Air Pollution and Atmospheric Chemistry

by Huang Haimin of Xinhua News Agency A.W Rajarathna, a resident of Puttalam, situated in the northwestern province of the country, is a happy man today. After suffering years due to the shortage of electricity in his small home, he now gets an uninterrupted supply making his life easier. "Today, kerosene lamps have been replaced by electric lights glowing in the dark," Rajarathna said with a welcoming smile. A farmer, he lives with his wife and 14-year-old daughter in the Minya Village, in Narakkalliya, Puttalam, a small village where 12 other families reside. Rajarathna's house is very closely situated to the Lakvijaya Coal Power Plant, more popularly known as the Puttalam Coal Power Plant Project, which is the reason for the constant electricity supply to this province. Today, having commissioned and connected to the national grid, the project provides more than 50 percent of the power supply to the country and has facilitated a drastic reduction in elect...

Emissions from the Norochcholai Power Plant do not appear to have caused any adverse effect to the sacred Sri Maha Bodhi in Anuradhapura but a scientific test should be carried out to obtain a clearer picture, Energy expert Dr. Tilak Siyambalapitiya said today. He said the government should obtain the services of a foreign analyst to determine the correct situation. “An environment impact study should be carried out before constructing a power plant and I am fully aware that such a study was conducted on the location where the coal power plant is situated in Norochcholai before beginning the construction work and showed no adverse impact on the environment at that time. However, we don’t know whether the weather pattern had changed the situation. Therefore further scientific studies should be carried out,” Dr. Siyambalapitiya said. He said the sacred Bo sapling was brought down from a tree at Buddha Gaya, in the State of Bihar in India and pointed out that there were several coa...

By Rathindra Kuruwita Indirect costs of coal power plants far outweighed the profit made by the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), Dr. Trishan Perera of the Centre for Sustainability, Sri Jayewardenepura University told The Island, yesterday, highlighting the adverse effects of the Norochcholai Coal Power Plant.  "The CEB claims it is making a significant profit by producing electricity from coal. But it has not factored in the human and environmental costs of coal power."  During field visits researchers had found that the health of many people had deteriorated due to exposure to emissions from the Norochcholai power plant and farmers said that their crops were being affected by it, Perera said.  "We must also look at the impact of coal power on tourism. The government has earmarked several nearby areas as potential tourist hotspots and already we have a burgeoning tourism industry around Puttalam. All this will be affected if the impact of the power plant beco...

By Rathindra Kuruwita More than 67,000 tonnes of coal find their way into the ocean annually and this is equal to one ship load, the Coalition Against Coal (CAC) says. "Of this amount, about 17,000 tonnes are lost due to spillage during unloading from ship to barge. It is common for coal pieces to reach beaches in areas such as Kalpitiya," CAC said in a report titled Norochcholai Coal Power Plant – A summary of Social and Environmental Issues. It is estimated that another 50,000 tonnes are blown into the ocean and the nearby villages due to strong winds in the region. Currently, the South African coal purchased by CEB has a very large amount of dust particles and it is estimated that coal piles in Norochcholai has over 35% dust (particles less than 2mm). Maithri Gunaratne, former Chairman of Lanka Coal, said that a significant amount of coal was lost during barging and due to strong winds. "We import around 2.3 million tonnes of coal annually and we lose cons...

Ceylon Electricity Board engineers and Norochcholai Power Plant officials refuted claims that toxic acids evaporating from the power plant posed a threat to the sacred Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi, in Anuradhapura. It was reported that toxic fumes from the power plant which contained concentrated amounts of toxic acids and heavy metals could be swept as far away as the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi due to the onset of the oncoming Southwest monsoon. “We sent samples of these deposits to the Industrial Training Institute (ITI). “They have found that the samples contain negligible amounts of these acids, a range of 0.5 to 0.7. We use low-sulfur, low-ash, high calorie coal out of which carbon dioxide emissions are greatly reduced,” the source told the Daily News. “The ITI also studied the air flow and the extent that these ashes would be swept away, they found that after a short distance, all the particles would have evaporated into thin air.” The engineer added that the notion that the ashes...

By Lalin Fernandopulle http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2017/02/26/features/norochcholai-coal-power-plant-pollution-goes-unabated The adverse repercussions on the environment leading to climate change, due to pollution from the Norochcholai coal power plant, as reported, is an exaggeration, as the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) has taken all precautions and preventive measures to minimize environmental pollution, a top official of the CEB told the Sunday Observer. “The stories fabricated in the media and by various eco-groups are blatant lies as one could visit the site and get a clear picture of what is happening. Maximum efforts have been made and monitoring is carried out to ensure there is no damage to people’s health and the environment,” the official said. The CEB, in collaboration with the National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency (NARA) has launched a program to monitor and recommend measures to mitigate the impact of the power plant on the environment. ...

By Dr. Janaka Ratnasiri The conflict that has arisen between the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) and the Public Utilities Commission Sri Lanka (PUCSL) was described in detail in my article in The Island of 21.04.2018. As the the conflict between the two organisations remains unresolved even with the intervention of the Ministry of Power and Renewable Energy (MP&RE), President Maithripala Sirisena has taken up the task of resolving it. President’s ruling on the matter One state TV channel in its evening news programme telecast on 25.04.18, showed the President chairing a meeting specially summoned to discuss this issue, with a summary posted in the site: http://www.itnnews.lk/sinhala/. The matter was also reported in the Island of 26.04.2018. The President was heard instructing the PUCSL to take early steps to implement the CEB’s Long Term Generation Expansion (LTGE) Plan that has been submitted for approval. He further said that the parties need to be flexible...

The Ministry of Power and Renewable Energy says that one unit of the Norochcholai Power Plant will be temporarily shutdown for maintenance. Secretary to the Ministry of Power and Renewable Energy, Dr Suren Batagoda told the Sunday Observer that there will be no power cuts. “Some plants are going in for maintenance these days as the demand is less. This does not mean there will be power cuts. We approve maintenance shutdowns only after ensuring that there are supplementary power sources that will cover up,” Dr Batagoda said. However, a highly placed official of Lakvijaya Power Plant told the Sunday Observer that the Electrostatic Precipitator (ESP), a unit that collects fly ash exiting the chimney, and stops it from being released to the atmosphere is not functioning properly. “The ESP unit has been giving trouble. This collects about 90 percent of the fly ash. The efficiency of this unit dropped to about twenty to thirty percent. To rectify this, we have to stop the unit from ...