ISLAMABAD: Experts have stressed the need for exploiting the country’s vast coal reserves for producing energy in order to cope with the power crunch that has affected the entire nation, ranging from ordinary people to industries.
The focus should be on large-scale mechanised coal mining to produce various forms of energy from it, they said while speaking at a seminar on “Energy crisis and coal reserves in Pakistan: Potential, problems and prospects” at the Institute of Policy Studies here on Thursday.
They cited corruption, nepotism and poor governance as the main reasons behind the energy crisis and called for measures to tackle the problem.
“We are a nation sitting on second largest coal reserves in the world, but are still facing the worst energy crisis merely because of cumbersome procedures, lack of vision and poor planning,” said Usman Aminuddin, former minister for petroleum and natural resources.
He said 25% of global energy needs were being met through coal and it was being used to produce 41% of electricity produced around the world. Despite Pakistan having 184 billion tons of coal reserves, the second largest in the world after the US, not a single unit of electricity was being produced through this resource, he said.
Answering critics who question the quality of coal present in Pakistan, Aminuddin pointed out that South Africa was meeting 94% of its energy needs with the help of coal, though the quality of its coal was inferior than the coal in Pakistan.
“Technology has developed to an extent that any quality of coal may be processed and brought into use for various purposes. It is not that coal is of no value, in fact the people occupying and influencing the power corridors have made the whole nation hostage to vested interests,” he said.
Referring to recent efforts to utilise Thar coal through under-ground gasification, he was of the view that the technology had been in a ‘pilot stage’ in the US since the 1960s and there were 14 major drawbacks of the technology. Of these, the Americans have been able to address only six so far.
“There are other proven processes and technologies employed around the world, which should be taken into consideration,” he suggested.
He also referred to gel fuel made from molasses, which was the second major fuel source in Africa and could easily be made available to the people of Pakistan as the country was rich in sugarcane with no dearth of sugar mills producing large quantities of molasses as a by-product.
Mirza Hamid Hassan, former secretary of water and power, who was chairing the session, underlined the need for developing mechanised mining infrastructure and the coal so acquired should be brought into multiple uses.
“The whole debate about coal is with reference to power generation, while the potential of this natural resource is much more than that,” he stressed.
He called for attracting foreign investment for coal exploration, which could be ensured only through sound policies and an enabling environment for the investors.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 15th, 2012.
COMMENTS (4)
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Good article but as usual we can only write good articles but practically we are nothing. What is the cause of this crisis and why this happened? Everybody knows but nothing is done to punish the culprits. Prime Minister statement of selling the energy to other countries is just another lies as there is no other country like Pakistan to whom you can sell this energy. This nation has destroyed their country and is crippling towards its death. Neither articles nor positive thinking can solve the problem; it needs physical efforts which are not there. Corruption is at its peak. Every influential person is exploiting the available resources and even the sacred activity was looted. Nothing can done except going back to Stone Age. This is the fate of all corrupt nations.
@Sid. A simple Google search using the term Thar Coal should back my comments. The vast majority of the coal is located under hundreds of meters of water - it is cost prohibitive to mine and the only method of creating energy using the coal in place is considered experimental and there is no large scale project operating on the planet using that technology. There are logical reasons why Thar Coal hasn't been used to resolve Pakistan's energy crisis --- corrupt politicians are low on the list.
@Cautious: Your comment is misleading and baseless. No study on the reserves so far has any indication of such issue. As a matter of fact, there is no sincere approach on part of the authorities to tap into this huge resource for number of reasons and vested short term interests over the long term national interest.
Mediocre/lousy coal located under a sea of water equates to "expensive lousy coal" which makes it "expensive energy". You can buy fuel/energy from many sources --- Pakistan's problem is that it doesn't have the money to buy that fuel/energy --- so how does mining and converting lousy coal at a cost exceeding that which you can buy energy on the market solve anything?