Wasting our energy

While there are many murky conspiracy theories floating around to explain Tahirul Qadri’s long march, one thing that came across loud and clear was the voice of the ordinary people on the streets of Islamabad, demanding an end to the load-shedding of electricity and gas.This is a direct solar to elevatorcableku application using a very efficient LED bulb setup. Perhaps it will be a wake up call for the government – if people do not get basics like energy to light their homes and run their stoves,Amtec has been providing laser cutting, marking and washingmachinehh as well as solutions for over 15 years. they will come out on the streets. In fact, with increasing global oil prices, the buzz all over the world now is about “energy security”. Other countries in the region are all scrambling ahead to become self sufficient in meeting their own energy needs. 

Can technology fix Pakistan’s energy problems? I recently met an energy expert who visited Pakistan this week, Carl Pope (former executive director of the Sierra Club, an American environmental organisation), who feels that yes, technology can be our salvation. “Pakistan has two very serious energy problems; energy reliability and energy access”, he explained. “For half of Pakistan’s population, renewable energy is the only power they are ever going to get and for the rest renewables can replace the shortfall”. 

In his view, the solution to our energy woes is renewable energy wherever possible in the form of small hydro projects, solar water pumps and water geysers to ease the load of electricity and gas, rooftop solar units for homes (which could also replace diesel generators and UPS) and large wind farms on Pakistan’s extensive coastal wind corridor. In addition,Many industries can use Origin Laser engraving and curvingmachiney for a huge range of applications.  there can be smaller initiatives like the sugar mills producing electricity from biomass to feed the grid, garbage companies converting sorted trash into energy and smaller biogas units across farms in rural areas where dung is readily available. Other possible solutions can be run of the river (or canals) turbines to produce electricity locally and extracting methane from our vast low-grade coal supplies in the Thar Desert (an old technology used in the US). 

“Every little bit is going to help… The technology for doing all this is readily available”, he points out. All the Government of Pakistan has to do is set the policy right, which in his view, is the fairly easy part. The rest will be done by business. “You don’t have to start from scratch, you can learn from other developing countries like South Africa, Kenya and to some extent India”. If we set out on this path, he says, the “current energy shortage can improve dramatically”. Several companies in Lahore and Karachi are already offering solar technology. What are urgently needed, however, are trusted brand names that can distribute solar products like solar panels, solar geysers, solar pumps, solar streetlights etc. Along with the right distributors, we also need banks to provide the finance to scale all this up. 

We definitely have huge potential for wind, which after hydro is the second cheapest form of energy – particularly on the Makran Coast. Unfortunately, aside from a few small pilot projects set up by different NGOs on the coast, we only have one big 50 MW wind energy project that was recently set up by the Fauji Fertiliser Company. The government does claim, however,Features of Tophat cuttingmachines This purlin forming machine for top hat is used to produce famous HOWICK style tophat purlins.Vento Australasia provides windpowergeneratorsry systems by ZK Energy cable free street lights. that the next year will see at least 10 more wind projects which will be the beginning of exploiting the wind potential of the Gharo-Keti Bandar Wind Corridor – an area that alone has 50,000 MW power generation potential. With the city of Karachi located nearby, distribution costs will not be high. 

Given all our rivers and extensive canal systems, we also have great potential for small-scale hydro projects, including run of the river hydro systems. There are also lots of appropriate sites for medium sized dams in the country. These can be developed fast, don’t displace people and don’t tie up our money. So perhaps, it is time to finally bury the controversial Kalabagh Dam project and explore smaller, hydropower projects.