Standing by vast, ash-colored coalfields, miner Rabi Behera expressed few doubts about the job at hand. To cope with increasingly brutal temperatures, India has to keep its power grid standing — and for now that means digging up ever expanding quantities of the dirtiest fossil fuel.
"It’s hard to survive without electricity during the summer,” he said, giant trucks rumbling past in clouds of black dust. "Our production target is raised every year. Every year we’re producing more coal.”
So far, this year has been less blistering than 2022, when temperatures in New Delhi climbed past 49 degrees Celsius, but February still broke records, April saw lethal conditions and forecasters issued warnings for this month, when pre-monsoon heat tends to peak. Extreme temperatures are increasingly frequent, and that’s driving electricity consumption surges, which in turn push up demand for fuel from vast pits like Gevra’s in the eastern state of Chhattisgarh, where Behera works — soon to become the largest coal mine in the world.