CESC's generating station wins global recognition

Kolkata, Sep 25(UNI) Power utility CESC's Budge Budge generating station has become the first coal fired thermal power station in the world to to be registered with the United Nations Framework Convention(UNFCCC) for environment friendly work.

Announcing this here today CESC Director (Generation) Pradip Basu said the work had been acclaimed as a successful project under the Clean Development Mechanism(CDM) of Kyoto Protocol for reduction of the harmful green house gases.

Budge Budge generation station has achieved the distinction by adapting a special chemical process which stood out to be 'extraordinary' for its class in cutting down carbon emission, Mr.Basu said.

The UNFCCC, of which India is a signatory, sets out a framework for action aimed at stabilising atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHG) in order to avoid dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Controlled gases include methane, nitrous oxide and, in particular, carbon dioxide. The UNFCCC entered into force in March 1994, and now has 189 parties.

The Kyoto Protocol that commits developed countries and countries with economic transition to achieve quantified emissions reduction targets, was adopted in December, 1997. These countries agreed to reduce their overall emissions of six GHGs by an average of 5.2% below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012 (the first commitment period).

"At Budge Budge power station we are pursuing a path of excellence in production, coupled with such protection to the environment which locally is considerably better than the statutory requirements and is globally recognised to be contributing to thwart global warming," Mr.Basu said.

He informed that CESC was working on two other projects to get them registered with UNFCCC for anti-emission mechanism.

He explained that the coal fired technology adopted in Budge Budge helped save a lot of heat generated from burning of coal, thereby cutting down carbon emission.

In reply to a question, Mr.Basu said the company was trying to go out of Kolkata and set up bigger projects, which would be needing financing from global sources ."We are trying to impress the global sources, which disburse credits only to the organisations conforming to anti-emission norms," he said.

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