short of the 37 percent the International Energy Agency (IEA) says is needed to stay on track for net-zero by 2050.

"The only realistic way to meet that 37 percent goal is with a change of plans from India," said Astrid Grigsby-Schulte from the Global Energy Monitor (GEM) think tank.

That seemingly marginal one-percent difference "represents tens of millions of tonnes of CO2 generation", Grigsby-Schulte told AFP.

EAFs generally rely on melting scrap steel, a process that does not use coal. They produce significantly fewer emissions, even when they rely on electricity from coal-dependent grids.

Meeting the 2030 target is "critical", she said, "not only because of emissions immediately avoided, but also because it means we are laying the necessary groundwork for broader decarbonisation by 2050."

China currently dominates global steel production, but its sector is stagnant. Meanwhile India, which targets carbon neutrality only by 2070, plans to massively expand domestic capacity.

And the majority of India's announced steel development plans involve higher-emissions blast furnace production, in a country whose steel industry is already the world's most carbon intensive.

However, there is a growing gap between India's steel capacity plans and actual developments on the ground, GEM said.

Just 12 percent of its announced new capacity has come online since the country released its 2017 National Steel Policy. The comparable figure for China is 80 percent, GEM said.

That suggests India's "ambitious growth plans are more talk than action thus far," the group added.

And it "leaves a huge percentage of their development plans that could still shift to lower-emissions technologies," added Grigsby-Schulte.

Demand for steel is continuing to grow, and the iron and steel industry is expected to be one of the last to continue using coal in the IEA's 2050 net-zero pathway.

The organisation has warned that the sector needs to "accelerate significantly" to meet 2050 targets, including with innovative production methods that are currently in their infancy.

]]> Fri, 23 MAY 2025 02:11:11 AEST University Park PA (SPX) May 21, 2025 - Increasing renewable energy may not reduce the use of fossil fuels in the United States, according to a study by Ryan Thombs, assistant professor of rural sociology in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.

In the study, published in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Thombs analyzed fuel production data spanning 1997 to 2020 from the 33 states that produce fossil fuels in the U.S., which is the second largest greenhouse gas emitter and second largest energy producer in the world.

He found no association between the production of renewable energy and fossil fuels, which suggests that creating renewable energy did not lower or replace the production of fossil fuels. However, Thombs did find that more than 96% of the variation in fossil fuel production across the states was explained by fixed factors in each state, such as fossil fuel endowments - the amount of fossil fuel deposits available in each state.

Thombs said the findings suggest that additional policies may be needed to help reduce the use of fossil fuels, since current renewable energy investment approaches often assume that more renewable energy naturally leads to less fossil fuel production.

"Policies could include ones that directly limit fossil fuel production through carbon taxes, setting production caps on fossil fuels and keeping fossil fuel reserves in the ground," he said. "Future research could consider other geographical contexts to see if the findings from this study are generalizable elsewhere and should also consider the effectiveness of specific policies that have been implemented."

Fossil fuels are a significant contributor to climate change, accounting for more than 75% of greenhouse gas emissions and almost 90% of carbon dioxide emissions, according to the United Nations.

Transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy can help mitigate climate change, and investments in these alternative, renewable forms of energy have been growing quickly - now making up the largest percentage of new energy generation, Thombs said.

"However, many policies to this point assume that growth in renewable energy corresponds with a proportional decrease in fossil fuels," he said. "If it doesn't, then we may need to implement additional policies to reduce fossil fuel production directly rather than hope that deploying renewables will crowd out fossil fuels."

For the current study, Thombs used state-level data on per capita production of fossil fuels - including coal, natural gas and crude oil - as well as per capita renewable energy production, including energy produced from geothermal, conventional hydroelectric, solar thermal and photovoltaic, wind, wood and waste, and biofuels. He analyzed the data using three modeling approaches to ensure robust estimates.

One limitation of the study, Thombs said, was that the findings only apply to the U.S. and may not be true in other settings. The study also was limited to the time period in which the data was collected.

