Conserving gas resources

[Maroof Hussain Chishty]

Conserving gas resources

Monday, 02 Aug, 2010



The high cost of power and load-shedding at the KESC’s/Pepco’s convenience is damaging the economic base beyond hope. It is shocking to note the total disconnect our policymakers have with the working populace of this country.

How far can the unsustainable policies carry us? Not a month starts without the perennial announcement of tariff increases.

We are not ready to follow the most common sense approach to conserve and thus, continue to waste our resources, including the most precious natural gas which, at this time, is the only viable energy source. We are lucky, thanks to the planners of the ’50s, that we are blessed with country-wide gas pipe installations. Very few developing countries have such extensive infrastructure for gas distribution.

If we had based our gas utilisation on efficient processes, we would have extended this clean energy to cover all our essential needs of today. But we have wasted and continue to waste this precious resource.

It has been reported so many times that if we had stressed on gas conservation policies even as late as 2001 (when the gas conservation policy was confirmed at the Ecnec level), we would not be so critically short of affordable power. The country (minus the privileged one per cent who can afford any cost) needs low-cost power to exist and yet, we seem to be doing nothing to control costs.

It is no small matter to see a poor country like Pakistan continue to have one of the highest costs of power. How can economic activity flourish in such an environment? The natural gas resource has to be sustained, at least till Thar coal can start sharing the load.

We must conserve gas and take the following steps:

Enforce all power plants using natural gas to urgently convert to efficient combined cycle; ensure no low-efficiency absorption chillers for central air-conditioning are allowed to operate on gas. These chillers covering thousands of tons of cooling capacity in hospitals, hotels, offices, malls, etc. waste enormous amounts of gas and these should be converted to waste-heat operated cogeneration systems on an urgent basis; we must definitely stop gas supply to all steam- and hot-water boilers in industries, hotels, hospitals, offices etc. since this is the most wasteful use of gas. All such systems should be converted to cogeneration design.

Lately, there has been the introduction of a fraudulent method to mislead gas companies in accepting inefficient ‘cogeneration systems’. In the garb of utilising waste heat from gas engines, such cogeneration systems install an auxiliary burner, which directly consumes gas and thus kills the very concept of waste-heat utilisation.

Our gas companies need to be technically proficient to distinguish between efficient cogeneration (which is the need of the hour) and such systems with auxiliary burners wasting enormous amounts of gas.