Govt eyes open-pit coal mining

Despite opposition from some quarters, the government plans to go ahead with open-pit coal mining aimed at enhancing power generation in Bangladesh.

Staff Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 3 Feb 2014, 08:29 AM
Updated : 3 Feb 2014, 11:19 AM

Petrobangla Director (Operation and Mines) Md Quamruzzaman hinted at the open-pit option to meet the future power generation needs at a meeting on Sunday.

He said 53 percent of power, out of the targeted production of 20,000MW planned in the Vision 2021, will be coal-based thermal power.

To meet the demand, the country will have to produce 10 million tonnes of coal per year. Currently, an estimated 1.65 million tonnes of coal are being produced annually from one mine through underground mining.

It was not immediately clear how the shortfall will be met, although Petrobangla claims the country has five large coal mines with a combined reserve of 3.1 billion tonnes.

But extraction of coal from those reserves remains uncertain as the government has failed to formulate a coal policy in the last one and a half decades.

According to Petrobangla, less than 3 percent of power is being produced from coal in Bangladesh; whereas China produces 81 percent from coal, Australia 69 percent, India 68 percent, US 43 percent and Germany 29 percent.

In contrast, about 75 percent of Bangladesh’s power is being generated from gas.

Elaborating on the progress of open-pit mining, Quamruzzaman said work on hydro geological survey and water modelling is underway in the northern part of Barapukuria in Dinajpur for extracting coal.

Future plan

The present government during its previous term laid the foundations of several big base-load coal power plants, including the controversial 1,320MW coal power plant in Bagerhat’s Rampal under the joint venture of Bangladesh and India.

In addition, two private groups --Orion and S Alam -- have been permitted to set up coal power plants in Dhaka, Khulna and Chittagong.

M Tamim, special assistant to former caretaker government’s chief adviser told bdnews24.com, it would be possible to generate 15,000MW electricity from coal by 2030.

To achieve the target, local coal will have to be extracted in a planned manner, he said.

State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid, who was present at the meeting, did not specify which mining process would be followed to extract coal for the power generation.

“We are going for multifaceted energy system to generate power. We will use local coal as well as imported coal.”

He said national energy and coal policies will also be finalised soon.

Super critical technology

At present, electricity is being generated from coal around the world by using super critical technology, which causes minimum pollution.

BUET professor Dil Afroz said there is no alternative to high technology coal power plant in Bangladesh.

Prime Minister’s Energy Adviser Tawfiq-E-Elahi Chowdhury earlier referred to the Rampal plant, which he said, would be implemented soon since it was one of the six priority projects of the prime minister.

"Latest technology will be used in the Rampal plant in order to address the environmental concern", Chowdhury said.