Pakistan will push hard for quick implementation of a long-delayed trans-regional gas pipeline from Turkmenistan in a bid to ease its mounting energy crisis, Petroleum Minister Naveed Qamar said on Tuesday. Senior officials of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India on Monday inked the framework of an agreement to construct the project with an estimated value of $3.3 billion.

The project would pump natural gas to Pakistan and India through the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, the stronghold of the Taliban and its birthplace. More energy security could ease pressure on Pakistan’s government, which faces a range of challenges, from a home-grown Taliban insurgency to what will likely be years of economic pain after summer floods caused billions of dollars in damages.

But analysts said the agreement was still at a preliminary stage and that security challenges in Afghanistan and the tensions between India and Pakistan remained an obstacle. Proposals to build the pipeline have been on the table since the 1990s but war in Afghanistan delayed the project.

“We are following a very, very aggressive timeframe to conclude agreements on this project as early as possible,” Petroleum Minister Naveed Qamar told Reuters by telephone on his way home from Turkmenistan, where the agreement was initialled on Monday. “But it’s too early to say that when these agreements will be completed and when the project will be implemented. Everything is subject to conclusion of agreements.”

The big question is can Afghanistan provide security for the pipeline? A Taliban insurgency is still raging there after nine years of war and more uncertainty is expected after US troops start withdrawing next summer. Any new tensions between arch-enemies Pakistan and India could also complicate efforts to get the project moving. Qamar said a final framework agreement is expected to be signed at a summit of the leaders of the four countries in December.

A pact covering the broad principles of sale and purchase of gas was also signed. Although some Pakistani energy officials hailed the tentative agreement, analysts say it may just be more wishful thinking. “It’s an agreement to reach another agreement without any concrete details and until then it cannot be termed as important,” said Khalid Iqbal Siddiqui, director of Pakistan’s Invest and Finance Securities Ltd. “This is not the first time it has happened.” The planned pipeline would have initial capacity for 33 billion cubic metres a year and would run for nearly 2,000 km (1,250 miles), including 735 km across Afghanistan and another 800 km through Pakistan. Natural gas to fill the pipeline could be drawn from the massive South Iolotan deposit, currently under development, and the existing Dovletabad field.

Pakistan also hopes a major gas pipeline project from Iran will help it tackle its energy problems. In March, the two sides signed a deal to build a much-delayed $7.6 billion pipeline pumping Iranian natural gas to Pakistan. That project may also be fraught with political uncertainties as the United States has been discouraging Pakistan from any deal with Tehran because of its suspected ambitions to build nuclear weapons. Iran denies it has such ambitions.

via Business Recroder

I came across this news about Electric scooters and thought that they would be great for Pakistan and India. Electric cars may grab headlines in international media, but in China electric scooters, bikes, and other two- and three-wheeled vehicles are big business, and could make a significant dent in the country’s emissions. VentureWire reports exclusively on a $9 million investment by Cybernaut (China) Investment in a Wuyi, China-based light vehicle and scooter manufacturer.

“It’s a segment that’s growing much faster than other electric vehicles,” Min Li, a Hong Kong-based analyst with Yuanta Securities, tells VentureWire. “This already is the first consumer adoption of the EV concept in China.”

Many countries are facing the problem of transporting renewable power from where its generated to where its needed. Pakistan has the similar problem that the wind power may be generated in one part of Sindh while it may be needed in another part. Aging transport infrastructure for power is a serious problem in developed countries as well as developing countries. Probolem: it requires a whole lot of money to build a better infrastructure. Untill we solve this problem, renewable power will not be a reality. See excerpts from this great article in Technology Review.

(There are) immense challenges ahead as power from renewable sources, mainly wind and solar, starts to play a bigger role around the world. To make use of this clean energy, we’ll need more transmission lines that can transport power from one region to another and connect energy-­hungry cities with the remote areas where much of our renewable power is likely to be generated. We’ll also need far smarter controls throughout the distribution system–technologies that can store extra electricity from wind farms in the batteries of plug-in hybrid cars, for example, or remotely turn power-hungry appliances on and off as the energy supply rises and falls.

Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO, have concluded that there’s no technical or economic reason why the United States couldn’t get 20 percent of its elec­tricity from wind turbines by 2030. The researchers calculate, however, that reaching this goal would require a $60 billion investment in 12,650 miles of new transmission lines to plug wind farms into the grid and help balance their output with that of other electricity sources and with consumer demand.

Regulation and governance is also a problem. Reading this just seems like we are in Pakistan or India!

The U.S. grid’s regulatory structure is just as antiquated. While the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) can approve utilities’ requests for electricity rates and license transmission across state lines, individual states retain control over whether and where major transmission lines actually get built. In the 1990s, many states revised their regulations in an attempt to introduce competition into the energy marketplace.

Another important point is smarter use of technology to reduce waste of energy and increase awareness.

Homeowners are getting software that lets them view and manage their energy consumption on the Web, and some of their appliances are being fitted with switches that will let the utility shut them off remotely during periods of high demand.

Smart-grid technologies could reduce overall electricity consumption by 6 percent and peak demand by as much as 27 percent. The peak-demand reductions alone would save between $175 billion and $332 billion over 20 years.