FORGETTING THAR? is the new govt ignoring Thar coal?

[Argus Panoptes]

As soon as the HT lines are laid, i.e, red tape is broken to lay it.

So is there a contract to lay down the HT lines under process? Or not even that?

 

[Bilal.]

So is there a contract to lay down the HT lines under process? Or not even that?

Is the contract for bhasha dam given out? No. Why? Red tapeism.

 

[Argus Panoptes]

Is the contract for bhasha dam given out? No. Why? Red tapeism.

We simply do not have any money to start any such large scale projects. None. And the only projects that may or may not start will need foreign financing. Which will happen only if the projects, Thar, Bhasha or anything else, is feasible. Red tape is only a minor issue. The lack of money is the big issue.

 

[Bilal.]

We simply do not have any money to start any such large scale projects. None. And the only projects that may or may not start will need foreign financing. Which will happen only if the projects, Thar, Bhasha or anything else, is feasible. Red tape is only a minor issue. The lack of money is the big issue.

All projects are done through financing, with only minor portion coming from budgetary allocation, that's a fact of modern world, it's not unusual or unique to Pakistan as you are making it sound like. Are you now claiming that bhasha is a make believe project which is financially or technically not feasible?

 

[niaz]

Anything that burns can be and has been used to produce electricity this includes biogas.

There are always reasonable argument for & against. In reality it is the politicians that determine where the resources will be allocated. Let me indulge fellow members to quote a real example. I came across Orinoco emulsion or Orimulsion during my stint as Energy Consultant to the Jamaica Power.

Faja Del Orinoco is the world biggest reservoir of bitumen/heavy oil located in the remote area of Orinoco River in Venezuela. Orimulsion is a 70% bitumen/30% water emulsion that had been developed for use a fuel for power plants to exploit heretofore untapped Bitumen reservoir of Venezuela.

Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) in its 2003 filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission stated that the Orimulsion business plan called for expanding its production capacity through joint ventures to 19.5 million tonnes (300,000 b/d) by 2006 from 6.5 million tonnes/year (100,000 b/d) in 2003. However by Dec 2006 all production of Orimulsion was shut down with the following arguments:

Orimulsion was indexed to coal so its price was kept to $7/bbl for its bitumen fraction, and the fiscal revenue was too low. It is therefore more profitable for the Venezuelan state to use its Bitumen/ Heavy Oil reserves to produce traditional oil products such as blends or syncrude than to make Orimulsion.

Orimulsion was invented by the previous "Energy Authorities" in Venezuela solely to discredit OPEC, devalue reserves in the Orinoco Oil Belt to the price of coal, and cheat the state of its proper due in fiscal payments.

This meant that more than 10 years invested in research and development of Orimulsion, with a capital investment of about $500 million went down the drain. To the best of my knowledge Orinoco bitumen is as yet untapped.

I am afraid that Thar Coal appears to be heading the same way. If PML-N gov’t decides that it is not worth investing scarce economic resources, they can quote sound arguments. On the other hand there are equally good or better arguments for giving Thar coal top priority.

 

[Argus Panoptes]

All projects are done through financing, with only minor portion coming from budgetary allocation, that's a fact of modern world, it's not unusual or unique to Pakistan as you are making it sound like. Are you now claiming that bhasha is a make believe project which is financially or technically not feasible?

YOu brought up Bhahsha, I did not. My point about Thar Coal lying untapped is still valid. Please see below:

...................

I am afraid that Thar Coal appears to be heading the same way. If PML-N gov’t decides that it is not worth investing scarce economic resources, they can quote sound arguments. On the other hand there are equally good or better arguments for giving Thar coal top priority.

The fact remains that energy produced by using Thar coal has to be cost-effective compared to other forms of power generation available to us as a country. As long as other forms, including imported coal, can pump electricity into our grid at a lower cost in terms of cents per KW-Hr, the case for Thar coal cannot make good sense.

 

[Bilal.]

Anything that burns can be and has been used to produce electricity this includes biogas.

There are always reasonable argument for & against. In reality it is the politicians that determine where the resources will be allocated. Let me indulge fellow members to quote a real example. I came .....

This meant that more than 10 years invested in research and development of Orimulsion, with a capital investment of about $500 million went down the drain. To the best of my knowledge Orinoco bitumen is as yet untapped.

I am afraid that Thar Coal appears to be heading the same way. If PML-N gov’t decides that it is not worth investing scarce economic resources, they can quote sound arguments. On the other hand there are equally good or better arguments for giving Thar coal top priority.

Thanks for the valuable input sir but it seems like the bitumen emulsion was a whole new experiment with a completely new and untested pricing model. Where as in case of lignite, it's being used for fuel for decades with established mechanisms for extraction, pricing and power generation.

In any case, based on your experience, can you tell us is the thar coal really so low quality so as to make it useless for power generation as some are suggesting?

