Energy crisis hurting economic growth
Wednesday, 21 December 2011
Engr. S. A. Mansoor
Limitations of fossil fuel, and maximizing its utilization efficiently; has resulted in shortfall of electric power generation in Bangladesh. This is the identified reason, for the bottleneck of economic activities in the production sector that has throttled growth; despite all the somewhat positive figures published to the contrary! Unless and until, this problem is tackled effectively; our economic future is bleak. We are all aware that effective productivity per unit of capital investment is not encouraging. The key reason is the critical shortage of fossil fuel and the lack in generation of thermal power; as well as less than bare minimum utilization of alternative energy resources; particularly for residential and home use were expensive thermoelectric power from the public utility is in effect a misuse! Finite natural gas resources are declining, day by day; while we are misusing it as a cooking fuel in most urban areas of Bangladesh; where we all know that more often than not, burners are kept lit round the clock! This is a scenario that is unimaginable in any urban locality in the world! It is a classical case of criminal waste of natural resource; unimaginable in today's urban environment! This is our unfortunate reality ; where we supply un-metered natural gas for cooking! Thankfully; this has resulted in lower well-head gas pressure and hence the lack of availability of gas in the kitchen! This has led to the under utilization of our gas; but this should only be exploited for industrial ventures; and must be made expensive for the low value addition of this important local fuel resource in the kitchen! This may anger the housewives; but in the national perspective; this is necessary! For industrial usage only; we can improve distribution head pressure by compression at the well head or at strategic locations; like the gas headers for industrial ares only! This policy should be adopted; and household usage discouraged by modifying the tariff structure accordingly. There is ample scope for gas compression; but this should only be dedicated for natural gas in industrial use and for power generation! Coming to our resources of coal; one wonders why we have not gone ahead with coal mining? Coal is there; and as far as the reports go; its of fairly good quality. We have been talking about it for at least a decade: but mining it; remains a dream; that some day may be a reality! Meanwhile debate rages on; going on to and fro; filling the air waves and the local print media - between shaft and open pit mining! Thankfully; our parliament has decided to go for open pit mining. However; the decision is yet to be transformed into positive mining activity! This should take-off as rapidly as humanly possible; instead of procrastination and unnecessary debates; that only wastes time. We should go after it in a determined spirit; driven by the saying: "Ours is not to question why; Ours is but to do or die!" We should start open pit mining 'NOW'! Even tomorrow is too late! More than a month or so back; an overseas energy exploring and development company has proposed for a "trial coal gasification project in North Bangladesh." However; till date, there is no follow up news about this important and interesting proposal! May be; somewhere in the 'secretariat' our decision making center; this subject as a file; is gathering 'weight and volume' while crawling slowly up and down the various hierarchies across many desks in many department; it it reaches any decision level! It is following the age old maxim of: "slow and steady, wins the race"! In the modern IT age; this is history; specially where matters of fuel and energy resources is concerned; which brooks no delay! May be we are keen to import all geological fuel; liquid, solid or gaseous; from all corners of the world. Meanwhile, our virgin green soil, is left, without despoiling it for recovering essential underground resources; while imports makes many rich; richer! We are not possibly not geared or keen to face technical issues and problems. It appears that all our energy is spent in political maneuvering; and on winning the next general election; and forming the next government. This is our expertise; everything else is secondary! To sum up; we get what we deserve: an over-doze of politics! Exploiting techno-economic resources and needed follow up developments; are way down the priority list! by the time it reaches the level of looking into; the next election comes along; all else is then forgotten! The key issue then is winning the next election; all other matters are just a waste of scarce political time and energy! Meanwhile, we stare at a gray future ahead; which seems to be our destiny, as dictated by our politicians! E-mail: sam@dhakacom.com
Limitations of fossil fuel, and maximizing its utilization efficiently; has resulted in shortfall of electric power generation in Bangladesh. This is the identified reason, for the bottleneck of economic activities in the production sector that has throttled growth; despite all the somewhat positive figures published to the contrary! Unless and until, this problem is tackled effectively; our economic future is bleak. We are all aware that effective productivity per unit of capital investment is not encouraging. The key reason is the critical shortage of fossil fuel and the lack in generation of thermal power; as well as less than bare minimum utilization of alternative energy resources; particularly for residential and home use were expensive thermoelectric power from the public utility is in effect a misuse! Finite natural gas resources are declining, day by day; while we are misusing it as a cooking fuel in most urban areas of Bangladesh; where we all know that more often than not, burners are kept lit round the clock! This is a scenario that is unimaginable in any urban locality in the world! It is a classical case of criminal waste of natural resource; unimaginable in today's urban environment! This is our unfortunate reality ; where we supply un-metered natural gas for cooking! Thankfully; this has resulted in lower well-head gas pressure and hence the lack of availability of gas in the kitchen! This has led to the under utilization of our gas; but this should only be exploited for industrial ventures; and must be made expensive for the low value addition of this important local fuel resource in the kitchen! This may anger the housewives; but in the national perspective; this is necessary! For industrial usage only; we can improve distribution head pressure by compression at the well head or at strategic locations; like the gas headers for industrial ares only! This policy should be adopted; and household usage discouraged by modifying the tariff structure accordingly. There is ample scope for gas compression; but this should only be dedicated for natural gas in industrial use and for power generation! Coming to our resources of coal; one wonders why we have not gone ahead with coal mining? Coal is there; and as far as the reports go; its of fairly good quality. We have been talking about it for at least a decade: but mining it; remains a dream; that some day may be a reality! Meanwhile debate rages on; going on to and fro; filling the air waves and the local print media - between shaft and open pit mining! Thankfully; our parliament has decided to go for open pit mining. However; the decision is yet to be transformed into positive mining activity! This should take-off as rapidly as humanly possible; instead of procrastination and unnecessary debates; that only wastes time. We should go after it in a determined spirit; driven by the saying: "Ours is not to question why; Ours is but to do or die!" We should start open pit mining 'NOW'! Even tomorrow is too late! More than a month or so back; an overseas energy exploring and development company has proposed for a "trial coal gasification project in North Bangladesh." However; till date, there is no follow up news about this important and interesting proposal! May be; somewhere in the 'secretariat' our decision making center; this subject as a file; is gathering 'weight and volume' while crawling slowly up and down the various hierarchies across many desks in many department; it it reaches any decision level! It is following the age old maxim of: "slow and steady, wins the race"! In the modern IT age; this is history; specially where matters of fuel and energy resources is concerned; which brooks no delay! May be we are keen to import all geological fuel; liquid, solid or gaseous; from all corners of the world. Meanwhile, our virgin green soil, is left, without despoiling it for recovering essential underground resources; while imports makes many rich; richer! We are not possibly not geared or keen to face technical issues and problems. It appears that all our energy is spent in political maneuvering; and on winning the next general election; and forming the next government. This is our expertise; everything else is secondary! To sum up; we get what we deserve: an over-doze of politics! Exploiting techno-economic resources and needed follow up developments; are way down the priority list! by the time it reaches the level of looking into; the next election comes along; all else is then forgotten! The key issue then is winning the next election; all other matters are just a waste of scarce political time and energy! Meanwhile, we stare at a gray future ahead; which seems to be our destiny, as dictated by our politicians! E-mail: sam@dhakacom.com