Now, this is another interesting break-up for India’s GHG emissions: By fuel.
Here are my estimates for emissions by fuel source:
- Coal: 65-70%
- Oil: 12-13%
- Natural gas: 5-7%
- Others (livestock & fugitive methane emissions, N2O emissions): 14-15%
It will hardly come as a surprise when you see the chap on top – coal. But even an industry veteran is sometimes surprised by the fact that coal contributes 70% – he must have thought that would have come down significantly by now.
Coal is still king, possibly of an empire that is fading, but fading rather slowly for countries such as India. In the case of coal, 70% of our electricity still comes from coal, and add to that a decent amount used for heating in some industries and it all adds up!
Oil should not be a surprise either; but expect this % to increase significantly over the next 10 years while coal comes down a decent bit.
Emissions from natural gas also is likely to have its contribution increasing over the next decade, but keep in mind that natural gas emits only about half the emissions as that of coal for the same energy output, so it will take lots of gas additions to get its GHG proportion pile up.
Real surprise for most people of course are emissions proportions from non-CO2: these can add up to 15%, fuelled by methane and N2O emissions. I reckon you can add process emissions into this too – though such emissions in the form of CO2 come typically from coal (steel industry) or natural gas (fertilizer industry)!
If you have queries on this, please send a note to narsi@eai.in and I will try my best to help! – Narsi, EAI