"It's possible that renewables will substitute fossil fuels as the broader political economy transforms, especially if state regulations are implemented," he said. "However, the findings do demonstrate that any such transition will be hindered by the close proximity of renewable and fossil fuel resources in many fossil-fuel-dependent states."

Research Report:Does renewable energy production displace fossil fuel production in the U.S.? A panel data study of fossil fuel-producing U.S. states, 1997-2020

]]> Fri, 23 MAY 2025 02:11:11 AEST Los Angeles CA (SPX) May 19, 2025 - China must generate over half of its electricity from wind and solar by 2035 to align with international climate goals, according to a new study by the University of California San Diego. The research outlines a path for China's power sector to significantly cut fossil fuel use while increasing renewable energy capacity.

The study, published in Cell Reports Sustainability, coincides with the anticipated release of updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. These five-year climate plans, originally due in February, are expected to play a crucial role in defining global emission reduction pathways. Given that China accounts for nearly 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions-more than twice that of the United States-its 2035 NDC is seen as critical for global climate efforts.

"In order to limit global warming to well below 2C, China's power sector must make a significant shift toward clean energy," said Michael Davidson, the study's corresponding author and an assistant professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy and the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego. "There's no solution to climate change without China."

The study's findings suggest that wind and solar should provide up to 56% of China's electricity by 2035, a significant increase from 18% in 2024. Including hydro, nuclear, and biomass, clean energy could comprise nearly 80% of China's power generation, dramatically reducing the share of coal and natural gas to as low as 20%.

Davidson emphasized that setting clear generation share targets is crucial for long-term power sector planning, as these benchmarks can help maintain momentum despite economic and energy demand uncertainties. The researchers recommend China aim to deploy between 2,910 and 3,800 gigawatts (GW) of wind and solar power by 2035, up from about 1,200 GW today. This would require installing 120-220 GW of new capacity annually-a pace that China already surpassed in 2024 with a record 357 GW.

"It's feasible and pragmatic," Davidson noted. "These targets reflect cautious optimism, grounded in current capacity and policy momentum."

The study modeled various pathways for China's power sector, incorporating technical constraints and regional differences in renewable potential. The authors argue that ambitious but achievable targets for wind and solar can provide a practical roadmap for policymakers.

Research Report:Ratcheting up wind and solar targets for decarbonizing the power sector in China and beyond

]]> Fri, 23 MAY 2025 02:11:11 AEST Beijing (AFP) May 15, 2025 - China's emissions fell in the first quarter of 2025 despite rapidly growing power demand thanks to soaring renewable and nuclear energy, a key milestone for world's top emitter, analysis showed Thursday.

The country emits more than twice as much planet-warming greenhouse gases -- mainly carbon dioxide -- as any other. It plans to peak carbon emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

Beijing has invested heavily in its renewable energy sector, building almost twice as much wind and solar capacity as the rest of the world combined, according to research published last year.

New wind, solar and nuclear capacity meant China's CO2 emissions fell by 1.6 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, and one percent in the 12 months to March, said analyst Lauri Myllyvirta at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

"Growth in clean power generation has now overtaken the current and long-term average growth in electricity demand, pushing down fossil fuel use," Myllyvirta said.

"The current drop is the first time that the main driver is growth in clean power generation."

The analysis is based on official figures and commercial data.

China's emissions have dipped before, but those reductions were driven by falling demand, such as during strict Covid lockdowns in 2022.

This time the drop came despite China's total power demand surging 2.5 percent in the first quarter, said the report published in Carbon Brief.

Power sector emissions fell 5.8 percent in the first quarter, offsetting rises in emissions from coal use in the metals and chemicals industries.

"Renewable energy is now beginning to not only meet China's growing demand but also reduce emissions," said Li Shuo, head of the Asia Society Policy Institute's China Climate Hub.

"This offers hope for an earlier-than-expected peak in China's emissions and should lay the groundwork for an ambitious target in the 2035 nationally determined contribution expected later this year."

