LAHORE: Provincial Minister for Mines and Minerals Sher Ali Khan has said that coal is the best solution for resolving energy crisis and Punjab government will complete 300 megawatt coal power project at Salt Range by 2018.
He said that there were 600 million tons reservoirs of coal at Salt Range and there is need to adopt clean coal technology to protect environment from negative effects of producing energy.
He was addressing a seminar on “Role of Indigenous Coal in Solving Energy Crisis” organized by Centre for Coal Technology at Al Raazi Hall here on Monday. PU VC Dr Mujahid Kamran, Director Centre for Coal Technology Prof Dr Shahid Munir, MPAs Dr Farzana Nazir, Ghazala Rafiq, faculty members and a large number of students were present on the occasion.
Addressing the seminar, Sher Ali said that mining was a difficult task and Punjab government was benefiting from expertise of Chinese companies.
He stressed the need to conserve energy, saying UPS was involved in “electricity theft” because it consumed extra electricity for re-charging batteries and it used 2000MW electricity as per estimates.
He advised the consumers to unplug UPS during winter. He said that Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif was working day and night for resolving energy crises from country.
Giving detailed technical briefing, Director CCT Prof Dr Shahid Munir said that indigenous coal was the only solution to resolve energy crises as Thar had 175 billion tons coal reservoirs worth Rs 30 trillion. He said that Pakistan could produce 100,000 megawatt electricity every year for the next five hundred years using Thar coal.
He said that South Africa was producing 93 percent, China 81 percent, India 71 percent and Australia 69 percent of its electricity from coal but unfortunately, Pakistan, despite having abundance of coal reservoirs, was producing only 0.6 percent electricity from coal.
He called upon Punjab government for getting some blocks of Thar coal on lease to meet energy demands of the province using open-pit mining method. He said that according to International Energy Agency, Pakistan’s energy demand would increase by 49 thousand megawatt by 2025.
