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False hopes

fatman17

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Apr 24, 2007
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False hopes


Dr Farrukh Saleem

Sunday, January 22, 2012



Hope 1: Thar coal is about to be converted into product gas sufficient to meet our energy needs for the following 100 years.

Fact 1: Underground coal gasification (UCG) is strictly experimental in nature and not a single commercial project exists on the face of the planet that relies exclusively on underground coal gasification.

Hope 2: Thar coal reserves can produce enough gas to end gas load-shedding.

Fact 2: Pakistan’s UCG project has somehow managed to extract funds both from the federal government and the Punjab government but in order to attract funding from financial institutions the project would have to go through at least three assessments: Technical Viability Assessment, Environmental & Social Impact Assessment and, finally, Commercial Viability Assessment. The fact remains that Pakistan’s UCG team has so far avoided both an independent technical review and an independent financial audit.

Hope 3: Thar coal reserves can produce enough electricity to end power load-shedding.

Fact 3: On July 16, 2009, the Planning Commission held an important meeting. That day the UCG team claimed that 10MW of power will be generated by end-2009. That deadline was later moved to end-June 2010. Later on, the deadline was moved to end-2011 for generating 100MW. For the record, the technology for underground coal gasification exists but its commercial viability is the biggest of all question marks. (I can tell you that I have the technology to convert a carat of coal into a carat of flawless diamond but if the cost of conversion is more than what a carat of diamond is available in the open market the technology that I have isn’t commercially viable.)

Pakistan’s UCG project must immediately be subjected to an independent technical review and an independent financial audit without which billions of taxpayers’ rupees are being sent nowhere but down the coal mines. Without a Bankable Feasibility Study there’s no money and without money there can be no end to load-shedding.

There indeed is a difference between hope and positive thinking. Hopefully there will be a day when UCG is commercially viable. But, false hopes like job creations; Are there to keep you down; Straws in the wind for working man; Create not but misery. And, when you feel down, try positive thinking; Don’t wear a frown, try positive thinking; Laugh at your troubles instead; Trust what tomorrow may bring.

For the record, Japan’s proven reserves of lignite coal are next to zero and yet Japan’s GDP stands at a tall $4.459 trillion. To be certain, it’s not about being able to convert coal into gas. The real name of the game is developing Pakistan’s human capital-education and health.

The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad. Email: farrukh15@hotmail.com
 
this shows, even projects like these have incompetent heads behind, which idiot planned all this and wasted the funds

this is a crime on pakistan and its people

pakistan is seriously becoming a joke in the world, every thing is flawed in pakistan
 
this shows, even projects like these have incompetent heads behind, which idiot planned all this and wasted the funds

this is a crime on pakistan and its people

pakistan is seriously becoming a joke in the world, every thing is flawed in pakistan

Only idiots are overly judgmental.

What the article provides is one view of things, which is fair to in it's own right.
However scientific research does not work like this.

Before the first oil refinery was made, was the planners sure about producing gasoline at rate X !
I can tell you, that they are still unsure even when there are hundreds of refineries working in the world.

This project is similar,
There is a group of people who are qualified and suggest that it is feasible to do this, and there is another group that says it is not doable.

We will let time decide what is the outcome, for we are playing for very high return.
 
Only idiots are overly judgmental.

What the article provides is one view of things, which is fair to in it's own right.
However scientific research does not work like this.

Before the first oil refinery was made, was the planners sure about producing gasoline at rate X !
I can tell you, that they are still unsure even when there are hundreds of refineries working in the world.

This project is similar,
There is a group of people who are qualified and suggest that it is feasible to do this, and there is another group that says it is not doable.

We will let time decide what is the outcome, for we are playing for very high return.


You don't get it, even converting sea water into safe and sweet drinking water is feasible just search in Google Tamilnadu (India) But the point is scale of production of energy from Thar coal in pakistan.

Many in pakistan believe that its worth of trillions of dollars and will serve pakistan's need for 100 years and pakistan will be a developed and rich country with this coal is all false.
 
You don't get it, even converting sea water into safe and sweet drinking water is feasible just search in Google Tamilnadu (India) But the point is scale of production of energy from Thar coal in pakistan.

Many in pakistan believe that its worth of trillions of dollars and will serve pakistan's need for 100 years and pakistan will be a developed and rich country with this coal is all false.

what part of

We will let time decide what is the outcome, for we are playing for very high return.

did you not understand ?
 
Dr Farrukh Saleem’s scepticism is well founded. I have mentioned in one of earlier posts that we need to produce uninterrupted Syngas for a few months to prove that geology of Thar Lignite mines is conducive to underground coal gasification.