- 'Hangs in the balance' -

But the report cautioned that emissions could rise again if Beijing seeks to stimulate carbon-intensive sectors in response to its trade war with Washington.

China also remains "significantly off track" for a key 2030 target to reduce its carbon intensity -- carbon emissions relative to GDP -- under the Paris climate agreement.

China pledged to achieve a 65 percent reduction in carbon intensity by 2030 from 2005 levels.

"The future path of China's CO2 emissions hangs in the balance, depending on trends within each sector of its economy, as well as China's response to (US President Donald) Trump's tariffs," Myllyvirta said.

Beijing has agreed to a 90-day pause on sky-high tariffs with Washington, but the shape of a final truce remains unclear.

China has sought to position itself as a leader in combating climate change at a time when Trump is promoting fossil fuel extraction and has withdrawn from multilateral climate agreements.

Last month, President Xi Jinping pledged China's efforts to combat climate change "will not slow down" despite the changing "international situation".

He also said China would announce 2035 greenhouse gas reduction targets, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), before COP30 in November, and that it would cover planet-warming gases, not just carbon dioxide.

Despite China's renewable energy boom, coal remains a vital part of its energy mix.

China began construction on 94.5 gigawatts of coal power projects in 2024, 93 percent of the global total, according to a February report by CREA and US-based Global Energy Monitor.

Much of that, however, is expected to be for backup power.

Last month, China said that wind and solar energy capacity had surpassed mostly coal-based thermal capacity for the first time, according to data for the first quarter.

To sustain momentum, China now needs a "paradigm shift", energy think tank Ember said in a report this week, "from chasing 'megawatts' to engineering a 'megasystem'."

The group said China should focus on advanced heating systems for heavy industry, AI-powered smart grids, improved storage for renewable-generating power and carbon removal technology to deal with remaining emissions.

]]> Fri, 23 MAY 2025 02:11:11 AEST Beijing (AFP) May 15, 2025 - China's emissions fell in the first quarter of 2025 despite rapidly growing power demand thanks to soaring renewable and nuclear energy, a key milestone for world's top emitter, analysis showed Thursday.

China emits more planet-warming greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide than any other country. It plans to peak carbon emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

It has invested heavily in its renewable energy sector, building almost twice as much wind and solar capacity as every other country combined, according to research published last year.

New wind, solar and nuclear capacity meant China's CO2 emissions fell by 1.6 percent year-on-year in the first quarter and one percent in the 12 months to March, said analyst Lauri Myllyvirta at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

The analysis is based on official figures and commercial data.

China's emissions have dipped before, but those reductions were driven by falling demand, such as during strict Covid lockdowns in 2022.

This time the drop came despite China's total power demand surging 2.5 percent in the first quarter, said the report published in Carbon Brief.

"Growth in clean power generation has now overtaken the current and long-term average growth in electricity demand, pushing down fossil fuel use," Myllyvirta said.

"The current drop is the first time that the main driver is growth in clean power generation."

Power sector emissions fell 5.8 percent in the first quarter, offsetting rises in emissions from coal use in the metals and chemicals industries.

- 'Hangs in the balance' -

But the report cautioned that emissions could rise again if Beijing seeks to stimulate carbon-intensive sectors in response to its trade war with Washington.

China also remains "significantly off track" for a key 2030 target to reduce its carbon intensity -- carbon emissions relative to GDP -- under the Paris climate agreement.

China pledged to achieve a 65 percent reduction in carbon intensity by 2030 from 2005 levels.

"The future path of China's CO2 emissions hangs in the balance, depending on trends within each sector of its economy, as well as China's response to (US President Donald) Trump's tariffs," Myllyvirta said.

Beijing has agreed to a 90-day pause on sky-high tariffs with Washington, but the shape of a final truce remains unclear.

China has sought to position itself as a leader in combating climate change at a time when Trump is promoting fossil fuel extraction and has withdrawn from multilateral climate agreements.

