Electricity consumers in Pakistan are once again in a shock. The government argues that the cost of electricity rises in Pakistan whenever the price of oil increases in the international market as Pakistan generates electricity by using biomass.
Earlier, Prime Minister Imran Khan lauded his government for their long-term planning as they make strategies the benefits of which will be visible later in a few years. Then how come, his visionary team does not see the prevailing problem of the energy crisis in Pakistan and put forth a practical solution.
Currently, Pakistan is producing 65 percent of electricity from fossil fuels, 27 percent from hydropower, five percent from nuclear power, and just four percent from renewable sources.
Let’s accept the fact that Pakistan is not a very rich country. It has limited resources. Then why is it generating power with such expensive resources?
It was one of the promises made by Imran khan that by the year 2030, Pakistan will not be dependent on fossil fuels anymore and will generate about 60% power through renewable sources. There are only seven years left for Khan to fulfil this promise; however, no development in this regard has been seen yet.
Unlike Gulf, Pakistan is not blessed with enormous oil and gas reserves. However, God gave a better and somehow much cheaper alternative to Pakistan, the rivers. Pakistan was supposed to produce electricity with water. But as of 2021, we are producing only 27 percent of electricity from hydropower. We buy expensive oil from the international market to make electricity which is not only expensive for the government but the consumers as well.
We are a nuclear power. We figured out years ago how to use radioactive elements as a guard for our defence. However, we do not use this technology for power generation as we produce only about five percent of our electricity from nuclear energy.
Our national hero Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan kept stressing that he could overcome the energy crisis in just a few months if given a chance.
According to Qadeer, Pakistan is an energy-rich country that can easily generate enormous power by atomic technology while Imran khan believes that Pakistan has limited resources and it needs to go to IMF, and everything is to be blamed on the previous government.
We have lost one Khan who vowed to get us rid of an energy crisis, but we do have the other Khan who has a long-term vision to convert Pakistan’s power generation from fossil fuels to renewable sources. It is just that he is not acting upon it.
Pakistan was supposed to produce hydropower by making dams and storing water.
Shortage of storage is a pressing issue in Pakistan and building dams is the obvious solution to this problem. But this has not been taken seriously by any government in Pakistan for the last two decades. Previously, authorities vowed to construct a mega-dam called Kalabagh dam. But even this dam was politicalized by some parties for their own personal interests. Imran Khan has vowed to communicate this problem to the people of Sindh and he was confident that he would persuade them that this dam would be beneficial for everyone including them.
In the Imran Khan era, there was an attempt to build the Bhasha dam as well. Funds were being collected. Salaries were being deducted but in vain. Those who once took this initiative abandoned the cause and since then, no one ever talked about this. God knows what happened to those funds.
It is understood that megaprojects are time-consuming and cost billions, but why does Pakistan always aim to go for mega projects instead of centralized micro projects?
Centralized micro-energy projects will be less time taking and will cost considerably less than mega ones.
Currently, Pakistan is facing two major problems with electricity. The first problem is that it is producing expensive electricity, the second problem is the transmission of electricity to the whole country as 27 percent of the population does not have access to electricity in Pakistan, according to World Bank.
The easy and cheaper solution to both these problems is the production of electricity by renewable sources at the micro-level. We need to build dams to store water for hydropower to generate electricity for Punjab and Sindh. We need to install windmills in the coastal areas of Balochistan and Sindh to provide them electricity. We need to engage our atomic scientists and build atomic power stations for providing electricity to KP and neighbouring areas like Gilgit and Kashmir. Solar energy systems should be introduced in other dark areas of Pakistan where transmission is a problem.
We urgently need to shift from fossil fuels to renewable resources which are luckily (and readily) available in our own country which will ultimately reduce air pollution as well.
Imran Khan needs to execute his long-term visions on time; otherwise, electricity prices will continue to rise, making lives miserable for the common man daily.
