Carbon capture and storage (CCS) may be considered a more recent phenomenon in the global energy market, but the origin of the concept dates back to the early 1970s. The CCS technology along with coal gasification, if implemented with policy support, offers multiple benefits for the environment as well as the industry. For a country like India which is grossly dependent on crude oil imports, gasification and CCS can bring immense economic and environmental benefits. To this end, M N Dastur, an independent engineering consultancy service provider, is working with the US Department of Energy and its National Carbon Capture Center for advancing the adoption, use and research, on a commercial scale, coal gasification and carbon capture storage and utilisation technologies in India, says Atanu Mukherjee, President, M N Dastur & Co (P) Ltd. Arindam Bandyopadhyay and Tamajit Pain caught up with Mukherjee, who has been consulting for the metals, mining and energy industry globally in areas including strategy, technology, operations and finance, for a free-wheeling interview.
Mukherjee interacts at the highest levels with national and international metals and energy firms, as well as with the Government of India on industrial strategy, asset restructuring and policy for the core sector. M N Dastur specialises as consulting engineers for conceptualising, engineering, implementing and operating complex industrial projects in the energy, metals and mining sectors. The company has also recently set up Dastur Innovation Labs (DIL) which is a pioneering initiative to advance the state of-the-art and state of the practice in steel, metals and energy industries.