Bangladesh could overcome the power shortfall by brining only capital Dhaka under solar thermal power supply.

Bangladesh has enormous potentials to generate surplus electricity if it can take up a sustainable energy program, experts told a workshop in Dhaka on Tuesday, reports UNB.
Sustainable Energy Unit of Power Division and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) jointly organized the workshop at a city hotel for formulating a sustainable energy program.
State Minister for Power Iqbal Hassan Mahmood addressed the workshop as chief guest. UN resident coordinator in Bangladesh and UNDP resident representative Jorgen Lissner and Planning Commission secretary Akhter Hussain Khan also spoke on the occasion.
BD Rahmatullah, Director of Power Cell and Sustainable Energy Unit of Power Division, Kamal Rijal, Advisor of Sustainable Energy Policy, Energy and Environment Practice of UNDP Regional Center in Bangkok, Subir Nathak, leader of the program formulation team of Sustainable Energy unit and Shireen Kamal Sayeed, Assistant Resident Representative of UNDP, Dhaka delivered their presentations at the workshop.
In his presentation, BD Rahmatullah said power shortfall in Bangladesh now ranges from 300 MW to 500 MW as the country generates 3500-3900 MW of power against its of 4200 MW, Bangladesh-web.com reported.
He pointed out some factors, including system loss and gas-based generation of power (90%) that made the country’s power system insecure, resulting in frequent load-shedding during peak hours, low access of people (35%) to electricity use and high rate of power in industries.
Describing the energy management scenario, he said the energy system in Bangladesh has high system loss, demand and supply gap, low revenue collection and huge outstanding bills leading to fund constraint and low quality supply-- low voltage and fluctuation.
Subir Nathak told the workshop that Bangladesh could overcome the power shortfall by brining only capital Dhaka under solar thermal power supply.
He said the country has enormous potentials in using biomass energy in villages and this would be helpful for the rural women. “India produces 400 MW of electricity by using this system and it is the largest production in the world,“ he said.
Bangladesh can use paddy husk to produce electricity in rural areas, Subir said adding that 1.2 tons of rice husk can produce 1 MW of power.
Speaking on the occasion, State Minister for Power Iqbal Hassan Mahmood said colonial attitude of the people has been the roadblock to development of the power sector. “People still think that it is the government that will bear all the responsibilities. They never think they need to buy electricity,“ he pointed out.
He was also critical of the urban electricity users. “Rural people pay more than the urban ones. But the reality is that the urban consumers become defaulters, not the villagers,“ Mahmood pointed out.
Recognizing the fact that there are some problems in the existing power generation and transmission systems, he said, “We have to reform the electricity transmission system and for that we need to go for privatization.“
The minister hinted that they might go to the capital market for collecting funds for the power sector.
UNDP resident representative Jorgen Lissner said all the small energy plants will one day become big contributors to this country’s power sector. “Bangladesh just needs investment and imagination to develop this sector,“ he added.
Planning Commission Secretary Akhter Hussain Khan said the use of coal and atomic energy should also be kept in mind apart from the renewable energy.

Switzerland’s aim is to replace all petrol sold in the country with the bio-fuel essEnce5 by 2010. April 5, 2005 9:58 AM GMT (Datamonitor)--Switzerland’s aim of ensuring that all petrol consumed contains at least 5% bio-ethanol by 2010 would seem to be overly optimistic given the undeveloped nature of the Swiss ethanol market. Even with the construction of the country’s first bio-ethanol plant in 2008 and various tax incentives, achieving this aim can only be achieved with considerable ongoing government support.
Recent indications from Switzerland are that essEnce5, a bio-fuel mixture of bio-ethanol (5%) and petrol (95%) should be on the market by the beginning of next year with the eventual aim of its replacing all petrol by 2010. While this renewed focus on bio-fuels is a positive step for Switzerland, which has traditionally lagged far behind other countries in bio-fuels production, it is questionable whether such an ambitious target can be achieved in such a short time frame, commentwire.com reported.
Various practical efforts towards the goal are currently being made. Alcosuisse, a division of the Swiss Alcohol Board, is currently developing Switzerland’s first bio-ethanol production plant, which is scheduled to become operational by 2008. When fully operational, the plant will produce around 45 million liters of output annually.
Further to this, the Swiss government, which is heavily advocating the wider use of cleaner fuels, has decided not to tax the bio-ethanol produced in the Alcosuisse project in an attempt to drive the wider use of bio-fuels.
The price of the new gasoline is expected to be similar to current petrol prices, or at most slightly higher, and is unlikely to have a negative impact on performance.
According to the Swedish Petroleum Institute Swedish consumers were able to buy bio-fuel for the first time in 1986 and today it stands for 88% of the total Swedish gasoline sales. The Swedish example illustrates how tax exemptions can encourage the spread of more environmentally friendly fuels. However, given that it has taken since 1986 for a similar product to reach an 88% penetration in Sweden, the Swiss hopes of 100% penetration in a five year period seem excessively optimistic.
The likelihood of Switzerland achieving its 100% goal is dependent on continued government support, particularly through tax incentives. The taxation of mineral oils is currently under revision by the Swiss government, and favorable tax treatment in the revised law will be a key element, though by no means a guarantee, in ensuring the successful deployment of essEnce5.

