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New Delhi, Dec 1: India has become a dumping ground for dirty fuel produced by US oil refineries, according to a report published by the international news agency Associated Press. The US is exporting petroleum coke, petcoke in short, a dirty fuel that is a leftover from refining Canadian tar sands crude and other heavy oils, in vast quantities to India.
Petroleum coke is cheaper and burns hotter than coal but contains more planet-warming carbon and far more heart and lung-damaging sulphur. American companies do not use the product for these reasons.
American refineries are instead exporting the fuel globally, especially to India, which last year got almost a fourth of all the fuel-grade ‘petcoke’ the US shipped out, according to AP. In 2016, the US sent more than 8 million metric tonnes of petcoke to India. That is about 20 times more than in 2010, and enough to fill the Empire State Building eight times.
The petcoke being burned in countless factories and plants is contributing to dangerously filthy air in India, which already has many of the world’s most polluted cities.
Laboratory tests on imported petcoke used near New Delhi found it contained 17 times more sulfur than the limit set for coal, and a staggering 1,380 times more than for diesel, according to the Environmental Pollution Control Authority. India’s own petcoke, produced domestically, adds to the pollution, the report says.
Industry officials say petcoke has been an important and valuable fuel for decades, and its use recycles a waste product. Health and environmental advocates, though, say the US is simply exporting an environmental problem. The US is the world’s largest producer and exporter of petcoke, federal and international data show.
“We should not become the dust bin of the rest of the world,” said Sunita Narain, a member of the pollution authority who also heads the Delhi-based Center for Science and the Environment. “We certainly can’t afford it; we’re choking to death already.”
AP has reported that it was not allowed access to factories and also did not receive responses from government officials for repeated requests for interviews.
Petcoke, critics say, is making a bad situation worse across India. About 1.1 million Indians die prematurely as a result of outdoor air pollution every year, according to the Health Effects Institute, a nonprofit funded by the US Environmental Protection Agency and industry.
# Petroleum coke is cheaper and burns hotter than coal but contains more planet-warming carbon and far more heart and lung-damaging sulphur. American companies do not use the product for these reasons.
# Last year India got almost a fourth of all the fuel-grade ‘petcoke’ the US shipped out
# Indian purchases of US fuel-grade petcoke skyrocketed two years ago after China threatened to ban the import of high-sulfur fuels
# India has seen dramatic increase in sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide emissions in recent years, concentrated in areas where power plants and steel factories are clustered
The country has seen a dramatic increase in sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide emissions in recent years, concentrated in areas where power plants and steel factories are clustered. Those pollutants are converted into microscopic particles that lodge deep in the lungs and enter the bloodstream, causing breathing and heart problems.
Indian purchases of US fuel-grade petcoke skyrocketed two years ago after China threatened to ban the import of high-sulfur fuels. Although Indian factories and plants buy some petcoke from Saudi Arabia and other countries, 65 per cent of imports in 2016 were from the US, according to trade data provider Export Genius.
India’s cement companies were first to bring in petcoke, and still import the most, though cement experts say some sulfur is absorbed during manufacturing.
As word spread of the cheap, high-heat fuel, other industries began using it in their furnaces — producing everything from paper and textiles to brakes, batteries and glass, according to import records compiled by Export Genius. The government was caught off guard by the shift, and there are scant records of how much petcoke is being burned.
Governments could decide to tax high-carbon fuels such as petcoke. They could ban high-sulfur or high-carbon fuels. Or they could set pollution limits that make petcoke use impractical.
The National Green Tribunal had demanded in May that the government investigate the environmental and health impacts of petcoke.
“The government was not doing anything,” said the WatAir leader Bansal, whose environmental group filed a lawsuit seeking controls on import. “There is no law in India, no control. So the whole world’s petcoke is coming to India, and it’s getting consumed here.”
“It’s a classic case of environmental dumping,” said Lorne Stockman, director of the environmental group Oil Change International. “[America] need to get rid of it, so it’s dumped into a poor, developing country.”