New energy policy creates worry - Bangladesh - Coal
Financial Express
Enayet Rasul
8/24/2005
THE energy policy of a country is a vital document. For it guides many things such as energy supply or availability, production of energy, its utilization patterns, its conservation, etc. But the major concern of a national energy policy ought to be also in relation to the environment. The environmental side again has two aspects: local environmental needs and the global ones. Locally, the energy policy should seek to do nothing that would harm the environment or quality of life and living in a country. Internationally, every national energy policy ought to be contributory to such activities which would help protect and improve the environment, globally.
According to press reports, the government of Bangladesh (GOB) has drafted a new energy policy. This would replace the prevailing energy policy that was introduced in 1995. What is worrisome about the new energy policy, from whatever could be learnt about it so far, is that it would put a great deal of emphasis on the use of coal as a source of energy. Presently, coal-based energy is only a very small part of the total energy consumption picture of the country. But with the adoption and implementation of the new energy policy, this scenario could fast change with coal becoming the major source of power generation in the country in the near future. There would be no need to worry but for the fact that coal can be an awfully polluting agent and when the environment conscious countries of the world have been carefully replacing or excluding coal in power generation, Bangladesh seems to be getting ready to embrace this environmentally hazardous option when there are better alternatives open to it.
Coal was the main energy source in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when user nations did not have better options. But the use of coal declined gradually as cheap oil of Arabia became available and the same proved to be a whole lot less polluting in its effects to industrial nations of Europe, North America and to Japan. The industrial revolution started off in the United Kingdom in the last century and entire towns grew up there based on the coal mines. But the extraction of coal and its use also brought great physical hazards to the miners and the environment. Many of the miners turned ill from working in a toxic environment and the surroundings also paid the environment price.
A famous travel account, The Road to Wigam Pier, was written by the famous English writer George Orwell at that time on the environmental degradation, that depicted the environment plight with slag-heaps all around from coal mining and the air smelling foul with nothing fresh in it even many miles away from the pits. The coal mines and the mining towns were progressively closed down in the UK in the second half of the twentieth century. The mines and towns are now history in that country and it has opted for cleaner forms of energy. In the UK, 24 per cent of its power is generated by nuclear plants. Power harnessed from winds, waves and sunlight also supply substantial quantities of power to the national power grid of that country. Power generated from these sources are almost completely environment-friendly and involve the least polluting processes compared to power generation from coal.
It is pertinent to ask in this context, therefore, whether Bangladesh is headed for the kind of future as described by Orwell from its energy planners looking backwards than forwards. The new energy policy under formation by the government of Bangladesh (GoB) stresses maximum possible use of coal for producing power. But a power station built to supply a large city like Dhaka -- if run by coal -- would be emitting annually more than a billion cubic metres of greenhouses gases that contribute to global warming and create dust and more than 600,000 tonnes of toxic ash. While the people will get their power all right, what would be the consequences to the environment, locally and globally ? The answer should be obvious: neither locally or globally the coming into existence of such power plants can be pleasant and environment-friendly respectively.
According to an expert assessment, the production of power from oil and natural gas are also polluting. Running power stations with oil leads to as much emission of greenhouse gases as coal plus huge volumes of sulphur oxides that, in the atmosphere, turn into acid rain and other highly toxic compounds. Emissions from gas-fired power plants are almost similarly polluting.
In contrast, power generation from nuclear plants can be true bliss. No long supply chain of raw materials and other inventories are required in operating a major nuclear power plant. Operation of a big coal based power plant to supply a city like Dhaka would require annually about a 1000 kiolmetre line of railways trucks filled with coal along with the back up of mining the coal and the attendant polluting processes spread over large areas. Power generation with oil for a similar purpose would call for at least four or five super tanker loads of heavy imported oil. Power generation with natural gas requires the laying of pipelines extensively from the gas fields to the power station. The supply chain for a nuclear power plant, by comparison, is incredibly shorter and manageable. It can feed on about two trucks of cheap and plentiful uranium imported from stable countries like Canada or Australia. Gas and acid emissions from a nuclear power plant is zero; toxic ash and dust, none. Only a few bucketful of radioactive wastes may be produced that can be safely disposed away.
