Nearly 73% of India’s total installed power generation capacity is thermal, of which coal-based generation is 90%. Presently 90 million tonnes of fly ash is being generated annually in India, with 65 000 acres of land being occupied by ash ponds. The use of coal of high ash content (30%–50%) contributes to these large volumes of fly ash. By end of 11th five year plan the fly ash generation in the country is estimated to reach 110-120 million TPA. India’s dependence on coal as a source of energy remains unchanged. Thus, it is but natural that fly ash management in the country would be important and of national concern.
Such huge quantities of generation would pose challenging problems, in the form of land usage, health hazards, and environmental dangers. Both in disposal, as well as in utilization of fly ash , utmost care would have to be taken, to safeguard ecological balance of the surroundings.
A recent survey carried out on spatial distribution of the thermal plants in the country indicates that these locations could be broadly classified into four categories:
- Plants located in major/metro cities and their periphery
- Plants located near coal pitheads.
- Plants located near consumer industries (Cement plants).
- Plants not located under the above categories.
Thus depending on the locations of the generation sites , suitable technological options need to be selected and evolved for enhancing the levels of fly ash utilization of the country….. refer the enclosed paper presented and published at 3rd-Int-Seminar-on-Fly-ash-utilisation-New-Delhi