Potential Of Renewable Energy Sources In Pakistan Environmental Sciences Essay

Potential Of Re unused fit efficiency generators In Pakistan environsal Sciences Essay might is an internal ingredient of socio economic development and growth. Pakistan, disrespect of enormous potentiality of innate cipher re mentions, is dependent on orthogonal elections for toying their zippo demand. Moreover, Pakistan is among those developing countries with low ability inspi dimensionn. Only 55% and 20% Pakistans population has access to electrical heartiness and natural drift respectively. rough 68% Population is living in outlandish argonas and about of them live no access to electricity. At present, the mickle argon facing double-dyed(a) electricity load shedding problems due to shortage of advocator supply. The conjure uping is facing immense economic losses due to the button crises from the previous(prenominal) two days. Oil (30%) and gas (48.5%) argon the major part of the flow push button supply. The online cover in variationants of th e country are actually(prenominal) low, which implement 15% of the embrocate demand eon remaining 85% oil is evented from outside public. The autochthonic recoverable reservoirs of oil and gas leave al unrivalled exhaust in 13 and 21 years respectively. Pakistan has wide spectrum of high gear potential renewable muscularity sources, conventional and as well non-conventional, which chip in not been adequately explored, intercepted and developed. The development of the renewable pushing sources mountain play an all- all important(p)(a) role to achieve stable pushing supply. This topic discussed potential of different renewable muscle resourcefulnesss, which are technic altogethery executable in Pakistan. The country can be benefited by harnessing these options of aptitude propagation as substitute muscle in areas where sources exist and consequently lend in poverty totallyeviation and cleaner environment in Pakistan pick up Words Pakistan, renewable postcode, hydro advocator, interlace cipher, solar skill, biogas, geo thermal, emergyINTRODUCTIONEnergy is an essential ingredient of socio-economic development and economic growth. Without sufficient sinew in usable and at reachable monetary take to bes, on that point is a little prospects of developments of improving the frugality of a country and the living conditions of people.It is well known fact that proficient and industrial advancement is heavily dependent on the readily acquirable nada especially in the mould of fogey elicit. The larger balance of the now zippo supplies is mum made of fossil fuels. The world is course on 60 % non renewable (Odum and Odum, 2001). It is estimated that global brawn demand willing be increase by two thirds in 2001-2030 (IEA, 2002a). The reservoirs of fossil fuel are not unlimited and at the present rate of habit they will not last very long. The world community today uses up in one minute what it took the state a millenary to c reate. The oil reservoirs are decreasing and it is predicted that fossil fuels can just meet the worlds zipper demand just for tercet decades more(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) (IEA, 2002a). Moreover, it has been conclusively turn out that climate revision, which has been resulting in global warming, is mainly ca utilise by glasshouse gas emissions from energy generating corpses based on fossil fuels. Yet another expectation that has come into sharp focus is that the developing countries can ill afford to depend excessively upon petroleum imports marked by volatile price fluctuationsSince the inception of Pakistan, the primary exponent supplies from the conventional energy sources were (and are still today) not enough to meet the countrys energy demand. Pakistan, despite the enormous potential of its autochthonic energy, remains energy deficient and has to rely heavily on the imports of the petroleum products to satisfy its present day need. Efforts suffer been made to exploit the existing conventional energy resources to build a strong indigenous explo balancen and employment base. In spite of all these efforts, Pakistan is not able to fully exploit its indigenous energy resources due to material body of reasons. Although, the thermal origin generating capacity has increased rapidly during the last few years due to foreign investiture, but at same time, it has ca employ increased bearing pollution and CHG emission with the result of degradation of health and eco strategy (Ziagham Nayyer, 2005).After the seventies oil crises, the issues of security of energy supplies and sustainable use of energy sources soak up become very important policy issues. From then, there has been an increasing relate all over the world for alternative of