Last month, President Xi Jinping pledged China's efforts to combat climate change "will not slow down" despite the changing "international situation".

He also said China would announce 2035 greenhouse gas reduction targets, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), before COP30 in November, and that it would cover planet-warming gases, not just carbon dioxide.

Despite China's renewable energy boom, coal remains a vital part of its energy mix.

China began construction on 94.5 gigawatts of coal power projects in 2024, 93 percent of the global total, according to a February report by CREA and US-based Global Energy Monitor.

Much of that is expected to be for backup power, however.

Last month, China said that wind and solar energy capacity had surpassed mostly coal-based thermal capacity for the first time, according to data for the first quarter.

To sustain momentum, China now needs a "paradigm shift", energy thinktank Ember said in a report this week, "from chasing 'megawatts' to engineering a 'megasystem'".

The group said China should focus on advanced heating systems for heavy industry, AI-powered smart grids, improved storage for renewable-generating power and carbon removal technology to deal with remaining emissions.

]]> Fri, 23 MAY 2025 02:11:11 AEST Brussels, Belgium (AFP) May 13, 2025 - The EU is looking to speed up permitting for new renewables projects from years to months by cutting conservation-linked red tape, the bloc's energy chief said in remarks published Tuesday.

Dan Jorgensen told online publication Contexte his team was working on a simplification package to bring permit wait times for solar, wind and other green energy sources to under six months.

"Today, it's seven or 10 years, or even more than a decade, often. That's totally unacceptable and it needs to fundamentally change," he said.

"If that is to happen, we need to streamline some legislation and do things differently from today."

Permits are normally handed out by member states, but construction needs to align with different EU rules such as environmental-protection laws.

"I'm aware this can be seen as controversial since many of the rules that are leading to these long times have to do with nature conservation," Jorgensen said of his plan.

But at the same time, current laws were "slowing down the process so much" that they risked endangering Europe's green transition, he added.

"And if we don't manage to fight climate change, that will hurt nature much, much more," Jorgensen, a Dane, said.

His words come as Brussels has embarked on a broader drive to slash rules seen as hindering businesses, which has angered environmental groups.

Concerns about sluggish economic growth have shifted the bloc's focus to competitiveness and away from the climate change push of recent years.

]]> Fri, 23 MAY 2025 02:11:11 AEST Cambridge, United Kingdom (AFP) May 12, 2025 - The soft, waxy "solid refrigerant" being investigated in a UK laboratory may not look very exciting, but its unusual properties promise an air-conditioning revolution that could eliminate the need for greenhouse gases.

The substance's temperature can vary by more than 50 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit) under pressure, and unlike the gases currently used in appliances solid refrigerants, it does not leak.

"They don't contribute to global warming, but also they are potentially more energy efficient," Xavier Moya, a professor of materials physics at the University of Cambridge, told AFP.

Approximately two billion air-conditioner units are in use worldwide, and their number is increasing as the planet warms.

Between leaks and energy consumption, the emissions associated with them are also increasing each year, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Moya has been studying the properties of these plastic crystals in his laboratory at the prestigious UK university for 15 years.

On his work surface, a large red and grey machine, topped with a cylinder, tests how the temperature of a substance changes under pressure.

The aim is to identify the best refrigerants among this class of materials, which are already used by the chemical industry and are relatively easy to obtain, even if the exact composition of the crystals eventually selected remains secret.

The phenomenon is invisible to the naked eye, but these crystals are composed of molecules that spin on their own axis.

When the substance is squeezed, that movement stops and the energy is dissipated in the form of heat.

When released, the substance cools its surroundings in what is known as the "barocaloric effect".

- Chilled cans -

"We're expecting demand for air conditioning to increase hugely, globally, between now and 2050," Cliff Elwell, a professor of building physics at University College London, told AFP.

He believes barocaloric solids have the potential to be as efficient as gas, if not more so.

