Environment Concerns of Pet Coke

In February 2017, the Supreme Court directed the centre to take a decision within four weeks on banning polluting fuels like furnace oil and pet coke used in industrial plants, because they have very high level of sulfur and is single biggest source of pollution in Delhi and NCR.

Pet Coke

Petroleum coke or petcoke is one of the many consumer products produced during oil refining. During oil refining, the crude oil is first processed into various products such as gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, lubricating oils and waxes. After all these products have been created, a residual crude is further undergoes additional processing called “coking” to produce various fuels including pet coke.

Pet coke is used as a source of energy and carbon for various industrial applications. There are two kinds of pet coke produced viz. Fuel grade pet coke (80%) and calcined pet coke (20%). The fuel grade pet coke is used as a fuel in cement kilns and electric power plants. Calcined pet coke is used for manufacture of energy as well as a in aluminum industry (to create anodes for extraction of aluminum from bauxite), creation of graphite electrodes, steel industry (as source of carbon) etc. Petcoke is a growing internationally traded commodity.

Environment and Health Hazards of Pet Coke

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not classify petcoke as a hazardous waste nor does it pose health issues in humans. However, health and environment concerns are regarding the Higher Sulphur content in petcoke. For your examinations, you must the following points regarding pet coke:

• Pet coke is used as a substitute for coal and has a higher heat content than coal. Thus, less pet coke is required in comparison to coal for same industrial process.
• Since less pet coke is able to replace an amount of coal; pet coke is responsible for less CO2 emission in comparison to coal. Further, emission of NOx depends on the technology used in the industrial process.
• However, Pet coke has more sulfur content than coal. At the same time, it is worth note that largest use of pet coke is in cement industry where 90% sulfur compounds are absorbed in clinker.

However, environmentalists claim that pet coke is extremely polluting because of its higher sulphur content and because pollution is transferred from one product (coal) to another (pet coke).

Government policy around pet coke

Currently, 12-13 million tonnes of Pet Coke is produced in India, apart from around the same quantity of imported.  Thus, it is claimed that soon India could be largest consumer of pet coke and also a large dump yard for cheap pet coke. Thus, the government should come out with a clear policy on pet coke.