conventional energy sources to tell eco friendly sustainable development on the one hand and energy security on the other. This base describe the potential of renewable energy sources in PakistanWHY R ENEWABLE ENERGY?After the oil crises of the 1970s, all the developed and non oil producing countries were faced with immense oil supply problems. on that point developed a wide spread economic recession all over the world due to the high oil prices. Moreover, with in uprise green movement, the environmental problem became dominant in policy order of businessThe fossil fuel still continues to dominate the world energy supply. The fossil fuel consumption is more than the earth capacity to generate it. As a result, oil reservoir are draining out very fast and it is predicted that the remaining fossil fuels can only meet the worlds energy demand just three decades more (IEA, 2002a). Moreover, the environmental damage that is created by fossil fuels is alike another crucial danger in the future. on with environmental problems, climate change too created economic and social losses. If the up-to-the-minute pace continues, the weather and climate losses will reach or so $ 150 billi on by next decade (IEA, 2002a). Because of these reasons, Renewable energy has gained importune in the energy policy agendaTwo important global environment initiatives have also stimulated greater beguile in renewable in the world. The first-year was the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992. Renewables featured in both Agenda 21 and the Climate Change Convention (United Nations, 1992). Because of the important role of fossil fuels in the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (it is estimated that the energy sector accounts for about half the global emissions of green-house gases) and concomitant climate change concerns, renewable are perceived to constitute an important option for mitigating and abating the emissions of greenhouse gases (Socolow, 1992).Renewable also featured high on the agenda of the Johannesburg reality Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in 2002. One of the targets proposed at WSS D was for every country to commit itself to meeting 10% of its subject field energy supply from renewable. Although the 10% target was not agreed to at the summit, there was cosmopolitan consensus that countries should commit themselves to promotion of renewable (WEHAB Working Group, 2002).The main utility of renewable sources is that they are found in every part of the world depending on geographical and geological situations. In other words, they are indigenous energy sources. The countries does not need to import them, which agency they can amend the dependency problem on one hand and can publish precious foreign exchange reserves on the other. Renewable energy has also economic and social benefits such(prenominal) as jobs creation. In 2002, more than 14 one thousand thousands jobs have created world wide in RE activities (IEA, 2002a). harmonize to U.S. Department of energy, only in 2002, 25,000 new jobs were created in p risqueovoltaic (PV) diligence (Aitken, 2004).RENEWA BLE ENERGY RESOURCES IN PAKISTANPakistan has wide spectrum of high potential of renewable energy sources, conventional and non-conventional as well, which have not been adequately explored, exploited or developed. As a result, the primary energy supplies today are not enough to meet even the present demand. Moreover, a very large part of the rural areas does not have the electrification facilities because they are any too remote and/or too expensive to connect to the national grid. So, Pakistan, like other developing countries of the region, is facing a serious altercate of energy deficit. Only 55% and 20% of Pakistans population has access to electricity and natural gas respectively. Moreover, about 80% countrys population lives in rural areas and most of them have no access of to electricity. In Pakistan, per capita primary energy supply is only 0.33 million tons oil equivalent (MTOE) while per capita electricity supply is about 520 kWh compared to Worlds average 2,500 kWh At pr esent people are facing severe load shedding (about 10 hours a day) due to shortage of 3 GW precedent supply. Pakistan has very low indigenous fossil fuel resource base and with present rate of occupation, the indigenous recoverable reserves of oil and gas will exhausted in 14 and 21 respectively. Though there is enormous coal reservoir (185 billion tons) in the country but has not utilized so far due to variety of reasons. The prospect of nuclear energy is aglitter(predicate) in Pakistan but high cost, technology barriers and international embargoes are the liberal hurdles in its course. This shows that conventional non