"But whatever we introduce as new technologies always has to hit the basic requirements," which include being compact and quiet enough for use in homes and cars, he said.

Alongside his research at Cambridge, Moya founded the startup Barocal in 2019 to turn his research group's discoveries into tangible products.

It employs nine people and has its own laboratory, which is currently a modest container in a parking lot.

But the startup is attracting interest and in recent years has raised around EUR4 million ($4.5 million), notably from the European Innovation Council -- an EU program involving the UK -- and Breakthrough Energy, an umbrella group of initiatives founded by US billionaire Bill Gates to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

It plans to increase its workforce to 25 or 30 this year.

The first air-conditioner prototype is the size of a large suitcase and hums quite loudly when a hydraulic circuit increases or decreases the pressure inside the four crystal-filled cylinders. But it works.

A small refrigerator is attached to the system, and the cans of soda inside are perfectly chilled.

- Cheaper bills -

The prototype has "not really been optimised yet for either mass, volume, or even sound", acknowledged Mohsen Elabbadi, a materials engineer at Barocal.

But the performance of the units they are working to perfect will eventually be comparable with those running on gas, he promised.

While the company is currently focusing on cooling, the technology could also be used to produce heat.

Several teams are studying these materials around the world, but the Cambridge team is a pioneer in the field, according to Breakthrough Energy, which estimates that these devices have the potential to reduce emissions by up to 75 percent compared with traditional units.

Barocal hopes to launch a first product on the market within three years, according to commercial director Florian Schabus.

These will initially be cooling units for "large shopping centres, warehouses, schools" and even "data centres", he said.

The company reasons that the ultimate promise of cheaper bills will convince businesses to stump up the higher initial costs.

Barocal is eventually aiming for retail prices similar to traditional units, allowing it to launch in the residential market.

]]> Fri, 23 MAY 2025 02:11:11 AEST New Delhi (AFP) May 12, 2025 - Aarti Verma is about to join the growing ranks of Indians installing air conditioning, scraping together savings to secure relief from sometimes deadly temperatures that can reach nearly 50 Celsius.

A record 14 million AC units were sold in India last year, with a ninefold increase in residential ownership forecast by mid-century. That will give millions safer and more comfortable conditions at work and home.

But it will also drive demand for electricity that is generated mostly by burning climate-warming coal, and increase the hot AC exhaust air expelled into the country's stifling streets.

For Verma, the priority is securing some immediate relief.

Her sales and marketing work means she must visit multiple stores a day, battling blazing heat.

"Coming home after a long day I want some comfort," said the 25-year-old, who earns 30,000 rupees ($350) a month and will pay 50,000 rupees ($584) to install air conditioning in her spartan two-room home.

"Earlier I would sleep on the terrace, but these days it's so hot even in the night, AC has become a necessity," she told AFP in a poor neighbourhood of the capital Delhi.

India is the world's fastest-growing AC market, despite only about seven percent of households currently owning units.

The boom could mean the world's most populous country needs to triple electricity production to meet demand, experts say.

The nation of 1.4 billion people is already the world's third-biggest producer of climate-warming greenhouse gases, burning through one billion tonnes of coal in 2024-25, according to a government statement.

- Brutal summer -

"AC penetration across India is primarily driven by weather conditions, a growing middle class, favourable consumer financing options and widespread electrification," said K.J. Jawa, the India chief of Japanese AC manufacturer Daikin.

"Today, ACs are no longer regarded as a luxury indulgence, but a productivity and need investment -- as a good night sleep is imperative for our mental and physical wellness," he told AFP.

Verma had to pay 13,000 rupees ($150) as a down payment, with the rest divided over monthly instalments.

"I could have bought gold with that money which would have been a good investment but I gave priority to the AC," she said.

According to the meteorological department, 2024 was India's hottest year since thorough records began in 1901, with sizzling temperatures following a global pattern of extreme weather driven by climate change.

A heatwave in May 2024 in New Delhi saw temperatures match the capital's previous record high: 49.2 Celsius (120.5 Fahrenheit) clocked in 2022.

