— Pabitra Chaudhuri
With the surging demand of energy and burgeoning rise of crude oil price, the crying call today is energy security particularly with the voracious demand of energy by the emerging economic powerhouses like China and India. There is a concentrated effort by the government and the premier oil companies to attain energy security. With that end in view, companies like ONGC and Oil India, have been scouting all over the world to enter into consortiums to explore and produce oil and in fact ONGC has been successful in producing oil from their Russian field Shakaline and has recently bought a Company named Imperial oil Company. Apart from ONGC and OIL, down-stream companies like IOC, BPCL, GAIL have entered into various consortiums to find oil and natural gas. OIL has started their operation of exploration along with another global company in Libya and is working out various plans to obtain oil exploration rights in Gabbon, Nigeria and Sudan. In the immediate context, such an endeavour’s gestation period is long and securing oil from such blocs abroad will take quite some time. Within the country, both on-shore and off-shore, there are many blocs, which have been awarded to the oil companies to explore oil and gas. Krishna-Godavari find has been a good boost, particularly in the gas sector and oil find in Rajasthan by Cain Energy Ltd has opened a new vista of hope and has put Rajasthan in a big way in the oil map of India joining the pantheon of Assam, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. OIL has introduced various modem methods like Horizontal and J Bend drilling to boost up their production in Assam fields and endeavouring to make their heavy oil found in their Rajasthan field pumpable. Yet there is a yawning gap between the indigenous supply and demand in the country.With the above scenario, it is necessary to look for alternative sources. Biofuel has already become a buzz-word translated into reality in Brazil, Sweden, Germany and the USA - we in India can also play our role in our quest for energy security. Securing oil in foreign lands with various consortiums is a long and arduous task and certainly cannot match the burgeoning requirement of oil in the country. To fill this gap, some indigenceous efforts can be made in acquiring bio-diesel from Jathropa plantation by using the fallow lands lying in Assam and other states. The North-East has good climatic condition with adequate rainfall to grow bio-diesel trees. The State Government in Assam has a Jathropa Mission, which by now should be in place to plant and grow bio-diesel trees- it is necessary to put it on a fast track.It may be noted that in 1900 when Rudolf Diesel introduced the diesel engine for the first time in the world, the first engine ran on peanut oil. The world has again come full circle using bio-diesel in the backdrop of the high cost of crude oil. The western countries barring USA have signed the Kyoto Protocol, which enjoins them to use bio-diesel in the immediate future. Since then the USA has also become conscious of global warming and worldwide pollution and has been making determined strides in introducing alternative sources of energy like bio-diesel, even making a dent in their food production.India is poised at the threshold of reaching higher and sustainable growth path and has become a substantial economic power-house. To maintain this growth, energy security is a crying need. Assam, being the home land of petroleum industry (first oil well was drilled in 1889, ten years after the first world’s oil well (popularly known as Drake’s well) was drilled, has to play an important role and ONGC and OIL will have to achieve better results. Fortunately OIL has found its place as a good E and P Company and according to their own announcement is focused to double their crude oil/gas production in the next 5 years.Changes are taking place rapidly in the hydro-carbon industry with competition becoming intense. Boundaries are quickly vanishing with globalisation of economy. Within the country there is a large potential for growth, the key engine for attainment of success is the use of better technology for seismic, drilling, well services, emission reduction and knowledge management tools.By all accounts sedimentary rock formation in Assam-Arakan basin has natural gas potential for e.g. proved production in upper Assam, Cachar, Tripura and likely deposits in Mizorum, Manipur and Nagaland, the enormous natural gas find in Rakhine (Arakan Basin) in Mynmar has opened up a new vista where it is estimated 20 mscmb can be supplied for 20 years. If ever a pipeline materialises carrying gas from Rakhine to India through Assam with the addition of gas from North East, the region will grow and develop. Today the resource that has surfaced to the top of the energy pile is natural gas now regarded as cheaper, more efficient and more plentiful than the fast depleting oil and also more cost effective.Another project, which