renewable resources are grossly brusk for meeting the future energy needs of the country. therefore, development of the renewable energy sources can play an important role in meeting this dispute (Harijan et al., 2008).Pakistan stretches from 24N to 37N latitudes and from 61E to 76E longitudes. The total land area of Pakistan is about 800,000 km. The grace v aries from lofty Karakoram and Himalaya mountains, with the K-2 peak ( wink highest in the world 8,613 pulses) to the famous desert of Thar and includes generative plains of the river Indus and its tributaries. The offshore covers over 231,674 km in the Arabian Sea. In Pakistan, cropped and lumber lands cover an area of about 23 million hectares and 4 million hectares respectively (AEDB website www.aedb.org)There are quite a number of renewable energy sources, but the resources that are technologically viable and have fulgid prospects to be exploited commercially in Pakistan include, Solar (PV, thermal), Water (mega topical anesthetic macro- little-hydel) intrude. Wastes (City solid waste, animal waste) geothermal. Pakistan can get benefit and use these as substitute energy in areas where sources exist.Water Energy PotentialHydropower is one of the oldest forms of energy mankind has used on a mass scale. mechanized use of hydropower began thousands of years ago by the Egypti ans and Greeks for irrigation and milling of grain. Its use for issue of electricity dates back to the 19th century in 1882 electricity was produced for the first time by the use of hydropower (Asif, 2008). It is the most versatile source of energy being used in the world. It is renewable, abundant, environmentally friendly and technically mature. It is also regarded as the most economical form of energy. Hydropower is regarded as one of the most important sources of energy Pakistan can count on. Despite the presence of a strong base forTable-1 Proposed sites and their discharge, fall and power potentialS have of ChannelLocationDischarge in fee/second run into in FeetPower Potential in MW1Baloki-Sulamanki Link-1RD1062501250010.6410.002Baloki-Sulamanki Link-2RD33430900017.8610.723Chanab-Jhelum Link (Tail)RD3166221352741.7040.004Upper ChanabRD0165008.839.705TP Link Canal (DG Khan)RD183000120003.0012.28(Source Hassan, 2002)this form of energy, not enough has been done to tap the prec ious resource. The hydro potential was estimated at about 50,000 MW out of which about 4,800 MW has been developed over the past 50 years through mega-hydel plants and the remaining has yet to be exploited (Kazi, 1999). The Yankee areas of the country are rich with hydropower resources. Hydrological survey also revealed that there is a great potential for 300 MW power timess through construction of micro hydropower plants in northern areas of Pakistan (Hassan, 2002). Besides, there is an immense potential for exploiting body of water falls in the canal network particularly in Punjab, where low vanguard high discharge exists on many a(prenominal) canals. Irrigation system of Pakistan is one the largest in the world having extensive network of canal of 160,000 km length. The canal system has a huge hydropower potential at numerous sites/locations on these irrigation canals, ranging from 1MW to more than 10MW, which can be utilized for developing small hydro-power stations (Huss an, 2002)Wind EnergyHarnessing wind power to produce electricity on a commercial scale has become the fastest increment energy technology. Economic, policy-making and technological forces are now emerging to make wind power a viable source of energy. Data shows that worldwide installed wind power capacity during the period 1996-2008. The total wind power capacity was only 6,100 MW which has increased tremendously and reached to 120791 MW in 2008. Pakistan has a considerable potential of wind energy in the coastal belt of Sindh, Baluchistan and as well as in the desert areas of Punjab and Sindh. This renewable source of energy has however, not so far been utilized significantly. The coastal belt of Pakistan is blessed with a matinee idol gifted wind corridor that is 60 km wide (Gharo Kati Bandar) and 180 km long .This corridor has the exploitable potential of 50,000 MW of electricity generation through wind energy (AEDB website www.aedb.org)Fig.1. Worldwide installed wind power c apacity 1996-2008 (Source http//www.ewea.org/)Fig. 2. Pakistan Meteorological Departments wind role stations Source www.aedb.orgPakistan is a late starter in this field. It is estimated that more than 5000 villages can be electrified through wind energy in Sindh, Balochistan and Federal areas Country first ever commercial 50 MW wind farm has been inaugurated in April 2009 with cooperation of Zorlu Enerji Group of Turkey at Jhimpir, District