The brutal summer heat can melt tarmac on the roads and puts millions of people at risk, with nearly 11,000 people dying due to heat stroke in India between 2012 and 2021, according to government data.

Public health experts say the true number of heat-related deaths is likely in the thousands but because heat is often not listed as a reason on a death certificate, many casualties don't get counted in official figures.

Ironically, the refrigerants inside AC units and the coal-generated electricity that powers them only exacerbate global warming. Widespread AC use also raises outdoor temperatures by expelling indoor heat.

Studies -- including by the World Health Organization and UN-Habitat -- show that the heat-generating motors inside AC units can themselves push up temperatures in urban areas by a degree Celsius or more.

- Energy ratings -

Before buying an AC, Verma relied on a traditional air cooler -- a noisy fan-run device that blows cool air off water-soaked pads.

But filling the cooler with water and making sure it did not become a haven for disease-carrying mosquitoes required great effort.

Sales are brisk at Imperial Refrigeration in Delhi's old quarters, with a steady stream of customers braving the afternoon heat.

Japsahib Singh Ahuja, 22, whose family owns the 50-year-old business, said sales have more than tripled in the last five years, thanks to first-time consumers and AC "replacement cycles".

"ACs these days don't last long, because there are so many pollutants in Delhi air that lead to corrosion and gas leakage from the equipment," he explained.

Delhi and the surrounding metropolitan area, home to more than 30 million people, consistently top world rankings for air pollution.

Air conditioning will account for a quarter of India's emissions and nearly half nationwide peak electricity demand by 2050, according to the UN Environment Programme's Cool Coalition.

But India has so far declined to sign up to the coalition's Global Cooling Pledge to reduce the sector's climate impact.

Still, there are signs of hope, with Indians increasingly buying energy-efficient AC units, according to Ahuja.

Energy-saving inverter ACs now dominate the market, and companies set a default temperature of 24 degrees Celsius.

"Energy ratings are now mandatory," said Ahuja. "We will surely see long-term benefits."

]]> Fri, 23 MAY 2025 02:11:11 AEST Boston MA (SPX) May 12, 2025 - As the world struggles to reduce climate-warming carbon emissions, India has pledged to do its part, and its success is critical: In 2023, India was the third-largest carbon emitter worldwide. The Indian government has committed to having net-zero carbon emissions by 2070.

To fulfill that promise, India will need to decarbonize its electric power system, and that will be a challenge: Fully 60 percent of India's electricity comes from coal-burning power plants that are extremely inefficient. To make matters worse, the demand for electricity in India is projected to more than double in the coming decade due to population growth and increased use of air conditioning, electric cars, and so on.

Despite having set an ambitious target, the Indian government has not proposed a plan for getting there. Indeed, as in other countries, in India the government continues to permit new coal-fired power plants to be built, and aging plants to be renovated and their retirement postponed.

To help India define an effective - and realistic - plan for decarbonizing its power system, key questions must be addressed. For example, India is already rapidly developing carbon-free solar and wind power generators. What opportunities remain for further deployment of renewable generation? Are there ways to retrofit or repurpose India's existing coal plants that can substantially and affordably reduce their greenhouse gas emissions? And do the responses to those questions differ by region?

With funding from IHI Corp. through the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), Yifu Ding, a postdoc at MITEI, and her colleagues set out to answer those questions by first using machine learning to determine the efficiency of each of India's current 806 coal plants, and then investigating the impacts that different decarbonization approaches would have on the mix of power plants and the price of electricity in 2035 under increasingly stringent caps on emissions.

First step: Develop the needed dataset

Making a cost-effective plan for expanding the capacity of a power system requires knowing the efficiencies of all the power plants operating in the system. For this study, the researchers used as their metric the "station heat rate," a standard measurement of the overall fuel efficiency of a given power plant. The station heat rate of each plant is needed in order to calculate the fuel consumption and power output of that plant as plans for capacity expansion are being developed.

