Hard to believe this but lets see what happens.
Managing Director Energy Management Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) Tahir Basharat Cheema said on Saturday that government is working on several power generation projects to overcome electricity deficit in the country. Talking to a private TV channel, he said the government has set the target of generating 35,000 MW by the end of December 2009.
He said two to three power generation plants would be added in the system every month, which would help in ending the load shedding from the country. He hoped that power situation would be improved in the country after the completion of all these projects.
Basharat Cheema said for cheaper electricity, the country has to move to hydro and coal for power generation. To a question he said Wapda has paid outstanding of Rs 93 billion to IPPs and gas companies while remaining dues will be cleared by the end of June.
Consumers, Electricity
Quite amazing that the high taxes are making the government rich but people still don’t get any relief. Next year this number will go up to Rs 140 billion and help reduce the budget deficit. Reported by Business Recorder.
The collection by the government on Petroleum Development Levy (PDL) exceeded budget estimates by 76 billion rupees. A total collection of Rs 90 billion PDL on petroleum products during the firs5t ten months (July-April) of the current fiscal year, as against the budget estimates of Rs 14 billion, was made possible by not passing the reduction in the international price of oil to the consumers.
This levy is to continue in the next budget and the Finance Ministry has estimated collection of Rs 140 billion in the forthcoming budget 2009-10 in an effort to meet the budget deficit target for next year.
Government collected Rs 73 billion PDL on the petroleum products during July-March 2009 that reached Rs 90 billion in July 2008-April 2009 of the current financial year. Government collected Rs 17 billion PDL in month of April. Government collected Rs 44.067 billion between Jan-March 2009 against Rs 49.5 billion projected by the government. The total collection of PDL was Rs 61.067 billion between January-April of the current calendar year.
Crude oil price in international market stood at $147 per barrel in July 2008 and government collected Rs 107 million PDL during the said month. Government collected Rs 1.999 billion PDL in August, Rs 2.817 billion in September, Rs 3.531 billion in October, Rs 8.882 billion in November, Rs 11.503 billion in December 2008 as government did not pass on the full impact of reduced oil prices to the consumers. PDL collection went up to Rs 15.979 billion in January and declined to Rs 13.715 billion in February and rose to Rs 14 billion in March.
Energy
This is a topic which receives a lot of attention and I have seen pages and pages of discussions. This is also something which holds a lot of promise for developing countries. Read more from Technoloy Review about the company Waste Management.
Waste gasification, a process for converting garbage into fuel and electricity without incinerating it, may be a step closer to large-scale commercialization. Last week, Houston’s Waste Management, a major garbage-collection and -disposal company, announced a joint venture with InEnTec, a startup based in Richland, WA, to commercialize InEnTec’s plasma-gasification technology.
InEnTec’s technology, originally developed at MIT and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, in Richland, WA, uses a multiple high-temperature processes–including subjecting garbage to plasma arcs–to break down organic materials into syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Syngas can either be directly burned in gas turbines to produce electricity, or it can be converted into other fuels, including gasoline and ethanol. Metals and other inorganic materials in garbage can be isolated and recycled. The combination of high temperatures and an oxygen-poor environment that prevents the garbage from catching fire eliminates the production of dioxins and furans, two toxic chemicals produced during incineration.
Clean Technology, Energy, Environment, Green, Renewable Energy
Pakistan government has constituted a committee to take provincial governments on board for drafting amendments in the ‘Power Policy 2002′, particularly hydro-power projects, official sources told Business Recorder. The decision was taken in a meeting of the Board of Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB), presided over by the Minister for Water and Power, Pervez Ashraf. More from Business Recorder.
The committee comprises of Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) Chairman Shakeel Durrani, PPIB Managing Director Fayyaz Elahi and representatives of provincial governments. The committee has been given one month to resolve the issues raised by the provincial governments.
Sources said that the provincial governments were annoyed over PPIB not taking them on board and given appropriate time for comments on the proposed amendments in the policy. “Provinces are insisting that they should be allowed to seek investment directly for hydropower projects,” sources added. Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif during his visit to China before his disqualification he had invited Chinese investors for hydropower projects.
The Minister for Water and Power is quite optimistic though. An official statement quoted the Minister as saying that the government is fully committed to achieve its targets for inducting the required power capacity into the national grid and end load shedding by the end of this year.
Read more…
Electricity, Energy, Policy, power
Skyline Solar is a startup that has developed a cheaper way to harvest energy from the sun. Here’s how it works: the company’s solar panels concentrate sunlight onto a small area, reducing the amount of expensive semiconductor material needed to generate electricity.
The technology will bring the cost of solar power in line with the average cost of electricity, at least in sunny areas, says Ben Eiref, Skyline Solar’s director of product management. Currently, solar power can be far more expensive than electricity from conventional sources; many governments have resorted to subsidies to increase its use.
Via: Technology Review
Clean Technology, Energy, Environment, Innovation, Renewable Energy, Solar
A Canadian startup says that it has developed a way to strip carbon out of methane, resulting in hydrogen-enriched natural gas that burns cleaner and more efficiently.
Atlantic Hydrogen, based in the Canadian province of New Brunswick, is betting that its “greener” natural gas will appeal to utilities and industrial customers looking to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions under an impending cap-and-trade regime. But an added financial benefit would come from the powdery carbon black that’s extracted from the gas stream. “If we can get a value for the carbon that’s even in the thousands of dollars per ton range, then we have a very compelling economic model,” says David Wagner, president of the seven-year-old company.
Via: Technology Review
Clean Technology, Energy
Overcharging of petroleum products by the government was challenged in the Supreme Court through identical constitutional petitions of Pakistan People’s Party Senator Rukhsana Zuberi and Pakistan Muslim League back in 2005. In 2009 this case is being investigated.
On March 30, a three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, observed that to resolve the controversy, an exercise had to be undertaken starting from the date when the Oil Companies Advisory Committee (OCAC) was authorised to fix prices of oil and gas, ie from June 29, 2001 to April 1, 2006 when its authority was given to the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra).
The judicial commission, probing into nitty-gritty of oil pricing and profits earned by the government, would start taking input from the relevant authorities here from May 3 to 8.
Via: Business Recorder
Consumers, Pakistan, Petrol, Policy
