Alternative / Renewable Energy

Coal-fired power generation is being promoted by approving several coal-power plants in Pakistan ignoring the environmental and climate change costs associated with this type of energy alternative.

The PFF through its campaign for the promotion of renewable energy advocates that the government must not approve of heavy ecological costs including deforestation, dismantling of irrigation channels and loss of birds’ habitat for building coal-fired power plants. Moreover, increased transpiration due to imported coal contributes to increased GHS emissions. A typical coal plant withdraws between 70 and 180 billion gallons of water per year and consumes 0.36 to 1.1 billion gallons of that water. Millions of fish eggs, fish larvae, and juvenile fish may also come along with it when water is drawn into a coal power plant. This also poses a threat to marine life. The poor communities living nearby the proposed plants face a number of issues since a long time including more than 12-hour load-shedding in 24 hours. The poor households do not benefit from the electricity produced from the coal-fired plants.

The world is shifting to renewable solutions to cope up with energy crisis but our inclination is more on environmentally hazardous energy sources rather than energy efficient sources. Therefore the PFF also advocates that Pakistan should consider the environmental, social and economic side-effects of fossil fuels and lay stress on renewable sources of energy.