by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY [1] 
[2] on 04. 5.10
photo: hiroo [3] via flickr.
India may use a heck of a lot of coal today (and no doubt would use tons more of it if its per capita energy use was anything like that of Europe or the United States) but as Revolt [4] points out a new tax to be levied on coal [5] will be put directly to use to help build the nation's use of clean energy tomorrow.
The tax will be Rs 50 (a bit over one dollar) per ton of coal, whether it's imported or domestic, and based on the nation's 600 million ton yearly usage, it will raise about $660 million in fiscal year 2010 to be put into a National Clean Energy Fund. That fund will finance "research and innovative projects in clean technologies."
Included in that is helping promote India's ambitious National Solar Mission [6], which aims to deploy 20 GW of solar power by 2022, reducing greenhouse gas emissions some 12-18% by the same time period--assuming that the solar power displaces fossil fuel electricity and isn't just in addition to added dirty electric capacity.
From: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/04/india-coal-tax-raise-660-million-for-clean-energy-2010.php [7]