Hyderabad: Environmentalists and scientists are sounding the alarm over serious flaws uncovered in the draft Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report for the Yadadri Thermal Power Plant. The rushed and error-ridden assessment, criticised for its lack of diligence and professional integrity, has ignited a wave of condemnation from experts and activists alike. The public hearing on the report will be eld on February 20.
After the state government was asked to make corrections to the draft in November 2023, the revised draft was published on January 20
The analysis, led by senior scientist Dr. K Babu Rao of Scientists for People, exposes a litany of issues plaguing the assessment process. Dr. Rao revealed, "YTPS rushed through an 829-page draft EIA within about eight weeks. This project exceeded the normal project completion time by a factor of two already and is likely to take two more years at the least."
One of the most glaring errors highlighted by the analysis is the miscalculation of coal consumption. Despite specifying a design station heat rate of 2109.4 kcal/kWh (kilo calories per kilo Watt Hour), the coal consumption calculations erroneously utilised a value of 2019.4 kCal/kWh.
This discrepancy not only jeopardises the accuracy of pollution load estimates but also raises questions about the overall integrity of the assessment, they said.
Concerns were raised regarding the absence of mandatory systems for desulphurisation of flue gas (gases roduced by the burning of fuel or other materials in power stations), as mandated by the Union ministry of environment, forest, and climate change (MoEF&CC) since 2017.
"Installing the FGD unit is not just a plug-in.It means a loss of hundreds of crores spent on the flue stacks already built and additional expenditure to build new wet flue stacks," Dr Rao explained and pointed that the report doesn't even touch matters regarding pollution. "They have completely omitted information about the impact of pollution of the plant. There is a tiger reserve right next to it, there is no proof that the gases emitted won't affect the animals or human life nearby," he said.
The implications of these oversights extend beyond financial concerns to encompass potential environmental hazards. Another environmentalist, pointed out, "Another implication of this bungling of the stack design is the cumulative ground-level concentrations presented in the draft EIA are invalid. They have to run the simulations again with new data for the wet stack and the wet flue gas flow rate."
