·         Delivering his address at the Inaugural Session of the Clean Coal India Summit 2013, organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Chief Guest, Mr Shriprakash Jaiswal, Union Minister for Coal said, “Energy security and environmental concerns are the two key challenges being faced globally and India is no exception. However, as our developmental goals are more pressing, our dependence on coal will continue and by 2031-32, energy for power generation will need to grow by 5 times to support growth rate of 8%. There is a need to use coal more efficiently and reduce its environmental implications. A cost effective and significant step towards improving power plant efficiency would be to increase the availability of clean beneficiated coal by using appropriate beneficiation technologies.  We have taken proactive measures in this area to ensure consistent supply of quality and sized coal. In addition, the country is transitioning to Super-critical technology. Already, eleven supercritical units with a total capacity of 7,400 MW have been installed and a large number of supercritical units are under construction.”

·         Mr John E. Bryson, Distinguished Senior Public Policy Scholar, Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars and Former U.S. Secretary of Commerce said, “The focus on clean coal is absolutely critical. Today, maintaining high environmental standards is a requisite for sturdy, steady long term growth and this is applicable for India.

·         Emphasising on the need to focus on technology, Mr Suresh P Prabhu, Former Union Minister for Power and Chairman, Council for Energy, Environment & Water said, “Despite being the mainstay for power generation, coal has been a cause of concern due to various environmental and social reasons. We need to look at all technologies to address these issues. For instance, Carbon Capture and sequestration will be able to address the issue of carbon dioxide emissions from coal. While new generation power plants will be based on new efficient technologies, the challenge is to migrate from the existing power plants to more efficient technologies. In addition, hybrid systems where coal can be used when renewable energy sources like solar is not available can also be explored as coal provides the necessary stability to the grid.”

·        Mr Shyam Saran, Chairman, Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS) and Chairman, National Security Advisory Board (NSAB), in his theme address said, “Globally, the role of coal is likely to remain undiminished in the next few decades and by 2031-32, coal is in fact likely to overtake oil as an energy source. This strong reliance on coal will only exacerbate the challenge of climate change. In India for the development process to continue, it is imperative to make a strategic shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy based sources. In the transitional period, coal combustion needs to be made more efficient. Under the National Action Plan on Climate Change, India is in the process of formulating the Clean Coal Mission and we have already witnessed success in developing an 880 MW supercritical prototype plant.”

• Giving his perspective, Mr Sunand Sharma, Co Chairman, CII National Committee on Power & President – ALSTOM International, India & South Asia Chairman – ALSTOM India Limited said, “The key strategy in the mitigation of coal’s environmental impact is to improve the energy efficiency of power plants by using clean coal technologies. While pre-combustion technologies will make coal burning as efficient as possible, advanced coal combustion technologies like ultra-supercritical, super critical and IGCC will ensure that coal combustion in the upcoming plants becomes more efficient. Therefore, it is critical to promote technology trajectories that not only meet the near-term needs of the country but also set the coal-based power sector on a path that would allow it to better respond to future challenges.”

CII had organized the Fourth edition of the “Clean Coal Technologies Summit on 11 October, 2013 at New Delhi.

Coal has been the workhorse of India's energy need since the beginning of industrialization.  Further, as India's energyneed continue to grow exponentially, the reliance on coal is like to remain undiminished for foreseeable future. Howerver, coal is also one of the most unclean energy sources and on burning, releases a number of pollutants such as mercury, Sox, NOx and CO2.

During the past few decades many coal-dependent nations have started realizing the onerous environmental costs of this fuel as a source of producing electricity and have been exploring ways to exploit coal resources in an environmental friendly and energy efficient manner. The quest to address above issues has led to introduction of various Clean Coal Technologies (CCTs) worldwide to make more productive use of Coal in an "Environmental friendly and energy efficient manner".