Crucial tasks of choosing nation's future energy base
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
Syed Fattahul Alim
The issue of Bangladesh's energy future has again taken centre stage. Though the fact that the supply of gas from the existing gas wells is fast dwindling and that all the fields would dry up sooner than later became common knowledge after the government-controlled energy company Petrobangla disclosed it last year, there still was a flicker of hope that the exploration activities being carried out by the international gas and oil companies in the 10 contracted-out gas blocks might come up with positive results. But such hopes have been dashed after those oil companies started to wind up their exploration activities in Bangladesh one after another, giving up their exploration rights over those gas blocks.
The British multinational oil company Cairn, which was carrying out drilling operation at the gas blocks nos 5 and 10 along with its Australian partner Santos, has decided to pack up seeing depressing results of the seismic survey of the blocks carried out by them. Faced with similar results in the gas block nos 17 and 18, the French energy giant Total and its partners Tullow and the Thai energy company PTTEP have also wound up their gas exploration activities. Or in other words, out of the 10 gas blocks over which the foreign oil companies were holding their rights, they have already abandoned four. Out of the remaining six, which are fertile and already producing gas, the lone remaining gas block no 7, contracted out to the US energy giant Chevron, holds the last hope. This gas block where Chevron is carrying out exploration work spans the greater Khulna region and part of Bay of Bengal. However, one is to wait until 2011, before seeing any result, if any, that may be produced from its exploration activities.
The response of the foreign oil companies about the 28 offshore gas blocks in the Bay of Bengal is also negative. Because last year they did not show much interest in the tender invited by Petrobangla. The reason, however, is Bangladesh's dispute with Myanmar and India over its territorial rights in those areas in the Bay of Bengal.
What the remaining gas blocks hold in store for us is still a matter of blind guess. Now how should Bangladesh plan its energy future, with the gas fields under operation exhausting their reserves completely by 2020?
Under the circumstances, for pragmatic reasons, Bangladesh should plan its energy future excluding locally produced gas as an option.
Meanwhile, the majority of the gas-fired power plants will have to be gradually weaned from gas. The new fuel options, as the government has recently decided upon the prime minister's directive, would have coal as well as any other alternatives including diesel, furnace oil or liquefied natural gas (LNG), etc as the options. Terming it a dual fuel option strategy, the energy secretary said recently that the government has made this option mandatory for the power generating plants in the country.
With the exit of gas as the main fuel firing the power plants, home cookers, commercial enterprises and innumerable industrial ventures and enterprises, the nation will be now faced with a hard choice about its future energy strategy. It will now be left with coal, which is mostly untapped. With the five coal mines with a proven deposit of 2.2 billion tonnes, Bangladesh can hope to meet its energy needs for the next four decades. There is however lots of controversies going over how the mining of the coal should be done and how the various issues of socio-political and environmental nature would be resolved. But theses hurdles are not insurmountable and should be solved without delay by the political government, which will run the country for the next five years.
The controversies over the method of mining should end soon, if the economy is to survive the impending energy crunch locally as well as globally. Until a new technology to power the industry and the economy is round the corner, humanity will have to use whatever energy it has now in hand and do that more economically than before. For example, the coal we have harms the environment and its mining dislodges the local population. Should we then sit on the mines and continue our debates endlessly when the fuel-hungry and aging power plants are failing to meet the growing power needs of the industry and the economy at large?
Sufficient compensation package and proper rehabilitation of the people to be dislodged by mining operation may solve the humanitarian issues relating to the mining process. The environmental issues that may arise during the mining and after the coal is burnt should not bother us much for the time being, for it is an issue of survival of the country as an economy. The greener options suggested by some quarters can be used to meet the power needs of the households and offices as a make shift arrangement. But for the massive use of power, the fossil fuel is still the major option. So, as we have coal, and it can meet the major needs of energy for a fairly longer span of time over the next four decades, it can provide us with some breathing space before it might be possible to switch to newer technologies with better and greener fuel energy future.
