Geothermal Energy In Pakistan And The World
According to Aleternative Energy Board of Pakistan, a global seismic belt passes through Pakistan and the country has a long geological history of geotectonic events. The Geotectonic framework shown above indicates that Pakistan should not be lacking in commercially exploitable sources of geothermal energy. AEDB is working on a preliminary study on technical, economical and market aspects of geothermal utilization possibilities and detailed feasibility studies for geothermal energy utilization. Let’s take a look at what Geothermal energy is?
We have prepared a concise summary of Geothermal power and its use in the world – aggregated from various top sources.
Geothermal power is energy generated by heat stored in the earth, or the collection of absorbed heat derived from underground, in the atmosphere and oceans. As of 2008, geothermal power supplies less than 1% of the world’s energy. Geothermal power requires no fuel, and is therefore virtually emissions free and insusceptible to fluctuations in fuel cost. And because a geothermal power station doesn’t rely on transient sources of energy, unlike, for example, wind turbines or solar panels, its capacity factor can be quite large; up to 90% in practice.
Geothermal has minimal land use requirements; existing geothermal plants use 1-8 acres per megawatt (MW) versus 5-10 acres per MW for nuclear operations and 19 acres per MW for coal power plants. It also offers a degree of scalability: a large geothermal plant can power entire cities while smaller power plants can supply more remote sites such as rural villages.
Geothermal resources range from shallow ground to hot water and rock several miles below the Earth’s surface, and even further down to the extremely hot molten rock called magma. Wells over a mile deep can be drilled into underground reservoirs to tap steam and very hot water that can be brought to the surface for use in a variety of applications. Geothermal power is generated in over 20 countries around the world including the United States, Iceland, Italy, Germany, Turkey, France, The Netherlands, Lithuania, New Zealand, Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Russia, the Philippines, Indonesia, the People’s Republic of China, Pakistan, Japan and Saint Kitts and Nevis. Chevron Corporation is the world’s largest producer of geothermal energy.
A global seismic belt passes through Pakistan and the country has a long geological history of geotectonic events. Several projects are on the roll these days which include Remote Sensing Studies, geothermal geology, geothermal hydrogeology, hydrogeochemical Studies, geophysical Studies and preliminary Study on Technical, Economical and Market Aspects of Geothermal utilization possibilities and detailed feasibility studies for geothermal energy utilization. Projects like these if being managed and properly financed by Pakistani government should result in a major solution for meeting the energy shortage.
A 2006 report by MIT, that took into account the use of Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), concluded that it would be affordable to generate 100 GWe (gigawatts of electricity) or more by 2050 in the United States alone, for a maximum investment of 1 billion US dollars in research and development over 15 years. The MIT report calculated the world’s total EGS resources to be over 13,000 ZJ. Of these, over 200 ZJ would be extractable, with the potential to increase this to over 2,000 ZJ with technology improvements – sufficient to provide all the world’s present energy needs for several millennia. The key characteristic of an EGS (also called a Hot Dry Rock system), is that it reaches at least 10 km down into hard rock. At a typical site two holes would be bored and the deep rock between them fractured. Water would be pumped down one and steam would come up the other. The MIT report estimated that there was enough energy in hard rocks 10 km below the United States to supply all the world’s current needs for 30,000 years.
Conservation, Consumers, Economics, Electricity, Energy, Environment, Gas, Renewable Energy, Uncategorized
I am a resident of California which produces over 20,000 GW’s of electric generation from geothermal energy.
Has anything being done in this field beyond preliminary studies in Pakistan? Maybe if the political government can look beyond the issue of Sindhi topi and ajrak, we might find a solution to our energy problems.
Also for the last 20 years we have heard about the Thar coal reserves which supposedly are the largest in the world? or store more energy than the combined oil reserves of Saudi Arabia? Truth or fiction, I do not know?