Some of the Indian coal plants' efficiencies were recorded before 2022, so Ding and her team used machine-learning models to predict the efficiencies of all the Indian coal plants operating now. In 2024, they created and posted online the first comprehensive, open-sourced dataset for all 806 power plants in 30 regions of India. The work won the 2024 MIT Open Data Prize. This dataset includes each plant's power capacity, efficiency, age, load factor (a measure indicating how much of the time it operates), water stress, and more.

In addition, they categorized each plant according to its boiler design. A "supercritical" plant operates at a relatively high temperature and pressure, which makes it thermodynamically efficient, so it produces a lot of electricity for each unit of heat in the fuel. A "subcritical" plant runs at a lower temperature and pressure, so it's less thermodynamically efficient. Most of the Indian coal plants are still subcritical plants running at low efficiency.

Next step: Investigate decarbonization options

Ding built a GenX model based on India's power system in 2020, including details about each power plant and transmission network across 30 regions of the country. She also entered the coal price, potential resources for wind and solar power installations, and other attributes of each region. Based on the parameters given, the GenX model would calculate the lowest-cost combination of equipment and operating conditions that can fulfill a defined future level of demand while also meeting specified policy constraints, including limits on carbon emissions. The model and all data sources were also released as open-source tools for all viewers to use.

Ding and her colleagues - Dharik Mallapragada, a former principal research scientist at MITEI who is now an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular energy at NYU Tandon School of Engineering and a MITEI visiting scientist; and Robert J. Stoner, the founding director of the MIT Tata Center for Technology and Design and former deputy director of MITEI for science and technology - then used the model to explore options for meeting demands in 2035 under progressively tighter carbon emissions caps, taking into account region-to-region variations in the efficiencies of the coal plants, the price of coal, and other factors. They describe their methods and their findings in a paper published in the journal Energy for Sustainable Development.

In separate runs, they explored plans involving various combinations of current coal plants, possible new renewable plants, and more, to see their outcome in 2035. Specifically, they assumed the following four "grid-evolution scenarios:"

Baseline: The baseline scenario assumes limited onshore wind and solar photovoltaics development and excludes retrofitting options, representing a business-as-usual pathway.

High renewable capacity: This scenario calls for the development of onshore wind and solar power without any supply chain constraints.

Biomass co-firing: This scenario assumes the baseline limits on renewables, but here all coal plants - both subcritical and supercritical - can be retrofitted for "co-firing" with biomass, an approach in which clean-burning biomass replaces some of the coal fuel. Certain coal power plants in India already co-fire coal and biomass, so the technology is known.

Carbon capture and sequestration plus biomass co-firing: This scenario is based on the same assumptions as the biomass co-firing scenario with one addition: All of the high-efficiency supercritical plants are also retrofitted for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), a technology that captures and removes carbon from a power plant's exhaust stream and prepares it for permanent disposal. Thus far, CCS has not been used in India. This study specifies that 90 percent of all carbon in the power plant exhaust is captured.

Ding and her team investigated power system planning under each of those grid-evolution scenarios and four assumptions about carbon caps: no cap, which is the current situation; 1,000 million tons (Mt) of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, which reflects India's announced targets for 2035; and two more-ambitious targets, namely 800 Mt and 500 Mt. For context, CO2 emissions from India's power sector totaled about 1,100 Mt in 2021. (Note that transmission network expansion is allowed in all scenarios.)

Key findings

Even without any limits on carbon emissions, most new capacity additions will be wind and solar generators - the lowest-cost option for expanding India's electricity-generation capacity. Indeed, this is observed to be the case now in India. However, the increasing demand for electricity will still require some new coal plants to be built. Model results show a 10 to 20 percent increase in coal plant capacity by 2035 relative to 2020.