The controversial nuclear option is also one that is supposedly greener and has the potential to supply power over a very long period of time. But very serious questions are now being raised over the safety issues surrounding the technology itself as well as the cost and the safety standards of the commercial versions of the nuclear power reactors now in use.
But the fact is that some countries, Sweden being the leader, has closed down their nuclear power plants in the wake of the powerful anti-nuclear movement launched by the Greenpeace. True, nuclear technology is still developing and it is potentially dangerous. But then which technology is free from danger? In the 50-year history of the commercial use of nuclear technology for producing power, only two accidents have occurred thus far. In one accident in 1979 at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Generating Station (TIM) in the USA, the nuclear reactor's core melted down partially without causing any human casualty. Neither did any radiation hazard affect the internal staff of TIM, nor the community surrounding the area where the power station was built. Moreover, the damage was controlled within the power plant itself. The second accident took place at Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine in 1986 in the Soviet era. The accident was caused as the steam exploded destroying the reactor. The resulting fire killed 31 people and it affected some people around the plant. Finally total death toll due to fire and radiation was 56. But compare this death toll from the two civilian nuclear plant accidents in the last 50 years out of some 32 countries in the world using the technology to generate electricity with the number of such accidents and resulting deaths from conventional power producing technology.
In fact, the nuclear bogey has its root in the political use of nuclear power and its misuse in war technology. But is conventional technology safer at the hands of the political power?
True, the costs involved in building a nuclear power plant is very high. But remember that in big infrastructural projects like building bridges we are ready to invest huge sums of money, though these infrastructures pay off over a long period of time. In a similar vein, considering the ongoing acuteness of power shortage, which the conventional technology is finding it harder to meet, the nuclear source as a long-term option fits well into our long-term strategy for establishing a secure base for power in the country.
So, we should not give up the idea of nuclear power totally. Moreover, it is an emerging technology with inexhaustible potential. As a nation looking forward with great hopes and aspirations for a better future, the leaders and the thinkers have to be very pragmatic and far sighted about their choice of energy base. The choice is crucial, for it is the ultimate fundamental on which the future of any nation hinges.
The issue of Bangladesh's energy future has again taken centre stage. Though the fact that the supply of gas from the existing gas wells is fast dwindling and that all the fields would dry up sooner than later became common knowledge after the government-controlled energy company Petrobangla disclosed it last year, there still was a flicker of hope that the exploration activities being carried out by the international gas and oil companies in the 10 contracted-out gas blocks might come up with positive results. But such hopes have been dashed after those oil companies started to wind up their exploration activities in Bangladesh one after another, giving up their exploration rights over those gas blocks.
The British multinational oil company Cairn, which was carrying out drilling operation at the gas blocks nos 5 and 10 along with its Australian partner Santos, has decided to pack up seeing depressing results of the seismic survey of the blocks carried out by them. Faced with similar results in the gas block nos 17 and 18, the French energy giant Total and its partners Tullow and the Thai energy company PTTEP have also wound up their gas exploration activities. Or in other words, out of the 10 gas blocks over which the foreign oil companies were holding their rights, they have already abandoned four. Out of the remaining six, which are fertile and already producing gas, the lone remaining gas block no 7, contracted out to the US energy giant Chevron, holds the last hope. This gas block where Chevron is carrying out exploration work spans the greater Khulna region and part of Bay of Bengal. However, one is to wait until 2011, before seeing any result, if any, that may be produced from its exploration activities.
The response of the foreign oil companies about the 28 offshore gas blocks in the Bay of Bengal is also negative. Because last year they did not show much interest in the tender invited by Petrobangla. The reason, however, is Bangladesh's dispute with Myanmar and India over its territorial rights in those areas in the Bay of Bengal.
What the remaining gas blocks hold in store for us is still a matter of blind guess. Now how should Bangladesh plan its energy future, with the gas fields under operation exhausting their reserves completely by 2020?
Under the circumstances, for pragmatic reasons, Bangladesh should plan its energy future excluding locally produced gas as an option.