There is a lot of talk about putting up a power generation plant in Thar by converting underground coal reserves into syngas by gasification of carbon. What amazes me is when Pakistanis talk about this process as if it is as simple as calling a plumber to bore a hole in the deposits and start turning the turbines to generate electricity. The process in fact is quite complicated and nothing short of putting up a huge refinery before one could generate energy. We would also have to worry about tonnes of CO2 produced during the gasification process that would massively pollute Sind’s atmosphere. There is glycol absorption technology to capture CO2 but that can raise the cost of a single unit by 3 to 4 cents. Also the storage of large quantities of CO2 after extraction and capture would be a problem unless there is a commercial usage of CO2 by third parties; such as in oil drilling (EOR), etc. Which leads us to the issue of transportation of CO2 or laying a network of pipelines to pump CO2 from Thar to nearest oil fields.
Is this another Kalabagh dam?
@Wasif
Your study about the thar is really true so how can a nuclear scientist Dr.Samar Mubarak studied it is a CO2 emission free project because of low carbon content of our coal deposits if it emit CO2 then it will be less than a existing technology of coal fired based project because technology enhanced day by day will it a CO2 emission free project
The government has already taken so many steps to eliminate the electricity shortages. In this include joint venture with Al-abbas, and Engro on thar coal, Wind power plant is also under consideration with the help of South Korea. 5 to 6 firms of international repute have come across the memorandum of understanding to work on different blocks of Thar and these are all measure’s taken in this only government whereas the measures to enrich the culture like topi and ajarak is also being carried out hand in hand. As far as geothermal energy is concerned, 5 years duration of government is enough for the development of limited mega projects i wish the coming governemts could sustain all the dealings of present government in future as well.
The governments complete attention is to increase the coal consumption of the country that is not even 1% today whereas if we see India, Australia and China the coal consumption for power generation is 77% and this is according to the Report of 2002 today this percentage might be higher as these countries since beginning have been concentrating on coal power plants. Whereas in the reign of Musharaf Shenhua group of China that is famous in the development of largest coal liquefaction power plant could not settle the understanding with Nepra as the rates per megawatt electricity did not match. Shenhua suggested 5.71 whereas nepra suggested 5.46 just due to this little differnce they could not establish the understanding whereas the government after three years was ready to buy electricity for Rs 13 per megawatt from coal rental plants and this was the height of ignorance. today’s electricity shortage is due to such mismanagements.
This is bad luck of our nation to have such a foolish rulers and officials.i heard about geothermal that cost is per unit approximate 40 paisas its amazing figure please we should unite on this issue and pressurized our govt to take steps to move forward.
ANOTHER CONSPIRACY AGAINST PAKISTAN
BY SCIENTIST OF PAKISTAN
Dear Editor
This letter I am writing to you as a Pakistani and professional Chemical Engineer who has experience of more than 17 years in Fertilizers, Oil & Gas and Petrochemicals in Pakistan and abroad. I am providing consulting services to Oil & Gas and other industries in Pakistan.
You are aware of Thar Project of Underground coal gasification led by Dr. Samar Mubarak and his team. We would like to highlight serious concerns on this project which lead to Pakistan in depriving of these assets without harnessing the huge energy and petrochemical potential for our country which is dependent on the success of this pilot project. You can imagine if any pilot project fails only due to lack of knowledge and expertise what can happen!
This is going on here in this project and they want to make this project a failure so no other company will invest and get the true benefits for this nation. We request you to bring this issue in front of the nation and stop them to play with the resources and money of peoples of Pakistan.
They are working against the principles of common understanding, logical approach, engineering or whatever you name it. If you talk to any Oil & gas company how they build the gas and oil processing facility, they will tell you that they first do rigorous tests on oil and gas wells to characterize the gas and oil composition and then built the facility which is going to be multimillion dollar facility. This is the very first step but in UCG they do not know anything what is coming out of the gas and they want to built a facility there and spend lot of money and then they say the pilot was not successful.
UCG Thar coal project invited bids in February 2011 for supply of Gas dehydration facility and there are lot of technical flaws in their concept paper which they call it Invitation to bid. We participated in the bid with our Technology cooperation partners from abroad and submit a proposal based on their scheme with a statement that it is not going to work. At the same time we propose the phase wise approach which we call it GATE approach which proven in the industry for the project execution. We made a presentation to them Dr Shabbir at their offices in Karachi in April 2011 and propose a scheme that we start with the test separator and after analyzing and characterization of gas we will start designing the facility.
