ROLE OF FOSSIL FUEL FOR THE SUSTAINABLE

DEVELOPMENT OF ENERGY IN PAKISTAN

Submitted by : Adnan Ali
Registration # 2017-CH-406
Submitted to : Dr. Hira Anjum

ROYAL RAJPOOT
G. M. ABAD
Energy Engineering Ch.E-308

Sustainable Energy Development and its Importance in Pakistan:

The sustainable development term is not new to our world, globally this terminology is
developing among people in every field of their work. But the need of sustainable energy
development appeared at the start of 21 st century when the climate change threat has posed to
our world. Before discussing the importance of sustainable energy development in Pakistan
lets, first describe the basic definition of sustainable energy development. The World
Commission on Environment and Development describe this terminology as “The
developments which can meet our present needs without compromising the needs of future”.
Climate change is the biggest problem right now to our country. The large emissions of carbon
dioxide gas in burning of fossil fuels is increasing the temperature of Pakistan and contributing
to the world global warming. Pakistan also facing the electricity shortages problems in almost
every sector and facing huge economic problems. As Pakistan is a country with large coal
resources, so if we promote the sustainable energy development by utilizing coal in clean
energy development then this could resolve the electricity problem of our country. For
promoting the sustainable energy development Pakistan needs to make a sectoral policy which
would suggest and implement special measures to enhance the clean energy production in the
country. The main set of sectoral policy options studied includes:

 Improvements in the currently working thermal plants by adopting advance

technologies for sustainable pollution free energy.
 Equal management of demand and supply of energy to every sector.
 Develop the renewable energy sources for energy management in country.
 Improvements in system efficiency by adopting more sustainable methods.
 By Developing the clean coal technology (e.g., pressurized fluidized bed combustion
(PFBC) in a combined cycle mode);
 By utilizing the pollution free technologies and equipments in thermal power plants
which would remove the sulphur and other oxides such as desulphurization bed
technology.
In Pakistan there is an immense opportunity to develop sustainable energy system by utilizing
fossil fuel such as coal because Pakistan has world 4 th largest coal resource at Thar Coal Mine in
Balochistan. Still we are relying on the coal which we are importing from other countries
because we don’t have such a technology to utilize that biggest resource into our advantage.
Sustainable energy development is the only way forward for fulfilling our future requirements
of electricity and utilizing our fossil fuels for better economy.

Coal for Sustainable Energy Development:

Coal is the most abundant fossil fuel in Pakistan with total proven reserve of 185.175 billion
tons. Pakistan has biggest coal reserve at Thar coal mines in the Balochistan which is unused
from its discovery since 1998. Most of the coal reserve present in the country is the lignite coal

1|Page
Energy Engineering Ch.E-308

which is almost 97 percent. With such a large resource, at present only almost 7% of our
electricity demand is fulfilled by coal and most of the country’s coal is imported. Pakistan needs
to develop new technologies to utilize that coal in our industries and to fulfill the energy
shortfall in the country.
For that purpose, Pakistan needs to develop sustainable technologies for promoting the
pollution free use of our coal. These technologies are quite expensive for the country like
Pakistan, so foreign investments should be made in the power sector to achieve the sustainable
energy goal. As now a days Pakistan’s economy is growing at the larger rate so there is also a
need of larger energy consumption. To fulfill that energy requirement and for the development
of country sustainable energy development is very necessary.

Clean coal technologies for sustainable energy development in

Pakistan:
Clean energy is one of the most important goal of sustainable development of almost every
country in the world. In this regard coal processing technologies are needs to be modified for
sustainable energy development. As Pakistan has large amount of coal resources so there are a
lot of improvements in the clean energy sector to be made in promoting the sustainable energy
development. For that purpose, advance technologies that should be used in the power sector
are listed below.