A careful study should establish that the fear of nuclear energy from the health and environment perspectives is really exaggerated. Notwithstanding the operation of environmental organizations such as the Greenpeace, the fear of radiation is more in the imagination of peoples than in the real world. Humans worldwide are always being bombarded with more radiation from natural sources. Radiation from power plants and the like is a very tiny part of the total radiation. According to the UK's National Radiological Protection Board, doses from the entire nuclear industry amount to less than one per cent of the total exposure to people in the UK.
Even if Bangladesh operates several fairly large size nuclear power plants for about a hundred years, the total radioactive wastes from these would probably fill a medium sized ditch. But then the wastes could be put in sealed containers and kept in a bunker like concrete underground storage to ensure against leakage. Nuclear waste does indeed take a long time to decay, but its most dangerous radioactivity is lost within a few years. Much of the remaining waste can be returned to the fuel cycle and re-processed. Even radioactive leakages are not found so dangerous as publicized by environmental lobbies. The fall-out from the Chernobyl accident, the radioactive cloud that swept Western Europe, was finally and scientifically found to be a minor one : at worst, the equivalent of a couple of chest X-rays for each exposed individual. If nuclear power plants were not entirely safe then France would not be meeting 78 per cent of its power needs from them. As it is, the world's nuclear champion is safe and the health of its people among the very best in the world.
Therefore, the case should be very strong for Bangladesh to plan for large scale generation of nuclear power in the country. Nuclear power generation is actually not only environmentally best, but it is also very cheap. Counting out the initial establishment costs, the per unit of electricity to be produced by a nuclear power plant should be much cheaper than a coal or gas fired plant.
Prime Minister Khaleda Zia recently visited China and on that occasion deals were struck with China in the nuclear field. The details of the Sino-Bangladesh nuclear cooperation are not known. But Bangladesh would do best if it can get Chinese assistance to build a number of nuclear power plants and train manpower for the purpose within a short time-frame. Possibilities for similar cooperation should be also explored with other countries.
One may ask: what Bangladesh should do with its coal resources ? Should it leave the coal underground, unused ? That would not be a smart thing to do. One very sound and environment-friendly proposal would be to dig up the coal not in the environment endangering open method way but through the mining system and then to allow export of the coal to earn foreign currencies for the country.
Enayet Rasul
8/24/2005
THE energy policy of a country is a vital document. For it guides many things such as energy supply or availability, production of energy, its utilization patterns, its conservation, etc. But the major concern of a national energy policy ought to be also in relation to the environment. The environmental side again has two aspects: local environmental needs and the global ones. Locally, the energy policy should seek to do nothing that would harm the environment or quality of life and living in a country. Internationally, every national energy policy ought to be contributory to such activities which would help protect and improve the environment, globally.
According to press reports, the government of Bangladesh (GOB) has drafted a new energy policy. This would replace the prevailing energy policy that was introduced in 1995. What is worrisome about the new energy policy, from whatever could be learnt about it so far, is that it would put a great deal of emphasis on the use of coal as a source of energy. Presently, coal-based energy is only a very small part of the total energy consumption picture of the country. But with the adoption and implementation of the new energy policy, this scenario could fast change with coal becoming the major source of power generation in the country in the near future. There would be no need to worry but for the fact that coal can be an awfully polluting agent and when the environment conscious countries of the world have been carefully replacing or excluding coal in power generation, Bangladesh seems to be getting ready to embrace this environmentally hazardous option when there are better alternatives open to it.
Coal was the main energy source in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when user nations did not have better options. But the use of coal declined gradually as cheap oil of Arabia became available and the same proved to be a whole lot less polluting in its effects to industrial nations of Europe, North America and to Japan. The industrial revolution started off in the United Kingdom in the last century and entire towns grew up there based on the coal mines. But the extraction of coal and its use also brought great physical hazards to the miners and the environment. Many of the miners turned ill from working in a toxic environment and the surroundings also paid the environment price.
A famous travel account, The Road to Wigam Pier, was written by the famous English writer George Orwell at that time on the environmental degradation, that depicted the environment plight with slag-heaps all around from coal mining and the air smelling foul with nothing fresh in it even many miles away from the pits. The coal mines and the mining towns were progressively closed down in the UK in the second half of the twentieth century. The mines and towns are now history in that country and it has opted for cleaner forms of energy. In the UK, 24 per cent of its power is generated by nuclear plants. Power harnessed from winds, waves and sunlight also supply substantial quantities of power to the national power grid of that country. Power generated from these sources are almost completely environment-friendly and involve the least polluting processes compared to power generation from coal.
