An energy company listed on the London Stock Exchange is planning to spend up to an estimated $6bn (£3.8bn) building eight coal-fired power stations that could add tens of millions of tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere.
Essar Energy has just brought online the first part of the 1,200MW Salaya 1 plant in Gujarat on the west coast of India and says this and other stations are needed to counter power shortages. The move comes after countries around the world met in Durban, South Africa, this month to try to hammer out a new climate change treaty to cut global CO2 emissions.
Britain is introducing cleaner fuels and phasing out its old coal-fired power stations while saying that new ones would need carbon capture and storage schemes attached. But a spokesman for Essar, which is listed on the FTSE 100 but operates largely in India, said its customers on the subcontinent could not afford the extra costs associated with subsidising cleaner technologies.