Meanwhile, the majority of the gas-fired power plants will have to be gradually weaned from gas. The new fuel options, as the government has recently decided upon the prime minister's directive, would have coal as well as any other alternatives including diesel, furnace oil or liquefied natural gas (LNG), etc as the options. Terming it a dual fuel option strategy, the energy secretary said recently that the government has made this option mandatory for the power generating plants in the country.
With the exit of gas as the main fuel firing the power plants, home cookers, commercial enterprises and innumerable industrial ventures and enterprises, the nation will be now faced with a hard choice about its future energy strategy. It will now be left with coal, which is mostly untapped. With the five coal mines with a proven deposit of 2.2 billion tonnes, Bangladesh can hope to meet its energy needs for the next four decades. There is however lots of controversies going over how the mining of the coal should be done and how the various issues of socio-political and environmental nature would be resolved. But theses hurdles are not insurmountable and should be solved without delay by the political government, which will run the country for the next five years.
The controversies over the method of mining should end soon, if the economy is to survive the impending energy crunch locally as well as globally. Until a new technology to power the industry and the economy is round the corner, humanity will have to use whatever energy it has now in hand and do that more economically than before. For example, the coal we have harms the environment and its mining dislodges the local population. Should we then sit on the mines and continue our debates endlessly when the fuel-hungry and aging power plants are failing to meet the growing power needs of the industry and the economy at large?
Sufficient compensation package and proper rehabilitation of the people to be dislodged by mining operation may solve the humanitarian issues relating to the mining process. The environmental issues that may arise during the mining and after the coal is burnt should not bother us much for the time being, for it is an issue of survival of the country as an economy. The greener options suggested by some quarters can be used to meet the power needs of the households and offices as a make shift arrangement. But for the massive use of power, the fossil fuel is still the major option. So, as we have coal, and it can meet the major needs of energy for a fairly longer span of time over the next four decades, it can provide us with some breathing space before it might be possible to switch to newer technologies with better and greener fuel energy future.
The controversial nuclear option is also one that is supposedly greener and has the potential to supply power over a very long period of time. But very serious questions are now being raised over the safety issues surrounding the technology itself as well as the cost and the safety standards of the commercial versions of the nuclear power reactors now in use.
But the fact is that some countries, Sweden being the leader, has closed down their nuclear power plants in the wake of the powerful anti-nuclear movement launched by the Greenpeace. True, nuclear technology is still developing and it is potentially dangerous. But then which technology is free from danger? In the 50-year history of the commercial use of nuclear technology for producing power, only two accidents have occurred thus far. In one accident in 1979 at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Generating Station (TIM) in the USA, the nuclear reactor's core melted down partially without causing any human casualty. Neither did any radiation hazard affect the internal staff of TIM, nor the community surrounding the area where the power station was built. Moreover, the damage was controlled within the power plant itself. The second accident took place at Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine in 1986 in the Soviet era. The accident was caused as the steam exploded destroying the reactor. The resulting fire killed 31 people and it affected some people around the plant. Finally total death toll due to fire and radiation was 56. But compare this death toll from the two civilian nuclear plant accidents in the last 50 years out of some 32 countries in the world using the technology to generate electricity with the number of such accidents and resulting deaths from conventional power producing technology.
In fact, the nuclear bogey has its root in the political use of nuclear power and its misuse in war technology. But is conventional technology safer at the hands of the political power?
True, the costs involved in building a nuclear power plant is very high. But remember that in big infrastructural projects like building bridges we are ready to invest huge sums of money, though these infrastructures pay off over a long period of time. In a similar vein, considering the ongoing acuteness of power shortage, which the conventional technology is finding it harder to meet, the nuclear source as a long-term option fits well into our long-term strategy for establishing a secure base for power in the country.
So, we should not give up the idea of nuclear power totally. Moreover, it is an emerging technology with inexhaustible potential. As a nation looking forward with great hopes and aspirations for a better future, the leaders and the thinkers have to be very pragmatic and far sighted about their choice of energy base. The choice is crucial, for it is the ultimate fundamental on which the future of any nation hinges.