It is pertinent to ask in this context, therefore, whether Bangladesh is headed for the kind of future as described by Orwell from its energy planners looking backwards than forwards. The new energy policy under formation by the government of Bangladesh (GoB) stresses maximum possible use of coal for producing power. But a power station built to supply a large city like Dhaka -- if run by coal -- would be emitting annually more than a billion cubic metres of greenhouses gases that contribute to global warming and create dust and more than 600,000 tonnes of toxic ash. While the people will get their power all right, what would be the consequences to the environment, locally and globally ? The answer should be obvious: neither locally or globally the coming into existence of such power plants can be pleasant and environment-friendly respectively.
According to an expert assessment, the production of power from oil and natural gas are also polluting. Running power stations with oil leads to as much emission of greenhouse gases as coal plus huge volumes of sulphur oxides that, in the atmosphere, turn into acid rain and other highly toxic compounds. Emissions from gas-fired power plants are almost similarly polluting.
In contrast, power generation from nuclear plants can be true bliss. No long supply chain of raw materials and other inventories are required in operating a major nuclear power plant. Operation of a big coal based power plant to supply a city like Dhaka would require annually about a 1000 kiolmetre line of railways trucks filled with coal along with the back up of mining the coal and the attendant polluting processes spread over large areas. Power generation with oil for a similar purpose would call for at least four or five super tanker loads of heavy imported oil. Power generation with natural gas requires the laying of pipelines extensively from the gas fields to the power station. The supply chain for a nuclear power plant, by comparison, is incredibly shorter and manageable. It can feed on about two trucks of cheap and plentiful uranium imported from stable countries like Canada or Australia. Gas and acid emissions from a nuclear power plant is zero; toxic ash and dust, none. Only a few bucketful of radioactive wastes may be produced that can be safely disposed away.
A careful study should establish that the fear of nuclear energy from the health and environment perspectives is really exaggerated. Notwithstanding the operation of environmental organizations such as the Greenpeace, the fear of radiation is more in the imagination of peoples than in the real world. Humans worldwide are always being bombarded with more radiation from natural sources. Radiation from power plants and the like is a very tiny part of the total radiation. According to the UK's National Radiological Protection Board, doses from the entire nuclear industry amount to less than one per cent of the total exposure to people in the UK.
Even if Bangladesh operates several fairly large size nuclear power plants for about a hundred years, the total radioactive wastes from these would probably fill a medium sized ditch. But then the wastes could be put in sealed containers and kept in a bunker like concrete underground storage to ensure against leakage. Nuclear waste does indeed take a long time to decay, but its most dangerous radioactivity is lost within a few years. Much of the remaining waste can be returned to the fuel cycle and re-processed. Even radioactive leakages are not found so dangerous as publicized by environmental lobbies. The fall-out from the Chernobyl accident, the radioactive cloud that swept Western Europe, was finally and scientifically found to be a minor one : at worst, the equivalent of a couple of chest X-rays for each exposed individual. If nuclear power plants were not entirely safe then France would not be meeting 78 per cent of its power needs from them. As it is, the world's nuclear champion is safe and the health of its people among the very best in the world.
Therefore, the case should be very strong for Bangladesh to plan for large scale generation of nuclear power in the country. Nuclear power generation is actually not only environmentally best, but it is also very cheap. Counting out the initial establishment costs, the per unit of electricity to be produced by a nuclear power plant should be much cheaper than a coal or gas fired plant.
Prime Minister Khaleda Zia recently visited China and on that occasion deals were struck with China in the nuclear field. The details of the Sino-Bangladesh nuclear cooperation are not known. But Bangladesh would do best if it can get Chinese assistance to build a number of nuclear power plants and train manpower for the purpose within a short time-frame. Possibilities for similar cooperation should be also explored with other countries.
One may ask: what Bangladesh should do with its coal resources ? Should it leave the coal underground, unused ? That would not be a smart thing to do. One very sound and environment-friendly proposal would be to dig up the coal not in the environment endangering open method way but through the mining system and then to allow export of the coal to earn foreign currencies for the country.
posted by Marcel at 1:20 PM
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