Air Pollution and Atmospheric Chemistry

By Rathindra Kuruwita Residents of villages near the Lakvijaya coal power plant at Norochcholai had complained to the North Western Province Environmental Authority (NWPEA) about an unbearable fly ash emanating from the power plant, yesterday, NWPEA Acting Director, Saman Lenaduwa told The Island. "Villagers complained that fly ash came out of the plant around noon yesterday and that it was difficult for them to stay in their houses. This has occurred due to a technical issue at one of the machines and the engineers at the power plant have stopped it and are repairing it." Asked whether it would affect the granting of the environmental protection licence to the power plant, as requested by ministry of power and the provincial council officials, Lenaduwa said the matter would be discussed during the meeting of the monitoring committee to which the NWPEA had handed over the review of the Norochcholai coal power plant, sidelining the Public Utilities Commission of Sri ...

Rs 330m needed to bring it back to full potential One of the Lakvijaya coal power plant’s units has been running below capacity for nearly half of the time in operation since 2015 and the Government will have to spend a further Rs 330mn to bring it back to full potential, data and documents seen by the Sunday Times show. Data obtained from the regulator, the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) shows that Unit 1–the Chinese-built plant’s oldest and first to be commissioned–last ran at full capacity in April 2017, adding 270mw to the national grid. (While each unit of the three units is meant to generate 300mw of electricity, around 30mw is used to power their own operations). Unit 1 was not functioning for 41 percent of the time between January 2015 and April this year (when it was delivering around 80mw less). It ran at full capacity for just 27 percent of the time and at low capacity, generating around 190mw of power, for 24 percent of the time. There were also 12 ...

By Dimuthu Attanayake  Is the country’s only coal power generation plant unhealthy to live around? Residents in Norochchalai complaining of respiratory illness and skin rashes worry that it might be... Shashikala Harshani is a young mother living in the village of Illanthadiya, Norochcholai, bordering the Coal Power Plant that has been subject to much controversy. When Shashikala’s little girl was born, there was a patch that appeared on her skin, which looked like a kind of rash, on her hand.  “We have shown it to doctors and they said it will go away with time. But, it has been five years now. Some doctors say this might be caused due to ash from the power plant, but nobody is sure,” she said. Noordu Kumari is another resident of the area, who gave birth to a baby with a similar patch on her leg. “It was smaller when she was born but grew bigger with time. The doctors say it will go away,” she repeats. Young children born with these skin patches have been...

By Nalin Gunasekera Energy consultant At present, there is a global challenge in achieving an appropriate mix of primary energy sources, limiting emissions,along with balancing energy security, energy independence and affordability.There have been missteps in reaching an optimal balance in defining an energy policy that have posed threats to energy security, resulting in nations that are unable to supply a reliable electricity supply without interruption.A decade of volatile energy prices, alongside increasingly dire warnings of climatic disaster and emissions related ill-health, has pushed energy security and climate change steadily up the global policy agenda. The rhetoric within governments and the public has emphasized the immediate need to deal with all these challenges concurrently. However, challenges such as energy security, energy affordability and climate change do not always align. Many important decisions in primary energy sources including natural gas, coal, ...

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...