Coal gasification offers one of the most versatile and clean ways to convert coal into electricity, hydrogen and other valuable energy products,” said experts while speaking at Workshop jointly organised by the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) and Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) on coal gasification and its benefits to the industry on Thursday. LCCI Senior Vice President Kashif Younis Meher was the chief guest while SMEDA General Manager Alamghir Chaudhry, Engineer S A Khalid, Engineer Zahid Malik, Engineer Khalid Umer and Mohammad Shakeel were prominent among the speakers.
In his opening remarks, the LCCI Senior Vice President Kashif Younis Meher said that there is no second opinion about it that the technology is the key to success and only those countries would be able to make their presence felt at International level who would adopt modern technologies. He said that as the coal gasification is the future therefore Pakistani research institutes should focus on giving awareness to Pakistani entrepreneurs about this technology in vogue in the developed world. The LCCI senior Vice President said that it was very unfortunate that Pakistani research institutes have failed to play their role properly this is one of reasons of economic meltdown being faced by the country. The LCCI Senior Vice President said that Pakistan is currently experiencing its worst ever energy crisis. The impact of these crises is getting so critical that our industry is getting on the verge of complete closure. The irony of the fact is that three decades ago, electricity was generated from hydel and non hydel resources with a proportion of 70:30. ”Now the situation has totally reversed. It means that the country is relying too much on gas, oil and other sources to generate electricity. It has resulted in costlier electricity which has wiped out competitive edge in international market and also pushed us to that stage where our future has become skeptical.” Keeping in view the shortage of natural gas and high prices of oil, we are bound to explore alternative ways of producing energy. Though some experts suggest going for solar and wind energy but the installation cost of such projects are way too high, which makes it unviable in our case.
