Wouldn't replacing the power plants be cheaper (and better) in the run rather than running jet engines to get rid of the pollution? Why isn't that an option in this case?
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Indeed... the idea of burning more fossil fuels to blow away the emissions from burning dirty fossil fuels seems pretty crazy, but I guess that's the nature of short-term solutions. I assume that the cost of building new power plants and buying enormous quantities of more expensive fuel for them probably vastly outweighs the cost of getting a few retired jet engines and tankers full of jet fuel.
This has nothing to do with carbon and global warming. It has to do with smog, which kills millions of people through respiratory problems and decreases quality of life. The additional carbon emitted from running the jet engine is negligible compared to the carbon emitted by the plant.
Fair enough.
A large part of the worst pollution days in dehi is not from burning fossil fuels but from burning agricultural fields because farmers don't have a more effective way of preparing the fields for the next year. This means that in November the air is the worst, and it slowly starts getting better in December. Even if you just address this problem it will make a huge difference in the air quality.
Ah, I see.
No. A new jet engine is ~$10M, so a retired jet engine is probably ~$1M. The article says a single jet engine can handle a 1GW plant, translating to less than 1% of the cost of the power plant. (Electric capacity is of order $1/W https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_per_watt ) Some cleaning retrofits are do-able and worthwhile (just like the jet engine), but making power plants clean to developed-world standards is an order-unity fraction of the cost.