Sustainable Energy & Environment in Bangladesh

Malek Mukul

Now a days, energy becomes a burning issue in Bangladesh. Actually, nobody can understand the importance of any common issue without facing crisis of it. Now it needs not to inform anyone about power crisis and everyone realize that energy can affects all aspects of development i.e. social, economic and environmental including livelihoods, access to water supply, agricultural activities etc. of a country. No development can be met without improvement in quality & quantity of energy facilities in any developed or developing countries.

We know that the United States has the world largest economy & has about 6% of world’s population, but consumes more than 30% of world’s energy. India, on the other hand, has 15% of world population and consumes 1% of world’s energy. So, there is no debate that energy is the key for sustainable development of a nation. Therefore, a tremendous improvement in energy sector is mandatory for overall development of the country. Without energy, the country will become a car without wheels.

Literally, energy can be defined as the ability to do work. Without energy none can do a little. That’s why energy is closely related with development. Bangladesh still remains as an agrarian country. But its cultivable land is decreasing gradually because of its fast population growth. Average 220 ha of agricultural land is going to non-agricultural use everyday. Due to its fast population growth the land is used for urban development, industrialization, roads & high way construction. Therefore, there is no other choice to shift from an agrarian economy to an industrial one. Consequently, to be a country of industrial economy, power generation has to be increased taken as the top priority compared to other important developments of the country.

Bangladesh is the most densely populated agricultural country in the world and falls among the lowest per capita energy users. However, the demand for energy in the country is already growing at a rate of 10% annually and how the demand will be met is influenced by govt. policies. It is not that the country is not able to meet the energy demand. There are large reserves of natural gas & coal in the country. But due to mismanagement and lack of policy, the resources couldn’t use properly. There is constrained to make policy due to environmental barriers. But we should remember that the technology has modernized and could help us to overcome the environmental barriers. Let’s discuss for sustainable energy & environment in Bangladesh.

Energy

There are two types of energy-potential & kinetic and some different forms. As we know ‘energy can’t be lost’, it being transform from one to another. All forms of energy are stored in different ways in the energy sources that we use everyday. These resources are also divided into two groups-Renewable energy sources (an energy source that can be replenished in a short period of time) solar energy, wind, geothermal energy, biomass from plant, hydropower & ocean energy and Non-renewable energy sources (an energy source that we are using up and cannot recreate in short period of time) oil, natural gas & coal; they’re also called fossil fuel. Another nonrenewable energy source is the element; Uranium, whose atoms split through a process called nuclear fission to create heat and ultimately electricity.

All the renewable and nonrenewable energy sources can be used to produce secondary energy source i.e. electricity which we use & is the pre-requisite for our national development.

There is least opportunity to boost our energy sector by renewable energy sources. Because the solar energy is still expensive, the strength of wind varies seasonally, lack of geothermal energy in the country, biomass is harmful for environment and there are little suitable places in the country to set up hydro-plant etc. Therefore, we have to use our reserve nonrenewable energy sources to boost the improvement of the country’s energy sector.

Among the nonrenewable energy sources in the country maximum (most of all) electricity is generated using natural gas. But recently, it is predicted that the natural gas could met demand of energy of the country up to 2012 if no new gas field will discover. But still the country steps far from use of discovered coal reserve. There are five discovered coal basins which cumulatively reserve is about 2.7 billion tonnes equivalent to about 53 Trillion Cubic Feet (TCF) of natural gas. So, this is the one and only energy source which can contribute country’s sustainable energy demand. Therefore, without any hesitation the govt. should take initiatives to start coal extraction immediately and should use the coal resources to generate power for sustainable industrial development of the country.

The energy demand of the country is growing at a rate of 10% per year. In this growing demand, the country will need 9,000-10,000MW of power by 2013 when the natural gas will be finished. Then for sustainable supply of power in the country, we may completely depend on coal as an energy source. In this situation we can make a simple & rough calculation that approximately how much coal will be required to generate 9,000-10,000MW power. If we consider, whole power will be generated using coal, then…

Electricity (MW)	Required coal for electricity generation in the year of 2013
	Per day (tonnes)	Per Month		Per Year
		(tonnes)	Million tonnes (Mt)	(tonnes)	Million tonnes (Mt)
250	2500	75000	0.075	900000	0.9
1000	10000	300000	0.3	3600000	3.6
2000	20000	600000	0.6	7200000	7.2
3000	30000	900000	0.9	10800000	10.8
4000	40000	1200000	1.2	14400000	14.4
5000	50000	1500000	1.5	18000000	18
6000	60000	1800000	1.8	21600000	21.6
7000	70000	2100000	2.1	25200000	25.2
8000	80000	2400000	2.4	28800000	28.8
9000	90000	2700000	2.7	32400000	32.4
10000	100000	3000000	3	36000000	36

About 36 Mt of coal will be required to generate 10,000MW of coal in 2013. But depending on the quality of coal it may varies. If we assume that 0.7 Mt of coal needs to generate 250MW power per year then it will be about 28 Mt. It can also said that about 14-18 Mt of coal will be required per year if produce half of the total demand of energy in the country. Then we should start development of coal basin from just now so that coal can be produced by 2012. But there is environmental constrained to develop coal basin and global energy system has to faces many challenges in this century. Though the world has already entered in the coal era many years ago, the environmental laws & modern technologies have greatly reduced coal’s impact on the environment.