can be seriously thought of, is the conversion of sugar cane into ethanol (already a certain percentage of power-alcholol is being used in petrol). Brazil and USA have been using over 14 billion litres of ethanol as automobile fuel more than our present annual petrol consumption of about 12 billion litres. India’s peak production so far of 350 million tonnes of cane can be processed entirely into 26 bi1lion litres of ethanol or conversely the same quantity of sugar cane can be processed into 18 million tonnes of sugar and 15 billion litres of ethanol. However an area of concern is if somehow indigenous production of ethanol gets affected by vagaries of climate etc and in such an eventuality it will be necessary to firm up supplies from abroad. Naturally a question may be asked whether normal petrol engine can take a total ethanol fuel. Flexible fuel engine will need to be introduced which can burn petrol or ethanol or combinations of both. This technology once used will cost about 100 dollars, per vehicle, which is nothing much, which can be further reduced with the increasingly big volume of vehicles in India.Coal liquefaction is another route for energy security. Although it is a costly project yet it could be cost-effective in the background of burgeoning price of crude oil. Production of synthetic fuel from coal is a strategic option to be properly studied. Oil India has carried out various experiments — mainly CTSL coal only catalytic two-stage liquefaction and Direct Coal liquefaction. It is understood that the DCL route is a good economic return in the backdrop of high cost of crude oil. It is further understood that OIL in partnership with Engineers India Ltd has decided to set up a small commercial plant before going an a full scale commercial plant. Another route for alternative source could be coal-bed methane (CBM), which now is well up in the cards in USA. Methane is associated with coal as a by-product of the coal formation process-it is trapped in coal beds. If effectively recovered coal bed methane could be a significant potential source of energy. Although the process is in the infancy in India, there is some work going on in Jharia coalfield, Jharkhand and the project cost of Rs.77 crore is sanctioned by the Government of India. The prognosticated CBM resource in India as per Directorate General of Hydro-carbon is pretty high. CBM could be used in power generation, auto-fuel in form of compressed Natural gas (CNG), feed-stock for fertilizer, fuel for industrial use and host of other uses.Another process is under-ground coal gasification – this is primarily to exploit coal resources which are either uneconomic to work by conventional under-ground coal extraction or inaccessible due to depth or other geological considerations. UCG is a method of converting unworked coal, deep underground, into combustible gas which can be used for industrial heating, power generation or the manufacture of hydrogen synthetic natural gas other chemicals.Solar energy is taking a front seat in all the developed countries and India also is very much in the government scanner. The Prime Minister is well-seized with its importance and while releasing the National Action Plan on Energy stated that solar power has the potential of changing the face of India. The objective is to generate atleast 1000 MW of solar thermal power. To change the face of the nation it is a very modest plan in a country, which is bestowed with abundance of sunlight in most of the areas including the deserts. We need to go in a big way as the other developed countries are doing and with our technical ingenuity and knowledge, with private-public partnership we could become Solar Thermal Electricity Generation (STEG) technology leader and suppliers to the world along with it get plenty of clean energy in the country. Wind energy is another source of clean energy and is already installed in coastal areas of Tamil Nadu. This needs to be further spread out particularly in the long coastal areas of the country. Anothersource of energy which does not cost much should be introduced is the conversion of municipal garbage into energy — along with using animal waste to produce energy; multiplied into millions of houses, the energy production will be mind-blowing. Nuke deal has formed the main headlines in the media and the Lok Sabha passed it. Nuclear energy is a must for the country; not only it would produce energy but also can turn into world’s workshop for building nuclear power-houses — the engineering and technological knowledge of India could certainly make a success of this endeavour in the next few years.Political and administrative will is necessary to have a blue-print and implement it to obtain energy security in the country. We need to put in place in a solid manner public-private partnerships in this endeavour and it has to be put on a fast track. source: assam tribune editorial 03.09.08
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