The much ballyhooed hydrogen economy is a far-sighted product of dreamers. But it is possible that the dreamers can win. Achieving hydrogen as a preeminent energy carrier will require technology advances that cannot be counted on, certainly not predicted. It is completely logical yet, thus far, undoable on a large scale, because logic alone is not sufficient.
While I should be disappointed by misconceptions from what are otherwise well-educated, highly intelligent folks, my years behind both sides of a bar have taught me that the average man, regardless of background, often has strong feelings about a wide variety of subjects, as I have been on the listening end of many an alcohol-induced diatribe about plutonium, dioxin, meteorology, geology, animal husbandry, and the speed of light, even though the speaker may have spent his entire life mining peat moss.
To make hydrogen a commonly available fuel, you need engineers and scientists who can explain the problems dispassionately. But due to the difficulty of communicating to a harried and often poorly informed public, there is usually only time for sound bites and slogans from journalists and pundits echoing political drivel. Here, I’ll try to shed a bit more light on the road to that imagined, energy-rich, squeaky-clean future, according to worldoil.com.
A hydrogen-based energy future begins with the observation, usually as a young student, that hydrogen sits at the top of the table of elements. Most of the logic driving its use is that it is the most abundant element, comprising 75% of the universe and is, thus, inexhaustible. The other logical part is the fact that it burns clean when combined with oxygen, giving off only heat and water. It is ideal for certain types of fuel cells.
On the downside, although it’s the most abundant element in the universe, that top position in the table of elements also means that it is highly reactive. This means that hydrogen is almost always bound with something, often carbon in the form of oil, gas and coal, or bound with oxygen in the form of water. So, depending on your hydrogen source, it is likely that, at least in the interim period, you will still have importers and exporters, and all the issues of security, economics, and conflict that go with uneven resource distribution.
While hydrogen has inherently less pollution potential than conventional fuels, because carbon and sulfur aren’t burned, if you burn hydrogen with ordinary air, it can cause some minor pollution in the form of oxides of nitrogen, because air is mostly nitrogen.
In addition, if the life cycle of producing and using hydrogen is considered, including emissions of carbon dioxide and methane related to extracting the raw materials to produce, process, refine, transport and distribute it, the net decrease of greenhouse gas emissions may be much less than hoped for, depending on the methods used to produce the hydrogen.
Natural gas is widely seen as the easiest fuel from which to derive hydrogen. Obviously, only considerable Arctic gas or a much larger LNG supply could meet the soaring gas demand this would eventually require for transportation.
To achieve the maximum benefit, hydrogen needs to be produced from water rather than from fossil fuel sources, but that would require some sort of breakthrough in electricity production costs, including renewable sources.
Other breakthroughs are needed. For transportation--which is key for a hydrogen economy--fuel cells need to deliver more power in a smaller package and at much lower cost
Finally, there are potential ancillary benefits, such as using the fuel cell in your car to provide electricity to the grid. These benefits could be huge.
Those who say a hydrogen-based economy will never happen are just as off-base as those who are certain that it will soon be a reality. In many ways, predicting the future of invention is much like deciding whether you are an optimist or a pessimist: you simply make the choice. But achieving a hydrogen-based economy is not as daunting a task as some would have you believe. I’m hoping we get lucky.
By Perry A. Fischer

