Definition Of Energy Crisis Importance Of Energy Environmental Sciences Essay

An energy crisis is any great blockage in supply of energy resources to an economy. It often refers to a decrease in the supply of electricity as compared to its demand. None can deny the importance of energy in today’s world. Energy drives man’s domestic life, industry, agriculture, and his automobiles, etc. Whenever there is a storage of energy all walks of life are affected. Pakistan face a severe energy crisis these days. Present energy crisis has passed all the previous ones. Pakistan has installed capacity of about 19500MW. The major contributors of this figure are WAPDA, KESC, IPPs and PAEC. WAPDA generates 11327MW and minority shares in the total population of energy in the country. KESC contributes 1756MW, PAEC 427MW and IPPs 5500MW. The country takes this amount of energy from three main sources: HYDREL, THERMAL, and NUCLEAR. HYDREL power is 6444MW, from which Tarbela power plant, Mangla power plant and Ghazi Barotha power plant. The main contribution towards the country total power is from thermal source. This type of energy is produced by Rental power plant(RPPS) and Independent power plant(IPPs) under authority of private power board. Pakistan atomic energy commission (PAEC) is generating electricity from nuclear fuel sources. Karachi nuclear plant and chashma nuclear power plant are producing 472MW of electricity. Pakistan has capacity to generate 50,000MW energy from hydrel source only but it produced only 6444MW out of this figure. The country has total coal reserve is 185 billion tones which can serve the country energy situation for centuries. The coastal belt of Sindh separate 1046 Km has wind energy potential of 50,000 MW according to some estimates. Pakistan has sunlight duration of about sixteen hour’s a day and twelve month’s a year and this sunlight can generate about 100,000 MW of electricity for Pakistan, almost free of cost. The current power production of country from all sources is about 13000 MW, Whereas demand is about 17500 MW. Thus this significant equality between the demand and supply of power and this disparity has pushed the country in crisis. It has been estimated that total energy requirements of the country in 2030 will be around 160,000 MW, Whereas present generation capacity of the system is only 19,000MW. Fortunately Pakistan is capable of this meeting target with the potential at its disposal. For example, its hydrel potential is close to 40,000MW, Gas can produced 50,000MW, coal can produced more then 50,000MW, and the balance of 1000MW can be produced by nuclear power plants. Only the need of time is better policy making. Energy crisis has its far reaching ravages from economic to social life. The factors which had led to this situation would be discussed in the pervious paragraphs.

Industrial growth accordingly the demand of electricity has been multiplied in the past few year but, the government and concerned authorities have failed to keep pace with the growing demands of industrial sector and agriculture sector. Agriculture sector has grown over the years with its own strain over the power distribution equation but not anticipated by the policy. Agriculture consumption of electricity was about 11% in 2005-2006 which rose upto 14%, according to FBS. The rate of increase in demand is many times greater than the rate of generation of power. So, the result is energy shortage. Another factor responsible for energy crisis is corrupt practices of the masses in collaboration with the concerned authorities. Electricity theft is contained particularly in far flung areas. The employees of wapda and kesc are involved in this power theft by providing illegal connections to the people. People also enjoy more than one meter in the same home to evade tariff, It has divided the collection of revenue and also causes loss of power.

Line losses of electricity during its distribution from the site of production to the ultimate consumer are high in Pakistan owing to its factors. The distribution lines are in Pakistan either outdated and damaged, there is no proper maintenance of these lines. Line losses from 20% of the total power transmitted through the lines. It means 20 units of every 100 units is wasted and not paid by the consumer.

The roots of the energy crisis can be found to almost two decades back with advert of highly generous 1994 policy for independent power producer (IPPs). With this policy a dramatic shift occurred in the generation source and it made the country hostage of an irregular rising and falling in number or amount in international oil and gas prices. The present cause of energy crisis is over reliance on expensive imported fuel mix. Before the implementation of 1994 policy the country electricity generation was trusted on fuel mix approximately 70 or 30 in support of hydro thermal. This changed dramatically over the next decade and fuel mix become 30percent hydro an 70percent thermal by the end of 2010. The cost of this policy could be understood with the following comparison. Wapda is generating electricity from hydro source at Rs.1.03 kwh, While in public sector thermal power plant provided the same at Rs.8.5 kwh. However the (IPPs), provided the same at Rs.9.58 kwh. This cost increased for the consumer due to line losses and theft in the transmission and distribution systems.

Not only single megawatt of electricity has been added to Pakistan national grid stations since 2000 record breaking economic growth and population expansion. In this land, blessed with fast flowing rivers, there is no reason for us to not increase our hydel capacity to lower electricity cost, Inter central trust shortage, regarding the location of dams is a major cause of this low hydel production. More importantly, those down rivers don’t want to see their share of sources of water reduced. The project of kala bagh dam was conceived(responsible) almost half century ago. Had it been constructed on time Pakistan would not faced the energy problem that it is challenged today. Similarly gavader maga project has been built by china and balochistan is its biggest beneficiary but its own provincial leadership is raising all kinds of serious objections to make it controversial. World over coal based power is cheap and largest source of power generation. The abundance of this cheap power in the power mix of a country pulls down the average price of power and more electricity cheap and affordable. Coal based power is not rocket science. It is intermediated technology and takes an average of 36 months for a coal power plant project to come on stream.

The demand for power is ever increasing but no maga project has been started since the start of energy crisis. According to some estimates the demand of power is increasing at a rate of 9% while the production rate has increased by 7% only. It has contributed to energy crisis. Not only the new generation capacity was added to the system but also the transmission and distribution network was upgrade.

Pakistan has witnessed a population explosion over the years. It had population of about 84,254,000 in 1981 with 28.8% people living in cities. Current population of the country is estimated to be 17,800,0000 with 32.2% people living in urban areas. But the generation of power and population increase have remained out of this phase with one another leading energy shortage.