Environment

Coal, like all other sources of energy has a number of environmental impacts, from both coal mining and coal use. Without proper care, mining can destroy land and pollute water & air. Coal mining-particularly surface mining requires large areas of land to be temporarily disturbed. This can also raises a number of environmental challenges including soil erosion, dust, noise & impacts on local biodiversity and above all rehabilitation. But mining is only a temporary use of land and is not a big problem now, because steps are taken in modern mining operation to minimize all these impacts. Today, restoring the land damaged by surface mining is an important part of mining operation. Because mining activities often come into contact with water resources, for which coal producers must go to great efforts to prevent damage to ground and surface water.

The water pollution can prevent installing a water treatment plant where pollute water is first dosed with lime to neutralize the acid and then passed through setting tanks to remove sediment and particulate metals. Dust levels can be controlled by spraying water continuously on road, stockpiles and conveyors. Other steps can also be taken, including fitting drills with dust collection systems and purchasing additional land surrounding the mine to act as a buffer zone. Reclamation is another important activity for surface mining. Mine reclamation is undertaken gradually-with shaping and contouring of spoil piles, replacement of topsoil, seeding with grasses and planting of trees on the mined out areas. So technological innovation can allow to meet the demand of coal without an unacceptable environmental impact. The wider deployments of clean coal technologies have a significant impact on environmental performance of coal in both developed and developing countries.

The use of coal whether to generate power or use in steel or in any other manufacturing industries creates some environmental hazards. The primary environmental issues relating to the use of coal are:-particulate emissions, trace elements, oxides of nitrogen & sulfur, waste/by-product and CO2. The modern technologies could reduce most of all impacts on environment and most of the technologies are developed many years ago, commercialized and widely applied in many developed countries. All these technologies are well practiced through-out the world including USA, Australia, Germany, South Africa etc. The technological responses are:-

· Electrostatic precipitators and fabric filters control particulate emissions from coal-fired power stations. Both have removal efficiencies of over 99.5%

· Particulate control devices, fluidized bed combustion, activated carbon injection and desulphurization equipment can all significantly reduce trace element emissions.

· Oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions can be cut by the use of specialized burners, advanced combustion methods, catalysts and ’selective non-catalytic reduction’. Over 90% of NOx emissions can be removed using existing techniques.

· Technologies are available to minimize oxides of sulfur (SOx) emissions by removing the gas from the waste stream or by using advanced power generation methods. Emissions can be reduced by over 90%.

· Waste can be minimized before (by coal cleaning) and during (using high efficiency systems) coal combustion. Residual waste can be reprocessed into construction materials.

· In the short to medium term, substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions can be made by increasing the efficiency of coal-fired generation.

· Near zero emissions technologies enable the separation and capture of CO2 from coal-fired power generation for permanent and safe storage underground.

In Bangladesh, after natural gas, coal will continue to play a vital role in electricity generation. The discovered reserve of coal in the country is about 2.7 billion tonnes equivalent approximately 53 TCF natural gas which able to provide secure and reliable supplies of affordable energy to boost the country’s sustainable development and to shift the country from an agrarian economy to an industrial one. The clean coal technologies have already achieved major advances in environmental performance and new technologies are under development towards a ‘zero emission’ future.

Recently, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has allowed Bangladesh to set up nuclear reactor for power generation. It is good as well as very danger news for Bangladesh. Because it’s a big challenge for Bangladesh to invest in such type of risky sector, its require billions of dollar to set up a nuclear reactor and also require experienced work forces to operate & maintenance which is limited in this country. Moreover, as a densely populated country, a nuclear accident will be a catastrophe of epic proportions in Bangladesh.

Therefore, it is suitable for Bangladesh to extract its coal resources immediately and use in power generation so that the country could meet the energy demand and boost its industrial development. Because, for sustainable development, a nation need continuous/smooth supply of energy through-out the country. And Bangladesh can easily go for the development of coal basins under blessing of modern technologies in mining sector.

Source : The Weekly Economic Times, 29 July 2007