India leads Asia's dash for coal as emissions blow east

[WorldNews]

View attachment 28015​

By Krishna N. Das and Tommy Wilkes MAGADH, India (Reuters) - Deep in the thickly forested hills in its east, India last month started production at what it hopes will in five years be Asia's biggest coal mine. At the open-cast mine, which involves the clearing of more than 18,000 hectares (44,500 acres) of land, noisy excavators are busy digging for coal that will feed a huge power plant being built nearby to fuel India's energy-hungry economy. India is opening a mine a month as it races to double coal output by 2020, putting the world's third-largest polluter at the forefront of a pan-Asian dash to burn more of the dirty fossil fuel that environmentalists fear will upend international efforts to contain global warming.

Continue reading...