‘Thar coal can produce 100,000MW every year for 500 years’

LAHORE
Director of Punjab University’s Centre for Coal Technology (CCT) Prof Dr Shahid Munir has said Pakistan can generate 100,000 megawatt of electricity every year for the next 500 years by using Thar coal.
Addressing a seminar on “Role of Indigenous Coal in Solving Energy Crisis” organised by the CCT on Monday, he said the indigenous coal was the only solution to resolve energy crises adding Thar had 175 billion ton coal reservoirs worth Rs 30 trillion.
Dr Shahid Munir further said Allah had blessed Pakistan with the coal at Thar which was technically ideal for electricity generation and there was no need for its upgrade. He said South Africa was generating 93%, China 81%, India 71% and Australia 69% electricity from coal, but unfortunately Pakistan, despite having abundance of coal reservoirs, was generating only 0.6 percent electricity from coal.
The PU-CCT director urged the Punjab government for getting some blocks of Thar coal on lease to meet energy demands of the province using open-pit mining method. He also claimed that Thar coal project of Dr Samar Mubarak Mand was technically flawed which could have caused loss to the government. He said only 67 percent population of Pakistan had access to electricity. He said according to the International Energy Agency, Pakistan’s energy demand would increase by 49,000 megawatt by 2025. But all the ongoing projects of dams will generate only 15,000MW electricity by 2025, he maintained. He said mining of coal was the most important factor to meet the target of generating 49,000 megawatt electricity by 2025.
He said Pakistan was spending $12 billion per year on purchasing furnace oil for generating electricity. He stressed the need for adopting environment friendly techniques to produce energy from coal. He said coal would remain the major source of energy production for the next 100 years. He said PU’s Centre for Coal Technology had also technically audited various coal power projects.
Punjab Minister for Mines and Minerals Sher Ali Khan said coal was the best solution to resolve energy crisis adding the Punjab government would complete 300MW coal power project at Salt Range by 2018.
He said there were 600 million tons reservoirs of coal at Salt Range and there was a need to adopt clean coal technology to protect environment from negative effects of producing energy.
Sher Ali said mining was a difficult task and the Punjab government was benefiting from the expertise of Chinese companies. He further stressed the need for conserving energy saying the UPS was involved in “electricity theft” because it consumed extra electricity for recharging batteries and it used 2,000MW electricity as per estimates. The minister advised the consumers to unplug the UPS during winter. He said Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif was working day and night for removing energy crises from Pakistan. He lauded PU Vice-Chancellor Dr Mujahid Kamran for raising the standard of university and promoting research culture in the university. Later, PU VC presented a souvenir to the minister.