Solar panels will join wind turbines at the wastewater treatment plant in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Solar energy systems manufacturer WorldWater & Power and Conti Corporation were awarded a contract from the Atlantic County Utilities Authority (ACUA) in New Jersey to install a $3.25 million solar energy system at the wastewater treatment plant near Atlantic City.
The contract will require a $1.9 million rebate from the NJ Board of Public Utilities Office of Clean Energy and a low-interest loan from the NJ Environmental Infrastructure Trust program.
Under the joint venture agreement, WorldWater & Power will supply all solar-related equipment, engineering and design services, and Conti will provide construction services and construction project management.
The entire 500 kW project should be completed by October of 2005, according to ACUA. The first phase involves installation of solar panels over the parking lot and on three rooftops at the plant. The final phase will consist of installing three ground-mounted arrays at open areas around the site. The new solar panels will provide an estimated two to three percent of the energy needed to power the wastewater facility. Collectively, the arrays are expected to provide an annual output of 660,000 kWh, solaraccess.com reported.
“Each new project brings the ACUA closer to independence of fossil fuels,“ ACUA President Richard Dovey said. “With the installation of solar panels and five wind turbines in the near future, our wastewater treatment facility will, at times, be entirely powered by clean, renewable, alternative energy. The ACUA has long been a leader in protecting our environment and is hoping to serve as an example to the community as proponents of alternative energy and stewards of our water and land.“
The ACUA will be responsible for maintenance and operation of the alternative energy system. All electricity produced by the solar panels will be used for ACUA operations at the wastewater treatment plant, none will be sold to the power grid.
The addition of solar energy is just one of many alternative energy projects that the ACUA is pursuing. Many may know of the upcoming five-turbine, US $12 million dollar wind energy project at the same site Atlantic City site, but the authority has installed many renewable energy projects in the county, including:
- a geothermal heating and cooling unit installed at its Egg Harbor Township Building
- a landfill gas to energy generation system
- using biodiesel fuel on a temporary basis, and plans to convert its entire diesel fleet of 102 trucks and equipment to biodiesel fuel by early summer
- using reclaimed wastewater for the wastewater treatment plant’s sludge furnace scrubber
- considering a heat recovery project to produce electricity by recovering heat from the biosolids incinerator.
“Each new project brings the ACUA closer to independence of fossil fuels. With the installation of solar panels and five wind turbines in the near future, our wastewater treatment facility will, at times, be entirely powered by clean, renewable, alternative energy,“ Dovey said. “The ACUA has long been a leader in protecting our environment and is hoping to serve as an example to the community as proponents of alternative energy and stewards of our water and land.“

Russia’s largest oil firm LUKOIL said on Tuesday its reserves were almost unchanged in 2004, when it managed to fully replace its production and remain the world’s No. 2 oil firm by reserves.
The company said in a statement its total proved oil and gas reserves stood at 20.072 billion barrels of oil equivalent as of Jan 1, 2005.
LUKOIL, in which US oil major ConocoPhillips holds a 10 percent stake, had reported reserves of 20.056 billion boe as of Jan 1, 2004, up 4 percent from the previous year.
“For five years on end the company has completely compensated the hydrocarbons production with the reserves additions. LUKOIL had 3.5 percent growth in proven reserves in 2004 after taking production into account,“ it said, yahoo.com reported.
The company is the world’s No 2 oil firm by reserves behind US oil major ExxonMobil , which reports reserves of around 22 billion boe.
Reserves reporting has become a key issue in the past year after Royal Dutch/Shell Group and other oil firms cut their reserves estimates.
Investors and regulators such as the US Security Exchange Commission (SEC) closely watch reserves estimates as an important measure of a company’s value and growth prospects.
LUKOIL reports its reserves under U.S. Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) requirements, while investors prefer the more strict SEC rules. LUKOIL promised to start reporting reserves under the SEC rules a few years ago, but has not yet done so.
Russia is one of the few places in the world where oil majors can still book huge reserves by setting up joint ventures or buying equity stakes in local firms, although the government has been trying to cap those transactions in the past two years.
The statement also showed a significant reclassification of gas reserves as LUKOIL is actively developing gas fields in Russia’s Arctic.
Proved developed gas reserves jumped to 4.96 billion cubic feet from 2.91 billion a year ago, while proved undeveloped reserves decreased.
LUKOIL wants to boost gas output ten-fold over the next decade to become Russia’s leading independent gas producer.
It currently produces around 85 million tons of oil per year (1.7 million barrels per day) and just 5 billion cubic meters of gas.
The spike in oil prices over the past year also prompted LUKOIL to revise its future cash flows from oil and gas sales to $308 billion from $274 billion a year ago.