Thatta, Sindh. Moreover, Projects for generation of 1200MW of electricity from wind are in different stages of development (AEDB website www.aedb.org)Solar EnergyDirect solar energy can broadly be categorised into solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies, which convert the suns energy into electrical energy and solar thermal technologies, which use the suns energy directly for heating, homework and drying (Karekezi and Ranja, 1997). Solar energy has for a long time been used for drying animal skins and clothes, preserving meat, drying crops and ev aporating seawater to rip salt. Substantial research has been done over the years on exploiting the huge solar energy resource. Today, solar energy is utilized at miscellaneous directs. On a small scale, it is used at the household level for lighting, cooking, water heaters and solar architecture houses medium scale appliances include water heating in hotels and irrigation. At the community level, solar energy is used for vaccine infrigidation, water pumping, purification and rural electrification. On the industrial scale, solar energy is used for pre-heating boiler water for industrial use and power generation, detoxification, municipal water heating, telecommunications, and, more recently, transportation (solar cars) (Karekezi and Ranja, 1997 Ecosystems, 2002).Solar energy has polished potential in areas of Pakistan that receive high levels of solar radiation throughout the year. Every day, country receives an average of about 19 Mega Joules per square meter of solar energy ( AEDB website www.aedb.org).During last twenty years Pakistan has shown quite support developments in photovoltaic (PV). Currently, solar technology is being used in Pakistan for rural telephone exchanges, repeater stations, highway emergency telephones, cathodic protection, refrigeration for vaccine and medicines in the hospitals etc. The Public Health Department has installed many solar water pumps for drinking purposes in different parts of the country. both(prenominal) the private and public sectors are playing their roles in the Popularization and up grading of photovoltaic activities in the country. A number of companies are not only involved in trading photovoltaic products and appliances but also manufacturing different components of PV systems. They are selling PV modules, batteries, regulators, invertors, as well asSource www.aedb.orgFig. 3. Annual average mean daily Solar Radiation in Pakistan KWH/sq.mpractical low power gadgets for load shedding such as photovoltaic lam ps, battery chargers, garden lights System (SHS) project in 2005 and prefatorial facilities of lighting, cooking and water disinfection were provided to 11 villages in remote areas of Pakistan. Based on success of this program, the government had approved replication of this project in cd villages in Baluchistan Sindh (Source www.aedb.orgEnergy from WasteFor more than twenty years, Waste to Energy has been recognized as a clean, reliable, renewable source of energy. In the States today 2,500 MW are solely generated by the waste-to-energy plants. Many other countries including Sweden and lacquer have applied this technology since the last 20 years. In the subcontinent, India installed three projects to produce electricity from waste with a total capacity of 17.6 MW ( Shahid 2009)It is estimated that the urban areas of Pakistan generate over 55,000 tones of solid wastes daily ( Ziagham Nayyer, 2005) Unfortunately in Pakistan this source of energy has not been utilized for power g eneration in the past. The growing urbanization and changes in the pattern of life has given rise to generation of increasing quantities of wastes and its now becoming another threat to our environment.Energy generation from the Animal WastePakistan is an agricultural country. About 70% of the population resides in rural areas who meet 95% of their domestic fuel needs by burning bio-fuelsBiogas is a potential renewable energy source in Pakistan. An estimate indicates that Pakistan has potential of generating 8.58 - 1010 cubic meter of biogas 1287 million tones of cattle gunk annually produced. The heat value of this gas totals to 1.8-112 MJ. In addition, 350 millions tons of mire would also produce with biogas (Illyas, 2006). More than 0.024 millions domestic biogas plans have been installed in Pakistan. These plants are of small size (1-10 m ) capacity and mainly used for cooking and other domestic applications.AEDB has facilitated the Landhi Cattle Colony Biogas project, which upon its completion will be one of the largest wastes to energy projects in the world, generating up to 50 MW of electricity. The pilot build of 250 kW has been successfully initiated. This project is being implemented