Under the baseline scenario, renewables are expanded up to the maximum allowed under the assumptions, implying that more deployment would be economical. More coal capacity is built, and as the cap on emissions tightens, there is also investment in natural gas power plants, as well as batteries to help compensate for the now-large amount of intermittent solar and wind generation. When a 500 Mt cap on carbon is imposed, the cost of electricity generation is twice as high as it was with no cap.

The high renewable capacity scenario reduces the development of new coal capacity and produces the lowest electricity cost of the four scenarios. Under the most stringent cap - 500 Mt - onshore wind farms play an important role in bringing the cost down. "Otherwise, it'll be very expensive to reach such stringent carbon constraints," notes Ding. "Certain coal plants that remain run only a few hours per year, so are inefficient as well as financially unviable. But they still need to be there to support wind and solar." She explains that other backup sources of electricity, such as batteries, are even more costly.

The biomass co-firing scenario assumes the same capacity limit on renewables as in the baseline scenario, and the results are much the same, in part because the biomass replaces such a low fraction - just 20 percent - of the coal in the fuel feedstock. "This scenario would be most similar to the current situation in India," says Ding. "It won't bring down the cost of electricity, so we're basically saying that adding this technology doesn't contribute effectively to decarbonization."

But CCS plus biomass co-firing is a different story. It also assumes the limits on renewables development, yet it is the second-best option in terms of reducing costs. Under the 500 Mt cap on CO2 emissions, retrofitting for both CCS and biomass co-firing produces a 22 percent reduction in the cost of electricity compared to the baseline scenario. In addition, as the carbon cap tightens, this option reduces the extent of deployment of natural gas plants and significantly improves overall coal plant utilization. That increased utilization "means that coal plants have switched from just meeting the peak demand to supplying part of the baseline load, which will lower the cost of coal generation," explains Ding.

Some concerns

The high renewables scenario is, Ding notes, "very ideal." It assumes that there will be little limiting the development of wind and solar capacity, so there won't be any issues with supply chains, which is unrealistic. More importantly, the analyses showed that implementing the high renewables approach would create uneven investment in renewables across the 30 regions. Resources for onshore and offshore wind farms are mainly concentrated in a few regions in western and southern India. "So all the wind farms would be put in those regions, near where the rich cities are," says Ding. "The poorer cities on the eastern side, where the coal power plants are, will have little renewable investment."

So the approach that's best in terms of cost is not best in terms of social welfare, because it tends to benefit the rich regions more than the poor ones. "It's like [the government will] need to consider the trade-off between energy justice and cost," says Ding. Enacting state-level renewable generation targets could encourage a more even distribution of renewable capacity installation. Also, as transmission expansion is planned, coordination among power system operators and renewable energy investors in different regions could help in achieving the best outcome.

CCS plus biomass co-firing - the second-best option for reducing prices - solves the equity problem posed by high renewables, and it assumes a more realistic level of renewable power adoption. However, CCS hasn't been used in India, so there is no precedent in terms of costs. The researchers therefore based their cost estimates on the cost of CCS in China and then increased the required investment by 10 percent, the "first-of-a-kind" index developed by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Based on those costs and other assumptions, the researchers conclude that coal plants with CCS could come into use by 2035 when the carbon cap for power generation is less than 1,000 Mt.

But will CCS actually be implemented in India? While there's been discussion about using CCS in heavy industry, the Indian government has not announced any plans for implementing the technology in coal-fired power plants. Indeed, India is currently "very conservative about CCS," says Ding. "Some researchers say CCS won't happen because it's so expensive, and as long as there's no direct use for the captured carbon, the only thing you can do is put it in the ground." She adds, "It's really controversial to talk about whether CCS will be implemented in India in the next 10 years."

Ding and her colleagues hope that other researchers and policymakers - especially those working in developing countries - may benefit from gaining access to their datasets and learning about their methods. Based on their findings for India, she stresses the importance of understanding the detailed geographical situation in a country in order to design plans and policies that are both realistic and equitable.

Research Report:"The role of coal plant retrofitting strategies in developing India's net-zero power system: A data-driven sub-national analysis"

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