Thar coal project: Civil society, energy experts urge govt to re-conduct EIA

KARACHI: Civil society, energy experts and environment activists on Thursday underlined the need for protecting the rights of local people and re-conduct the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) of Thar coal project of mining and power plants. In this regard, they suggested using state-of-the-art technology in coal mining and coal power plants.

The participants welcomed creation of the Sindh Electric Power Regulatory authority (SEPRA) as this has endorsed the Sindh’s leadership role in energy security of Pakistan, which is directly linked to the future of climate security in the country.

These observations emerged at a meeting between the Energy Department of Sindh officials and civil society leadership advocating for clean energy for Pakistan. The participants pointed out Sindh is the worst affected area from the Climate change impacts and last year’s floods had hit majority of the population in the province.

Secretary of Energy Department, Government of Sindh Abu Bakar Madani gave a presentation on “Sindh’s Energy Landscape: Challenges and Opportunities” organized by The Knowledge Forum (TKF).

He said the installed capacity of power plants is much more than they are producing because fuel cost is higher which makes electricity dearer. According to him currently most of electricity in Pakistan is produced from either hydel or furnace oil sources. Cost of furnace oil is much higher and it has become unaffordable manifold.

“We need to produce affordable electricity,” said Abu Bakar Madani. Most of the Pakistani power producing plants are using furnace oil to generate electricity, whereas only 2000 MW is being produced through renewable energy sources like solar and wind, he added.

The Karachi Electric is producing power mostly from furnace oil that is why its per unit cost is much higher, he said adding that the KE is planning to shift from furnace oil to Thar coal. A railway track is being laid from Tharparkar to Bin Qasim to produce power from coal. All environmental concerns should be addressed while generating power via coal, he said. He pointed out that Sindh is adding over 1800 MW of electricity in the national grid from various sources like coal, solar and wind.

He said renewable energy has a lot of potential but is not reliable because during cloudy weather solar energy cannot be produced. “We need to have at least one baseload for an uninterrupted supply of power,” he said adding that India has made coal as its baseload and it is producing its 70 percent of energy from coal.

It is matter of the fact that Pakistan mostly relied on hydel sources for power generation for many decades. Then it shifted reliance on gas, which is now depleting. After gas reduction, power generation was shifted on furnace oil, which has become costlier.

According to him there is a lot of potential to increase share of solar and wind energy. If the federal government reduces taxes on solar panels and quality panels are produced locally, the cost of solar would be reduced manifold.

Currently only effluent class of the society can get benefit from the solar energy because it is costlier, so if locally made good quality solar panels are made available, middle and lower middle class can afford to install solar at domestic levels.

Abu Bakar Madani pointed out that hydro power is the cheapest source, where as coal is on third number in low-cost production of electricity. Current over 3300 MW electricity is being produced through Thar coal, he said adding that Pakistan has started relying on locally produced coal due to forex crisis.

In their views, the civil society participants of the meeting highlighted the problems being faced by local people from coal power plants. Coal mining has destroyed natural resources and polluted ground water, they pointed out.

Researches should be conducted on impact of power plants on local population and environment, the participants agreed.

Earlier, in his welcome remarks, Zeenia Shaukat, Director of The Knowledge Forum (TKF) said Sindh is a major player in energy landscape of Pakistan. Natural resource reserves are more in Sindh especially coal, which is being used for power generation.

Prominent among those who also spoke on the occasion included Shariq Rizvi, Senior Technical Officer of Energy Department; Zulfiqar Shah, Member of Sindh Human Rights Commission; Ali Akbar Rahimon from Thar’s organization AWARE; Kashif Bajeer of Civil Society Support Programme; Ms. Tajreen Midhat from Habib University; Prof. Dr. Razal Ali Khan from NED University; Zain Molvi, advocate from Alternative Law Collective, Kamran Khosa from PRIED, Yasir Hussain from Darya Lab, Ishak Soomro from The Change Organisation, Nazeer Mahar from TRI and others.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023