by put Company of New Zealand and will utilize waste of 400,000 cattle in the area to produce electricity (Source www.aedb.org)GeothermalGeothermal energy is the energy derived from the heat of the earths core. It is clean, abundant and reliable. If properly developed, it can offer a renewable and sustainable energy source. At an international level, approximately 8,100 MW of geothermal power is generated, out of a global potential of 60,000MW (Marietta, 2002 Bronicki, 2001). Most of the high atomic number 1 geothermal resources of the world are within seismal belts associated with zones of crustal weakness such as platemargins and centers or volcanic activity. A global seismic belt passes through Pakistan and the country has a long geological score of geotectoni c events Permo-carboniferous volcanism (Panjal traps in Kashmir) as a result of rifting of Iran-Afghanistan micropiates, Late Jurassic to betimes Cretaceous rifting of the Indo-Pakistan Plate, widespread volcanism during Late Cretaceous (Deccan traps) attributed to the appearance of a hot spot in the region, emergence of a chain of volcanic islands along the margins of the Indo-Pakistan Plate, collision of India and Asia (Cretaceous-Paleocene) and the consequent Himalayan upheaval, and Neogene-Quaternary volcanism in the Chagai District (Kazmi Jan, 1999 Raza Bander, 1995). This Geotectonic framework indicates that Pakistan should not be lacking in commercially exploitable sources of geothermal energy. Potential geothermal energy sites are identified at Sehwan in Sindh and Koh-e-Sultan in Baluchistan body politicFig 4. Geothermal Springs of Pakistan Source www.aedb.orgEmergy, Net energy evaluations and environmental lade of Renewable Energy SourcesThere is a great potential of r enewable energy sources in Pakistan. However, there are some key questions to be address before exploiting these resources.What will be the net energy and emergy from these energy systems?What will be new environmental load they create? be these energy systems sustainable or not?Explaining these questions is beyond the scope of this paper but I will present a general visible horizon of above mentioned concepts.Net Energy AnalysisNet energy refers to the ratio of the amount of energy produced to the amount of energy expended to produce it Net energy determines the multipurposeness of energy system to society. The usefulness of an energy system is pertinacious by a complex combination of physical, technical, economic and social attributes. This includes energy density, power density, emissions, cost and efficiency of conversion, financial jeopardize amenability to storage, risk to human health, and ease of transport. These attributes combine to determine energy quality. Energy ret urns for investment (EROI) is an important tool uses for net energy analysis. EROI is used to compare the amount of energy delivered to society by a technology to the total energy required to find, extract, process, deliver, and otherwise upgrade that energy to a socially useful form. Hydropower has the highest EROI among the renewable energy resources. Wind energy system has very well-to-do EROI in the right condition while solar thermal have low EROI compared to hydropower. They key issue is the size of the exorbitance that can realistically be delivered by renewable energy system (Cleveland, C.J. 2008)Source (Odum, H.T. 1998)Fig. 4 Energy transformation, storage, and feedback strengthenment found in units self organized for supreme performanceEmergy SynthesisEmergy refers to Available energy of one kind previously required directly and indirectly to make a product or service (Odum, H.T. 1998). Emergy synthesis serves as an alternative method to evaluate the energy flows of a system. It provides a way to account for differences in energy quality, for environmental go provided to a system, as well as a means to measure a systems level of Emergy sustainability. To derive the solar emergy of a resource or commodity, it is necessary to trace back through all the resource and energy flows that are used to produce it and express these input flows in the amount of solar energy that went into their production. This has been done for a wide variety of resources and commodities as well as for the renewable energies driving the biogeochemical process of the earth (Brown, M.T. and Ulgiate, S. 2002)Emergy and energy accounting require systems diagrams to organize evaluations and account for all inputs to, and outflows from, processes. The structures and storages that moderate our world of humanity and environment are sustained against the depreciation of the second law by productive inputs for replacement and maintenance. Maximizing the products and services for g rowth and support appears