Energy demands

With the foreign exchange reserves held by the State Bank of Pakistan depleting to dangerous levels, a serious challenge of managing fuel imports has perplexed the PMLN-led federal government. As things currently stand, a serious shortage of natural gas to run power plants is causing frequent power breakdowns in parts of the country even in the winter months when the energy demand comes down significantly, while import costs have reached an all-time high due to sky-rocketing prices of oil in the international market, getting even dearer due to the rising value of the greenback.

Officials, as usual, put all their eggs in one basket by planning to invest in LNG pipelines in order to meet the growing demand and reduce cost — a plan that backfired badly after the Russia-Ukraine war has made natural gas almost unaffordable for Pakistan, despite the fact that the country has some of the world’s most efficient regasified LNG-based power plants. Now, the Energy Minister has something else in mind as he has made it clear in a recent media interview that “LNG is no longer part of the long-term plan [regarding energy generation].” Khurrum Dastgir, the minister, says the country plans to shift towards coal-based forms of power generation and increase domestic capacity four times — from 2.31 gigawatt to 10 gigawatt so as to meet the rising domestic, commercial and industrial demand. After taking over the reins of the government in April last year, the coalition government had announced plans to boost solar, hydro and nuclear energy and inaugurated a few projects also, but now it doesn’t seem to be too enthusiastic about it precisely because it will require time, effort and investment before the benefits can be reaped. Coal on the other hand comes up as a quick fix solution to our woes, as the energy minister insists that “it’s the question of not just being able to generate energy cheaply, but also with domestic sources”. It goes without saying though that reliance on coal may prove harmful in the long-run. And where Pakistan can temporarily resort to coal in order to keep the lights on, serious long-term investment is needed to promote sustainable means of generating energy. Our reliance on fossil fuel, and thus the need to import raw materials from other countries, needs to be brought to an end.

With the narrative around climate change strengthening and the world looking to move towards a green future, there will be many opportunities to secure funding from international organisations for sustainable projects. A pro-active approach by the government is needed in this regard.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 19^th, 2023.

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