They don’t want to listen this scheme. We said ok. Allah has give us fortune but our so called Politicize Technocrats made us unfortunate.
In September 2011 they have re-invited the bids again with a 180 degree change in their OWN design which relatively better than the previous. At this time we decided we go with the Client Scheme and make necessary changes so that the plant can run and make this pilot successful.
There were three competitors, two Pakistanis and one Chinese. Chinese quoted a price of 3.8 million dollars which is impossible and Dr. Samar Mubarak has understanding with the Chinese company. We are asking UCG Management as Engineers we should know what they have offered and how it is possible. We have worked on the bid for two months day and night and contacted each and every vendor in China and other parts of the world and we are surprised and shocked to hear this price.
This is a 20000 Nm3/hr plant which is around 18 MMSCFD and you can ask a price of natural gas processing plant which has a cost of around 20 million USD.
Here is not a question of bid or getting business, our argument is UCG should let us know how they are going to achieve this with the Chinese offer which we believe is not possible altogether.
We are worried and have a genuine concern as a Pakistani that if this UCG pilot fails no body is going to explore and harness the potential of Thar for Pakistan at-least in near future and keep Pakistan in growing darkness
We cannot let them go like this!
Here few technical arguments
1. Cooling Requirements of raw feed gas
Ask them at what temperature the Chinese are feeding gas to Desulphurization plant. As per UCG Client scheme they mentioned cooling of gas to 80 deg C and feed to desulphurization plant. This is not possible because all desulphurization plants need gas at 40 deg C.
To achieve this temperature you need chilled water and large air coolers which are expensive equipments
2. Plant safety
This is a real hazardous plant containing explosive and toxic gases. To ensure the safety of plant you need to have proper automatic isolation and depressurizing system and this is based on Engineering and not just supply of few equipments. Chinese has the worst safety records in Process plant safety. Hydrogen sulfide the most lethal gas above 10ppm can lead to fatality. If the plant is not properly designed as per standards and codes you are playing with the life of plant personnel which of course be Pakistani.
Hydrogen again is the most explosive gas and even a friction can lead to hydrogen bomb explosion.
All isolation and control valves only cost a million dollar. Without proper safety isolation and trips they are going to explode the plant. Ask them are they going to operate the plant only for day to pass the gas through the equipments and don’t know where they take the gas. They have not considered even the life line of plant which is the flare header or vents. They are playing with the lives of people in that area. Without shutdown system they cannot even stop the feeding gas to the plant.
Please tell them not to play with the future of Pakistan and peoples money.
3. Size of the plant and cost
They are talking about 20,000 Nm3/hr (18 MMSCFD) and inlet gas header is around 30 inch. You know the metallurgy requirement more than us for hydrogen and H2S environment. It is a reasonably sized plant and not the testing facility. Check any natural gas sweetening and dehydration plant even from the china they cannot get even less than 20 million USD of same capacity.
4. Pilot testing
You know for the pilot projects you go with the best equipment and people to make it happen. You don’t do any optimization and the value engineering at the piloting stage. If it goes wrong and failed the project may stop and it seems UCG want to do this and we do not let them do like this.
Imagine the test flights for new airplanes and jets, you choose the best pilot to make the test flight successful and spends lot of money. With all due respect and sorry to say here in UCG people who don’t know anything of the gas plant are going to monkey with the project.
To investigate inquiry commission should be formed for third party technical evaluation
Who will bell the cat?The Dr is a professional commission hunter.the firm registered in the name of his son is eating national exchequer like hell.I belonging to Thar feel presence of all the confirmed vulchurs around the dead body of my dream of prosperity through energy
hey i my name salman mi hobby is invent new things i invent new tech i give name its new solgeotehrmal its kind geo thermal butt we can get more energy without hot line in mi test i produced 100 kv with 20 Lt water but what can i do no body love pakistan just jokking on mi mi email id Salmansaleemseo@yahoo.com