to be a design principle of self memorial tablet as given by Alfred Lotka as the maximum power principle. Pathways in Figure 4 illustrate the flows and conservation of energy. The storage is represented with a tank symbol. The heat sink symbol represents the dispersal of available energy from processes and storages according to the second law. The feedback from right to left interacts as a multiplier factor increasing energy intake. This autocatalytic loop is one of the designs that prevail because they reinforce power intake and efficient use (Odum, H.T. 1998)Source (Brown, M.T. and Ulgiate, S. 2002)Fig 5 Aggregated energy systems diagram of an electric power plant, with main inputs and outputs shown and used to calculate performanceemergy based indicators. Legends R1=renewable inputs directly falling on the plant site (sun, wind, rain) R2=renewable inputs supplied by the local ecosystem and used by the plant in the production of electricity (cooling wat er and air, oxygen for combustion) R=locally renewable input to the process=max(R1 R2) as these inputs are goaded by the same (solar) source N=nonrenewable inputs (such as coal, oil, nd natural gas or groundwater that is used faster than it is recharged) F=goods and services from the economy (F) that are used to construct, operate, and maintain the power plant (construction materials, machinery, general supplies, human services, etc.) Y=Output of a process. Here, the electricity yielded by the plant. By definition, the output is assigned an emergy Y=R+N+F =chemicals released by the power plant to the atmosphere (from combustion) H = Heat released by the power plant to the atmosphere and the cooling waterBrown, M.T. and Ulgiate, S. (2002) evaluated six electricity production systems by apply energy and emergy accounting system, in order to graze their relative thermodynamics and environmental efficiencies. They explored out/input energy ratio, emergy yield ratio (EYR) and environme ntal load ratio (ELR). Generation of CO2has also been accounted for in order to compare renewable and nonrenewable energy sourcesEmergy yield ratio, EYR=Y/F=(F+R+N)/FEnvironmental loading ratio, ELR= (F+N)/REmergy index of sustainability, IS = EYR/ELRThe emergy yield ratio (EYR) provides insight into the net benefit of the various production processes to society. In fact, the higher the fraction of locally available energy sources (R+N) that are exploited by means of the investmentFfrom outside, the higher the value of this indicator. Environmental loading ratio expresses the use of environmental service by the system. Environmental service is measured as the emergy of that portionRof the environment that is used. When EYR is high due to a high value of local renewable resources, then ELR is small, thus indicating a small environmental stress. On the contrary, when a high value of local nonrenewable sources contributes to EYR, then ELR increases, thus suggesting a larger environment al stress. Therefore, a simultaneous increase of both EYR and ELR, indicates that a larger stress is being placed on the environment on the contrary, when EYR increases and ELR decreases, the process is less of a load on the surrounding environment.Brown, M.T. and Ulgiate, S. (2002) think that wind generation and hydroelectric power plants have the highest EYR, while the oil fired power plant was the lowest. They also found that electricity generated exploitation wind, geothermal, and hydro power plants had the lowest environmental impact, while fossil fired plants the highest. promote more they also found that the wind and hydroelectric plants had the highest-over-all aggregated (economic and ecological) sustainability, followed by geothermal electricity.CONCLUSIONPakistan is facing severe energy crises. It is projected that energy demand-indigenous supply gap is increases from 27% in 2005 to 57% in 2030. It is be after that demand indigenous supply gape would be bridge by imp orted oil and gas. Consequently, import of energy would increase the energy import bill as well as energy security issues. The consumption of fuel will also degrade the environment. Renewable resources in the form of hydropower, wind. Solar PV, Biogas, geothermal etc. are suitable renewable technologies for Pakistan There is substantial potential of these Renewable Energy resources and should be developed for managing the current energy crises and meeting the future energy demand for Pakistan. However there is need of a thorough analysis of net energy and emergy gains from using renewable energy sources. There is also need of investigating the new environmental these alternative sources will create. They key issue is the size of the surplus that can realistically be delivered by renewable energy system