Bengal tightens norms for sponge iron plants

Kolkata, July 2 The West Bengal Environment Department has made it mandatory for all upcoming sponge iron projects in the State to have waste carbon recycling mechanism, said Mr M.L. Meena, Principal Secretary, Department of Environment, here on Wednesday.

Over the last one month, the State has rejected 20 projects for not complying with the norms, he said.

“Sponge iron plants are one of the highest greenhouse gas emitting units,” he said at a seminar, adding that dolo char, a carbon waste material emitted from the sponge iron plants, adds mostly to the pollution. “The new plants would now have to be equipped with captive power facilities which would recycle dolo char for power generation,” he said.

There are 42 sponge iron units in the State and they have been asked to install the requisite facility, he added. These units could also be eligible for earning Certified Emission Reductions (CER), he said.

There are in total 42 registered Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects in the State as against 333 projects all over the country.

Speaking at the seminar held on scope for cooperation between Thailand and India on clean developments, Mr Sudipta Das, Ernst & Young, said the CER prices are expected to grow by almost 10 per cent to 22.96 Euros by 2012. One unit of CER is achieved by reducing one tonne of carbon di-oxide.

He said buyer countries in Europe prefer China to India for sourcing CERs because of lower prices. In China, CERS are sold at 12-13 Euro/CER mostly by virtue of forward contracts. Though India accounts for the highest number of CDM projects out of the total 1088 projects worldwide, Chinese projects are much bigger and therefore generate larger number of CERs.