Pakistan’s Energy Needs
By the Editor

AS part of the policy to sensitize the world about its growing energy requirements, Pakistan has briefed a key UN panel - Commission on Sustainable Development about the prevailing energy scarcity and the inability of its present energy generation capacity from the installed power plants to meet its needs.

It is an undeniable reality that the economic activity has picked up in Pakistan and the country needs massive energy input to sustain its growth.

That is why energy is becoming number one priority in Pakistan and its leadership is contemplating multiple options to ensure energy security.

While talks are continuing with Iran and Turkmenistan for laying of gas pipelines, possibilities are now being explored for import of power from Central Asian Republics.

The country has already embarked upon a massive programme of building new water reservoirs but it seems the country would not be able to exploit the full hydel-power potential due to dissensions and political bickering.

And it is quite obvious that import of gas or electricity from Central Asia would require peace and stability in Afghanistan, which seems to be a far cry.

Pakistan has been also attempting to develop alternative sources of energy like solar and wind power but the programme is in initial stages and will take a long time to materialize.

Under these circumstances, the authorities have rightly planned to set up nuclear power plants to increase share of nuclear energy to 8800 megawatts by 2020.

This, however, requires active collaboration of the international community but the so-called Nuclear Suppliers Group, led by the United States, has adopted a discriminatory approach towards Pakistan.

This unjust policy should be changed because our existing power plants are under full IAEA safeguards and we are ready to accept similar safeguards for the new ones.●