No, coal is not dead

livemint.com:

India’s industrial growth and modernization, giving people access to modern energy services. Despite this progress, the average household in India only consumes a tenth as much electricity as the average household in the United States. India’s sheer size and its huge scope for growth mean that its energy demand is set to grow by more than that of any other country in the coming decades.

Nevertheless, the rapid growth in fossil energy consumption has also meant India’s annual carbon emissions have risen to become the third highest in the world. It therefore makes sense that thegovernment has announced more ambitious targets for 2030, including installing 500 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity, reducing the emissions intensity of its economy by 45%, and reducing a billion tonnes of CO2. In this constantly evolving energy landscape, coal has often been dismissed as a dinosaur of the past.

The entire carbon-emitting sector has been overshadowed by its sustainable alternatives, i.e., renewable energy. However, recent trends have defied these expectations, displaying a surprising revival in the coal sector. According to the National Electricity Plan-Volume-I, the total coal consumption in the coal-based power plants of the country has risen from approximately 608 million tonnes (mt) in 2017-18 to about 777 mt in 2022-23, marking a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 5%.