YOu brought up Bhahsha, I did not. My point about Thar Coal lying untapped is still valid.

I was drawing an analogy, both projects are untapped. Untapped /= not feasible

 

[Argus Panoptes]

Thanks for the valuable input sir but it seems like the bitumen emulsion was a whole new experiment with a completely new and untested pricing model. Where as in case of lignite, it's being used for fuel for decades with established mechanisms for extraction, pricing and power generation.

In any case, based on your experience, can you tell us is the thar coal really so low quality so as to make it useless for power generation as some are suggesting?


I was drawing an analogy, both projects are untapped. Untapped /= not feasible

Feasible or not feasible is not a binary decision. It all depends on the degree of feasibility depending on various factors, the most important of which is the final cost per unit of power made available to the grid. Thar coal simply is too far down in this list to be competitive with other sources of power generation.

 

[Bilal.]

Feasible or not feasible is not a binary decision. It all depends on the degree of feasibility depending on various factors, the most important of which is the final cost per unit of power made available to the grid. Thar coal simply is too far down in this list to be competitive with other sources of power generation.

That can be established if comparative studies are present. But blanket statements like it's too low quality should be avoided, specially, in presence of bankable feasibilities stating otherwise.

 

[Argus Panoptes]

That can be established if comparative studies are present. But blanket statements like it's too low quality should be avoided, specially, in presence of bankable feasibilities stating otherwise.

I will maintain that Thar coal is of too poor quality to be exploited on a cost-effective basis, until and unless any concrete progress is made:

It is important to measure the potential of Thar coal in terms of megawatts of power per day because the kind of coal that Thar has, is of little use besides conversion to electricity onsite. Lignite, which is the least energy intensive form of coal, according to some definitions, is not coal at all. In fact, it is considered a dirty energy source lying somewhere on the spectrum between coal and peat with carbon content between 25% to 35%. The fixed carbon content of Thar coal is less than 22%. The low carbon content translates into low energy generation capacity, which means that if energy is invested into transporting the lignite from source to point of consumption, the net energy output of the mining, extraction, transportation and conversion process becomes less than zero; you end up investing more energy making energy out of coal than you get out of it in terms of megawatts. In order to get any energy out of lignite, it has to be converted into electricity almost entirely onsite; where it is being mined.

 

[Bilal.]

I will maintain that Thar coal is of too poor quality to be exploited on a cost-effective basis, until and unless any concrete progress is made:

This article is 100 percent accurate, all studies point to onsite power plant, no one is claiming to transport it. As for carbon content and being lignite type, Germany is producing more than 25 percent of it's electricity with the same type of coal and that's just one example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lignite

It's not a rocket science technology I am talking about, it's being done in dozens of countries for decades.

 

[Argus Panoptes]

This article is 100 percent accurate, all studies point to onsite power plant, no one is claiming to transport it. As for carbon content and being lignite type, Germany is producing more than 25 percent of it's electricity with the same type of coal and that's just one example.

Lignite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's not a rocket science technology I am talking about, it's being done in dozens of countries for decades.

Okay, good. Now that we have an on-site powerplant burning locally mined Thar coal, we need to connect it to the national grid. So does the cost of the HT lines become part of the financial calculations for the entire project or not? You ship the coal or you ship the power, either way the related costs sink the project's commercial viability.

 

[Bilal.]

Okay, good. Now that we have an on-site powerplant burning locally mined Thar coal, we need to connect it to the national grid. So does the cost of the HT lines become part of the financial calculations for the entire project or not? You ship the coal or you ship the power, either way the related costs sink the project's commercial viability.

Wow! You are equating shipping coal and "shipping" power? There is no comparison, plus, HT line won't be for 1 project it will be for all projects in thar. Economy of scale....

 

[Argus Panoptes]

Wow! You are equating shipping coal and "shipping" power? There is no comparison, plus, HT line won't be for 1 project it will be for all projects in thar. Economy of scale....

"All" projects in Thar? Which projects would that be? The 50,000MW promised by Dr. Mand from gasification? Economy of scale? Just how much power do you think we can get from Thar coal? That RWE study you keep mentioning produces only 1,000MW on-site. What else can be done?

BTW, what do you think an HT line would cost? Try about $2 million per mile. It is not exactly cheap compared to transporting coal.

 

[Bilal.]

"All" projects in Thar? Which projects would that be? The 50,000MW promised by Dr. Mand from gasification? Economy of scale? Just how much power do you think we can get from Thar coal? That RWE study you keep mentioning produces only 1,000MW on-site. What else can be done?

RWE is for one block, there are more blocks under engro, ssrl, etc. All with bankable feasibility done. If casa-1000 for 1000MW all the way from central Asia is economically feasible (though politically probably not) than an HT line for 4000 odd from thar certainly is.

HT lines are not cheap but it's not a reoccurring cost as in case of transporting coal.