Commercial syngas from UCG has been successfully produced in Russia from 1945. It was later abandoned because after huge amount of natural gas was discovered. One plant is still in operation in Uzbekistan. China has about 30 projects in different phases of preparation that use underground coal gasification

The reason for delay at Thar UCG project was the delay in releasing of funds by the Gov’t. Most important item is the production of syngas. Once syngas is produced, it can be used to fire the boilers for power generation or with Fischer Tropsch synthesis to produce liquid hydrocarbons.

I respect Dr Farrukh Saleem; he is a very eminent scholar and analyst. He states “not a single commercial project exists on the face of the planet that relies exclusively on underground coal gasification”.

This statement is in itself correct but it hides the fact that electricity has been commercially produced using syngas for the last 5 years at Majuba in South Africa.

Currently South Africa is at the forefront of research in using lower-grade coal for power generation. There is a giant power plant located at Majuba in the Eastern Transvaal ((now called Mpumalanga). A small plant at Majuba complex uses UCG syngas produced by underground coal gasification at the nearby Majuba demonstration facility on the Majuba coalfield.

The 3,000–5,000 cubic metres per hour (about 150-million cft per day) pilot plant was commissioned in January 2007 and the first electricity was generated from the underground coal gasification gas on 31 May 2007. Produced syngas is transported from the facility to the power station by 7-kilometre (4.3 mi) pipeline with a diameter of 600 millimetres (24 in). There is a plan to build a 1,200 MW generation facility from syngas.

I can assure fellow members that should we generate syngas at Thar for a period of about 1 year or so without interruption, viability of UCG process at Thar would have been demonstrated.

How soon Thar field is utilised to solve Pakistan’s enregy problem depends upon funding. Current Law and Order situation, especially kidnapping of two foreigners from Multan, would make it difficult to finance it thru FDI, therefore local financing has to be arranged.

If UCG project falters, it would not be because it was ill conceived but because of lack of political will to allocate funds for this project.

P.S. I have just heard on the ARY News that despite verbal assurance from the President and the PM; Ministry of Finance has not released the funds for the work on the Thar UCG Project. This is the real reason for the delay. It seems that any project where the people in power can't make money is doomed. On this basis it was indeed a "False Hope".
 
similar article

Chasing a pipe dream: Three reasons why Thar coal will not save Pakistan

To borrow and contort a famous turn of phrase from Matt Taibi’s now legendary piece of investigative journalism about Goldman Sachs, “the first thing you need to know about [global energy conglomerates] is that [they are] everywhere. The world’s most powerful [industry] is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of [earth], relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like [fossil fuels].”

That is the image you need to wrap your minds around if you want to understand why Thar coal is not the lamp that will summon the jinn, to fix all of Pakistan’s energy and economic problems if only rubbed the right way by that right clean, patriotic leadership of lore. You need to envision this monster squid sticking its tentacles down every hole that smells even remotely of juice and then you need to ask yourself, doesn’t the brandished juiciness of Thar’s coal reserves sound succulent enough for that behemoth to have stuck its arms deep into it by now. After all, it’s already here, not even miles away from Thar in gas fields from Bhit to Qadirpur, quietly sucking up fossil fuels from innumerous holes. If BP, Eni, MOL and others can find a way to drill, build and operate in Sindh, why haven’t Peabody Energy got a whiff of all that solid black gold buried underground yet and come looking for it. The answer to that question, unfortunately for Pakistan, is that, unlike the gas and the oil, and the copper to the west in Balochistan, the coal simply isn’t worth it. It isn’t worth the trouble, worth the bureaucratic hassles, worth braving the security risks, worth going half-way around the world for. It isn’t worth it in terms of bare dollar amounts, in terms of ecological economics or in terms of energy return on energy input. Now, don’t make a mistake here. There’s significant amount of energy to be had from Thar’s coal reserves, but in the national context. Not in the global context. If someone tells you Thar’s coal reserves are the largest, or the second largest, or even in the top ten in the world, ask them for their sources. They are wrong.

Why the numbers don’t add up

According to the World Energy Council, Pakistan has a little more than 2,000 million tons of proven recoverable coal reserves. That number is supported by British Petroleum’s similar estimates and contrasts with the Sindh Government’s total predicted estimates of about 2,357 million tons (this number does not include ‘indicated’ and ‘inferred’ reserves). This compared with Germany’s lignite reserves of about 40,600 million tons and India’s reserves of about 4,500 million tons seems small. Pakistan’s coal reserves are in effect only the 134th largest coal reserves in the world. But if you want to know what a resource is really worth, you need to rely on the word of someone who’s willing to pay for it. The last company that was willing to invest in Thar’s coal reserves, the Shenhua Group China, estimated that they could produce about 3.5 million tons of coal per year from the mines, which they translated into 600 MW of power generation. Pakistan’s energy shortage is now in the thousands of megawatt per day.