 Carbon Capturing Method:

In this technique carbon emission is controlled by capturing the free and excessive carbon by
processing the coal in specialized furnaces. Carbon can be captured from the exhaust gas
stream before or after it is fed to the furnace for burning. This technology is widely used as the
clean coal technology for reducing carbon emissions especially in the form of CO 2 which would
reduce the global warming and promote the sustainable energy development in Pakistan.

 Coal gasification:
Coal gasification is a process in which solid coal is converted into the gaseous form for utilizing
coal for sustainable energy development. In the gasification of coal all the sulphur present in
the coal is converted into the hydrogen sulphide gas which would be easily removed as a gas
from the exhaust stream. Nitrogen oxides are not formed in this process and hence there would
be no pollution. The biggest advantage of gasification of coal is that the handling is easy and in
gaseous form dangerous exhaust gases could be removed easily so this is the most viable and
environment friendly way to produce sustainable energy.

 Integrated gasification combined-cycle (IGCC):

In integrated gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) the gases that are produced by gasification are
utilized in heating the steam to generate electricity. This process is regarded as the 0% emission

2|Page
Energy Engineering Ch.E-308

technology hence all the exhaust emissions are utilized and nothing would be exhausted. In this
process gasification and utilization of exhaust stream for electricity generation to run the plant
would go side by side that’s why this process is called integrated gasification cycle.

 Coal washing:
Coal washing is the washing of coal prior to utilization in the presence of oxidizing agent. By this
process ash could be reduced and the exhaust gases are also minimized. Pakistan needs to
utilize this technology to promote the sustainable energy and to minimize the carbon emissions
to reduce the global warming.

 Advanced Coal Technologies (ACT):

Advanced Coal Technologies (ACT) are the set of technologies that are utilized as sustainable
energy development process to empower the sustained energy throughout the world. At
present there are five technologies that are in process to utilize the clean coal for power
production. This includes the CO2 capturing technique, Pulverized and fluidized bed combustion
etc.
Fluidized Bed Combustion technology is the most used technique for sustainable energy
development. In this technique a fluidized bed is used which capture the exhaust emissions
from the coal to reduce the global warming by capturing the carbon in CO2 emission.
There is a lot to do for sustainable energy development in Pakistan as the country is far behind
in producing sustainable energy sources. Pakistan should promote the safe and environment
friendly methods to utilize coal in energy production this is the only way to strengthen the
socio-economic character of the country. Pakistan is also facing a lot of problems in promoting
the sustainable energy development. As the coal mines are located in the remote areas where
the infrastructure is not good so there is a problem in mining and transporting the coal.
Pakistan is also struggling economically so it cannot afford such an expensive source of energy.
In this regard it needs a lot of foreign investments and plans to promote and to produce the
sustainable energy for future development.

Future work and Suggestions:

The process of sustainable energy development and its importance in Pakistan is described in
this document. To overcome the climate change issue by promoting the sustained energy has
also been discussed. In future the cleaner technologies for using coal in sustainable energy can
be discussed. The future SED plan for Pakistan and Pakistan’s future strategy to overcome the
energy shortcomings can also be discussed. How our present economic conditions could be
improved by promoting the sustainable energy development can be written.

3|Page
Energy Engineering Ch.E-308

References:
1) Mills, E. (2012) Pakistan’s Energy Crisis. Washington, DC.: United States Institute of
Peace.

2) Munasinghe, M. (1988) Energy Economics in Developing Countries: Analytical

Framework and Problems of Application. The Energy Journal 9:1, 1–17.

3) Munasinghe, M. and M. Jahangir (1981) Determining Marginal Cost Based Electricity

Tariffs: Case Study of the WAPDA System. Pakistan Economic and Social Review
19:1, 50–68.

4) Clean Coal Technologies. Accelerating Commercial and Policy Drivers for Deployment.
IEA, Paris 2008

5) Lin S.Y., Harada M., Suzuki Y. and Hatano H.: CO2 separation during hydrocarbon
gasification. Energy, 30, 2186-2193

4|Page