Pakistan is producing enormous quantity of biomass through agricultural residues & different solid wastes and government should take measures to harness biomass potential for generating electricity which is now recognized as a clean and reliable renewable source of energy.

This was said by Zahid Maqbool, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry while chairing a meeting of businessmen at ICCI. He said Pakistan currently needs 11,500 MW power to meet its energy demand while it is producing just 8000 MW of electricity and one good option to cope with this shortfall is to exploit abundant biomass energy potential.

He said country’s energy demand is expected to increase three-fold by the year 2040. The currently used resources such as natural gas and oil will not be able to meet its future energy needs as the fossil fuel reserves are on the decline while the natural gas is likely to go to alarming low levels by 2020. In this scenario, biomass offers an attractive and cheap alternative source of energy, he said.

Zahid Maqbool said biomass like rice husk, cotton stalks, jute waste and other crop residues are produced in thousands of tons in Pakistan that should be used for power generation. Moreover, every city of Pakistan produces thousands of tons of solid municipal waste as well as millions of gallons of wastewater which can be converted into energy and organic fertilizer.

He said many waste-to-energy technologies have now emerged to produce clean energy through the combustion of biomass like agricultural residues and municipal solid waste in specially designed power plants equipped with the most modern pollution control equipment to clean emissions.

ICCI President said that the growing urbanization and changes in the pattern of life has given rise to generation of increasing quantities of wastes posing new threats to our environment while utilizing this waste for energy generation will easily mitigate this threat.

He was of the view that installation of biomass energy plants will also contribute positively to the country’s economy by providing jobs apart from generating electricity, conserving fossil fuels, preserving precious foreign exchange & saving the space required for land filling.