US Investor Keen to Exploit Tidal Energy in Pakistan
Pakistan Times National News Desk

KARACHI: The United States has shown a keen interest in exploiting tidal energy from the creeks in the coastal belt of Pakistan, said a senior official.

“An American investor called on President Pervez Musharraf some two months ago and discussed these projects at length,” Brigadier Dr Naseem A Khan, secretary, Alternative Energy Development Board said.

He said the foreign investor had submitted a letter of intent to harness tidal energy to the tune of 50-300 MW from Wadi Khuddi and Paitani Creeks in Thatta district in Sindh and Dhad Creek near Sonmiani in Balochistan, 95 kms from Karachi.

He said Dhad Creek in Balochistan has the capacity to produce up to 800 MW energy theoretically but in practical terms 22 per cent of its potential could be exploited.

Dr Khan said he had visited France recently where he saw tidal energy to the tune of 240 MW being generated at Saint Marlo since the 1960s. But tidal waves at that place were three times higher than that of Pakistan, he added. “We are in touch with the French authorities to benefit from their expertise in the domain of tidal energy,” Dr Khan said.

It may be recalled that the National Institute of Oceonography (NIO) had conducted a study as early as 1988 that showed that the 17 creeks on the coastal belt of Pakistan could generate tidal energy sufficient to meet the requirements of Karachi at very cheap rates but, sadly, the study was shelved by the powerful Pakistani bureaucracy for unknown reasons.

The potential of tidal or oceanic energy could be gauged from the fact that The Economist magazine in its April 2007 published an article that said, “A fraction of the energy locked up in the oceans could, in theory, meet the world’s entire electricity needs.”

“In practice, of course, things are nothing like that simple. Extracting hydropower from dammed-up rivers is comparatively easy compared with harvesting energy from offshore tides and waves, and then putting it into the grid via underwater cables. Only 14 countries now operate tidal or wave-power stations, and most are tiny, experimental and expensive,” said The Economist.

“But with governments all over the world thinking about climate change, and under pressure from voters to show their green colours, the tide may be turning, politically at least. Australian scientists fantasise about the day when they could get enough power from the surf-friendly waves along the southern coast to meet the whole country’s electricity needs.

“Politicians in Oregon dream of generating all the state’s power from the Pacific. Britain’s Carbon Trust, a government-funded company that profers help with cutting greenhouse emissions, says 20 per cent of national energy could come from the sea,” The Economist said.

“Meanwhile, America’s first tidal project became operational last December, when two underwater turbines were installed in New York’s East River. It took Verdant Power, a Canadian-American company, five years to get the necessary permits-in part because this tiny project faces as big a regulatory burden from federal authorities as a giant conventional power station,” The Economist said.

“Tidal power projects have been in place for more than 40 years in China, Russia and also in France, where a tidal unit on the Rance river claims to produce energy more cheaply than nuclear power stations,” The Economist added.●