Energy moot begins

LAHORE

A two-day international conference on “Energy for Environmental and Economic Sustainability” started at a local hotel here on Friday.

The conference has been organised by the University of Management and Technology (UMT) in collaboration with Texas Tech University (TTU), the US, National Science Foundation, the US and International Association for Hydrogen Energy, the US. Renowned scholars, scientists, industrialists and analysts from China, Japan, the US, the UK, Canada, Germany, Finland, Slovenia, Romania, Malaysia, Indonesia, Mexico, Turkey, Libya, Algeria and Iran are attending it to share new ideas and latest research on various forms of energy.

Punjab Minister for Mines and Minerals Sher Ali Khan, speaking on the occasion, appreciated UMT for organising the international conference. He said the government was trying its best to meet energy needs of the country. “We have launched one of the world’s largest solar power projects in Bahawalpur, the Quaid-e-Azam Solar Park,” he added. UMT Rector Dr Hasan Sohaib Murad emphasised on exploring maximum sources of energy like hydro, thermal and nuclear, solar and wind energy. Punjab Higher Education Commission (PHEC) Chairman Dr Nizamuddin said energy played critical role in the development of countries, adding that dangerous climate changes were jeopardising human health conditions since the industrial revolution, and its solution lay in non-polluted and clean energy like solar and wind energy.

The experts said that in the western world, governments harvested energy from the sun directly as well as indirectly in form of wind, biomass, hydro and ocean. They recommended Pakistan to do likewise.