 When I was a student I faced a week when several term papers were due, two difficult laboratory reports had to be finished, and there were two examinations. It was too much to manage. I convinced myself that I was tired and that somehow things would work out. The first half of the week I worked on letters about summer internships, sent letters off to graduate schools and potential employers. My future life would be bright with scholarships or high paying jobs. My advisers had told me my potential was fantastic. Each day I looked at myself in the mirror as I shaved and combed my hair, the future is mine.
I spent some time thinking about what automobile I would buy, the furniture to put into my first home, and even which of the three girls I knew I might marry. My plans for the future become more elaborate as I planned a trip to Europe after I graduated. I looked up hotels in London and Paris, what sights to visit, and how to travel around.
The end of the week came. My term papers were late and poorly done; the lab reports for were not accepted as they were late. I was unprepared for the examinations. My GPA dropped sharply. I did not get into graduate school; I did not receive any decent job offers; I did not have enough money to buy a car. It took me more than five years to get my life back on track.
This parable should be studied by Bangladesh's energy planners. Renewable energy and nuclear power plants are like my new car or my trip to London, vital for the future but a distraction from the present. These new energy sources are fantasies of the future. The current reality is to develop gas and coal fired electricity plants or accept a resurgence of poverty.
Renewable energy remains expensive and it can make some contribution if Bangladeshis are prepared to pay two or three times the current charges for electricity or if the rich countries are prepared to subsidise such resource misallocation. The developed countries are happy to lend money and subsidise the renewable energy as part of their efforts to find ways to make such sources economic. Of course the government can continue to subsidise electricity but this has been and will be a misguided disastrous policy as it has to date. Renewable energy can provide electricity for minor projects but cannot power the industrial and agricultural sectors requirements at an acceptable cost. Significant contributions to the national power requirements cannot be met by renewable energy over the next decade.
As for nuclear energy one must go very carefully. First, the cost of the plant and the electricity it generates must be understood. The capital cost of a nuclear power plant is very expensive per kilowatt hour of electricity produced. The fuel is very cheap, although the cost of storage of the waste is not very clear. There are difficult and complex environmental issues dealing with waste storage, insuring radioactivity does not enter Bangladesh's ground water. It is much better to send the waste abroad but then who will take it and what is the cost? Nuclear power plants require massive cooling so that one can expect the plant will be on a major river. The plant will raise the water temperature with uncertain implication for fish and mangrove forests. There are substantial environmental, waste management, and economic studies and investigations to be carried out. To do this properly is time consuming. My sense is that one is looking at a minimum 10 to 12 years before power is delivered to the grid and more likely 15 o 17 years. We will hear promises of rapid delivery, but these are claims that have a lot of conditions attached. It is vital for Bangladesh to begin to use nuclear energy; but one should not expect any contribution to the power supply for the next ten years.
Truth for the energy sector is simple: the power planner has two paths available to fire the generating plants: Gas and Coal. It is not hard to calculate what can be provided by possible increases in the gas supply; perhaps 1500 MWs unless gas is diverted from other uses. Existing facilities use of gas requires 12 Tcf over the next 15 years. An additional 1500 MW will require a commitment of threeTcf. That is all the gas available. Actually it is optimistic.
How much electricity is needed?
The following little table (Table 1) sets out the demand for generating capacity for five years and for 10 years under a slow growth of GDP (five per cent) or a rapid growth (6.5 per cent).
If the economy grows fast (6.5 per cent) then an additional 3000 MW are needed for the grid in five years and 7600 MWs in ten years. Of course if one aims for eight per cent growth requirements are even larger, but let us be content with more modest aspirations. This increase includes filling half of current unfilled demand in five years and all in 10 years. It allows some growth in captive power.
How to fuel 3000 MWs of new capacity?
Table 2 tells as that we need 1700 MWs of additional coal fired in five years and about 1500 MWs of additional gas fired. In ten years we need an additional (over 2009) 5500 MWs of coal and 2000 MWs of gas fired. This can be achieved since there is a great deal of coal and enough gas will be found from existing fields.
These are tremendous undertakings.
The requirements for coal are 5.8 million MT/annum in 5 years and 17.1 million MT/annum in 10 years. Without the coal the available generating capacity will be only 5065 MWs in 5 years and 6150 MWs in 10 years. There will not be enough gas to do more. Exploration will certainly result in much more gas but not within the next decade.
In a nutshell the energy planner's must focus on obtaining maximum gas over the next 10 to 15 years and a full scale expansion of coal mines and coal fired plants. If only gas is used, then the manufacturing sector will stagnate and the economy plunge into greater poverty.
If brief the key problems for the energy planner are:
1. Five years: Putting in place additional gas fired power generated electricity over the next five years say 1500 MWs. Getting 2000 MWs of coal fired plants running.
2. 10 years: Putting as much additional gas as possible (probably 1000 MWs more) and getting enough coal for 6000 MWs by the end of ten years.
Unless these key objectives are tackled there will be only modest growth in the electrical energy available (less than four per cent per annum). This will limit GDP growth to not more than three per cent per annum! This is a catastrophe for Bangladesh.
Government must concentrate on the key tasks of coal and gas fired generating plants. There is no magic bullet that will solve the energy problem except making hard choices and determined implementation. Day dreaming of nuclear and renewable energy avoids the key issues of today. Bangladesh is in the midst of an energy crisis that grows day by day. This is no time for day dreaming. |