RE: Local coal26 Jan 2019 16:36
Strategy for efficient power generation
Shahiduzzaman Khan | Published: January 26, 2019 22:09:35
The government's decision to develop new coal mines on its own deserves appreciation in the sense that the authorities are going to break the decade-old stalemate over the issue. The coal mines will not be leased out to any foreign or local company or joint venture (JV) partners for exploration.
Innovation of new technologies has created opportunities to develop this earth resource in an eco-friendly manner. Coal is, by far, the cheapest and most abundant source of energy. Unlike natural gas or oil, there is very little chance of coal being scarce as it is plentiful all over the world.
The government has now decided to utilise local coal for meeting the energy needs. Several studies on utilisation of the local coal are underway. The authorities are keen to develop the coal mines employing the services of the relevant state-run entities.
Currently, the country has five coal mines, but coal extraction is limited to only one coal mine at Barapukuria in Dinajpur. It is annually extracting around 1.0 million tonnes of coal, most of which is consumed by the nearby thermal power plant. But a large quantity of coal will be required from next year, when a number of coal-fired power plants start power generation.
The government has a plan to generate around 50 per cent of the country's total electricity from coal. To implement the plan, it needs to generate around 12,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity from coal by 2024, 20,000 MW by 2030, and 30,000 MW by 2041.
Bangladesh has three coal-fired power plants having a total generation capacity of only 524 MW, as against the installed capacity of 17,685 MW. Agreements have been signed to set up more coal-fired power plants to generate around 1,411 MW of electricity by private sector companies.
The government has, so far, received a report of water modelling and hydro-geological survey on Barapukuria coal mine. The report stated that open-pit mining is possible there, subject to carrying out a mandatory geo-technical feasibility study. Around 344 million cubic metres of water need to be pumped out for its successful management.
An Australian company is carrying out a feasibility study on the development of Dighipara coal mine. The study aims at estimating the geological and minable reserves and resources of Dighipara coal basin in details. It is expected to be completed by September this year. The state-run Petrobangla is carrying out a study to utilise coal bed methane of Jamalganj coal mine.
Bangladesh is reported to have around 2.0 billion tonnes of coal reserves in five coalmines across the country, equivalent to 70 TCF of gas. It is necessary to utilise local coal by using environmentally sound and economically feasible methods.
At present, domestic natural gas production is less than 3,000 MMcfd (million cubic feet per day), but the demand is more than 3,500 MMcfd.
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