Daily Times

Chairperson Punjab Higher Education Commission engineer Dr Shahid Munir Saturday said that Pakistan’s 187 billion tonnes coal reserves valued US$30 trillion can produce 100,000 MW power for more than 500 years by using clean coal technologies.

He was addressing the concluding session of 3-day Vice Chancellor conference on “Paradigm Shift in Higher Education-Hackathon planning for future” in Murree jointly organised by Kohsar University Murree and University of Education Lahore in collaboration with Punjab Higher Education Commission. He emphasised that Pakistan must develop its indigenous energy resources to meet ever increasing power needs rather than banking on costly imported oil and gas.

He said Pakistan can overcome its energy crisis by fully harnessing under utilised natural and renewable resources. Dr Shahid Munir, an internationally acclaimed expert, in his presentation on ” Meeting Energy Crisis Challenges in 21st Century” said Pakistan’s total fuel import bill is US$21.43 bn which devours 66% of its total foreign exchange. He said if “We fully exploit our natural resources to maximum extent, energy crisis can be overcome besides saving major chunk of foreign exchange”.

He said a big challenge in the 21st century is to provide cheaper energy to everyone in environmental friendly manners. He said 61% of Pakistan’s oil and gas share is consumed in power generation. He said we have to redesign our energy mix.He said Pakistan’s total balance recoverable oil reserves are 233 million barrels and only 44 million barrels is produced annually. Electricity demand in Pakistan will swell to 49078 MW in 2030.

About gas, he said natural gas production is likely to fall less than 01 % bcfd (billion cubic feet per day) by 2025 due to depletion while its demand will shoot to 08% in coming days. He said depletion of indigenous natural resources is one of the major cause of industrial and domestic load shedding badly hitting exports targets. He stressed the urgent needs of fully exploiting our coal, gas, solar, shale oil and gas and wind energy potentials to meet the growing demand of inexpensive power.

He said we should not only promote but encourage the use of solar water pumps, tube wells, heaters, Geysers, cookers, desalination etc. Regarding Nuclear power, Dr Shahid Munir said the economies of nuclear energy are characterised by high investment, maintenance costs and low fuel expenses. He said 43,000 mw power can also be generated through available wind energy potentials. He said Pakistan is the 5th largest sugarcane producer in the world and we can also produce power from the waste of sugarcane and cotton stalk. He said south Asian countries are also using biogas while hydro electricity is the cheapest source of energy besides bringing millions of barren land under plough.