The Greening of Pakistan

Posted on June 28, 2006
Filed Under >Bilal Zuberi, Economy & Development, Environment, Science and Technology
13 Comments
Total Views: 26460

By Bilal Zuberi

Reportedly, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf is encouraging the use of alternative energy sources in Pakistan.

“We must make the best use of untapped energy potential in the form of wind and solar energy to meet the growing requirements in the long-term. This has become all the more important in the face of soaring oil prices… Mounting energy requirements on the back of robust industrial growth demand that the country exploit its hydropower capacity as well as benefit from abundant alternative energy means.â€Â?

This could be a much needed leadership stance to at least explore what alternative energy sources can become available for Pakistan in the future. Researchers in Pakistani universities should jump on this opportunity to take lead in unleashing energy stored in solar, wind, water/tidal, bio-fuels, hydrogen, coal, gas, nuclear and other alternative fuels. Energy derived from alternative sources can not only be renewable, but also cheap, clean and locally accessible.

For example, last year, nearly $1.6 billion of venture capital investments in the US were made in the clean-technology industry, and they have exceeded the total investments in semi-conductor industry . How and where is Pakistan positioning itself in this next technology boom? There is a huge potential for an agriculture based economy like Pakistan to trade up in value derived from its crops.

Pakistan is already going to make a move from diesel to CNG (starting 2007). In the past, chairman of the Alternative Energy Development Board of Pakistan, has also announced that Pakistan will derive 650MW of energy from wind sources, and up to 9700 MW (5% of total installed capacity) by 2030.

Is the alternative energy/renewable fuel/environmental movement finally catching interest in government circles? How can we help strengthen their resolve (if it is real and not just hot air) and bring other necessary resources to the table?

Dr. Bilal Zuberi is Vice President of Product Development at GEO2 Technologies in Boston (MA), USA. (See more at Bilal’s blog).

13 responses to “The Greening of Pakistan”

  1. Asif S says:

    I am gld you wrote on this subject. I hope you cover moe on this. Especially since Prof. Najam is an expert in this area. There are some interesting developments in Pakistn on environment which we should push and encourage.

  2. Rana Faisal Latif says:

    I am student of commerce(M.com)in my point of view energy is the baises on which the economy of a country base.pakisitan is one of the country in the world who have huge amount of recorcess but unfourtunately these have become useless becouse of improper planing if we want to live more in the world we need to efficent use of our resoucess and do plan next 10years.

  3. Hanif says:

    We people converted cars to ‘gas’ early on in Pakistan because of petrol prices and there is lot of talk about biofuels becasue of teh cost of petrol more than because of environment reason. But eventually it will be good for environment also

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