It is important to measure the potential of Thar coal in terms of megawatts of power per day because the kind of coal that Thar has, is of little use besides conversion to electricity onsite. Lignite, which is the least energy intensive form of coal, according to some definitions, is not coal at all. In fact, it is considered a dirty energy source lying somewhere on the spectrum between coal and peat with carbon content between 25% to 35%. The fixed carbon content of Thar coal is less than 22%. The low carbon content translates into low energy generation capacity, which means that if energy is invested into transporting the lignite from source to point of consumption, the net energy output of the mining, extraction, transportation and conversion process becomes less than zero; you end up investing more energy making energy out of coal than you get out of it in terms of megawatts. In order to get any energy out of lignite, it has to be converted into electricity almost entirely onsite; where it is being mined. Which brings us to the first reason why Thar coal will not save Pakistan.

There isn’t enough water


The methodology of getting lignite out of ground is called strip mining. You basically dig a big hole in the ground and the more coal you get out, the bigger the hole gets. Strip mining requires extensive amounts of water depending on the methodology used with estimates varying from 10 to 150 gallons of water for one ton of coal mined. Assuming minimum water requirement, mining 3.5 million tons of coal per year would require 35 million gallons of water per year or roughly about 100,000 gallons of water per day. Power production has further extensive water requirements. Sindh government is assuring investors an eventual water supply of about 300,000 gallons of water per day. Where is this water going to come from? Pakistan is a “water stressed” country on the verge of “water scarcity”, with the people of Thar being the most deprived in a nation of water deprived people. Yes, we are an energy starved nation, but more so than that we are a thirsty nation, who’ve let one of the richest water resource regimes in the world go to waste through lack of development and irresponsible usage. Make no mistake about it, the energy gained through Thar coal will come at a cost of water loss to the people who can least afford it. What complicates the matter even more is the fact that mining for coal in an area where the primary source of drinking water is subsurface aquifer, can end up contaminating the water supply of a very vulnerable population. Especially when, as in Thar, there are connected aquifers, above, within and below the coal zone.

Magic bullets don’t work


The impracticality of the water situation has lead some in Pakistan’s scientific elite to consider unproven technologies. Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) is one such technology.

Unfortunately though, the risk of aquifer contamination is highest in UCG of all the techniques of extracting energy from underground coal. UCG is an experimental methodology where coal is not mined but sparked underground and the gas generated through this combustion is collected through wells. While this methodology does not have the high surface footprint and risks of strip mining, it offers extensive water contamination opportunities as the gas generated through combustion underground is hard to control. It can never be guaranteed to not mix with the subsurface water . But that’s the least of the problems with UCG. The experimental nature of UCG means that there are very few places in the world where this technology has been successfully implemented. No commercial UCG production wells exist and there are very few experts; individuals or companies who are competent enough to execute UCG projects flawlessly. UCG projects are economically feasible only if the coal reserves cannot be reached through traditional means and that is not the case here. Also, UCG is only recommended in coal beds which are isolated from aquifers. That is not the case in Thar either. So let’s recap; UCG is an experimental methodology that people at the helm of the UCG project in Thar have no expertise or experience in, there is no need to implement UCG in Thar and the technology if implemented will most certainly contaminate the only water source of a very vulnerable population.

The reason some of the claims of the UCG project leadership about potential of the project sound too good to be true, is because they are. The key to remember here is this; magic bullets don’t work. And miracle cures, more often than not, turn out to be nothing more than snake oil.

Thar coal is not a sustainable energy source

There is a litany of environmental problems associated with coal mining and electricity generation, with coal being the “dirtiest” of all fossil fuel sources, but environmental problems are not the real reason why Thar coal will not save Pakistan.

Thar coal cannot solve our energy problems, balance our budget, put food on every deprived Sindhi household’s table or lift Pakistan out of poverty, because coal is a fossil fuel and a finite resource. To understand the significance of this statement, think about this. When Sui gas was discovered in 1952 it was estimated that this energy source will last us for at least a hundred years. We were all set for three generations. For a hundred years we knew our stoves will stay warm, literally. Then, growth happened. Lots of it. Suddenly, unbelievable as it may have seemed once, we’d run out of gas. Gas was gone.

In terms of net energy, Thar’s reserves are a fraction of the embarrassment of riches that was found in Sui six decades ago. At current growth rates, they will last us no longer than twenty five years. What then?

This is not to say that we shouldn’t exploit Thar’s energy potential. By all means, we need to tap that resource as soon as possible — giving due consideration to environmental concerns of course — and exploit as much of it as we can without hindering on the water rights of the locals. But we must not forget that despite being a potential medium term respite, Thar coal is no solution to Pakistan’s long term energy problems. Pakistan has extensive wind and hydel renewable potential. Small dams along the stretch of Indus and the sprouting of wind farms along our beautiful jagged coast are the only truly sustainable options that can secure Pakistan’s energy future.

The writer is an energy, environment and water resources consultant based in Hungary.

Chasing a pipe dream: Three reasons why Thar coal will not save Pakistan – The Express Tribune
 

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