A new era of cooperation is in the works between India and China to adopt greener technologies in various industrial sectors that help reduce overall emission levels.
Greenhouse emissions have become a major cause of concern for both the countries fighting a hard battle with the West that is putting pressure on them to agree to legally binding arrangement to cut emissions in a time-bound manner.
According to senior government officials, India and China have agreed in principle to cooperate for development and adoption of green technologies in energy, metal and mining sectors where already the two countries share a working relationship.
It has also been agreed that both the countries would also initiate joint R&D exercise that aid in faster development of clean technologies.
?Like India, China too has a large power sector predominantly based on coal. China has also made huge investment to see that emission levels from coal-based projects are reduced. It will be a big opportunity for India to share from the Chinese experience,? said an official in the coal ministry aware of the development.
The use of new less polluting technology has become imperative as coal-based power plants comprise over 65% of the country?s total installed power generation capacity of over 1,60,000 mw.
Coal-based plants are the most polluting way of producing power. The fear is that India would become a major polluter as coal is projected to remain mainstay for the power sector in years to come.
It is expected that the two sides would also join hands to develop power projects based on integrated gassification combined cycle (IGCC) or clean coal technology.
India is already building a showcase power project based on this technology with some help coming from the USA.
?Involvement of China will add another dimension to these kinds of project as we also have to see that new projects do not result project cost going up and ultimately resulting in higher power tariff,? said the official.
India which is also adopting less polluting and energyfficient supercritical technologies or all its future coal fired power projects could also hope of getting a helping hand from Chinese companies.
Already companies like Dong Fang and Shanghai Electric have expressed their to set up manufacturing base for these equipment in India. The present cooperation could aid their entry into the Indian market.
China is also big in the mining sector and the two sides are also exploring to expand their relationship in this sector beyond trade of iron ore by going in for joint development mines and sharing of technologies that can minimise pollution and increase output.
India, which is one of the largest exporter of iron ore to China, has also expressed the desire to have some kind of firm arangement with China for supply of coking coal that is largely imported by the country for use in its steel plants.
