Peak Oil is You
Donate Bitcoins ;-) or Paypal :-)
Page added on March 17, 2012
Pakistan: Gas, fuel shortage creates mass outages
Electricity shortfall rose on Thursday beyond 6,000 megawatt (MW) that is almost 50 per cent of total 13,000MW demand in the country, thus necessitating a 10 to 14 hours loadshedding throughout the country.
According to the Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO), urban feeders suffered more than 10 hours of loadshedding while in rural feeders, there is virtually no electricity.
An official said the company feared that the situation could be chaotic if there was no improvement in the next 24 hours, and, to make the matter worse, there were no signs for improvement.
The generation is suffering on three accounts – fuel, gas and water.
The official said fuel supplies were eaten up by ever-increasing circular debt while two major dams were empty and river flows were down to 10-year low. There was no gas supply to power houses and no money for alternate fuel, said the official, adding that the three factors had resulted into exceptionally low generation, which even during the peak hours – from 6pm to 11pm – came down to a paltry 8,600MW.
“The decisive drop has come from hydel generation, which has dropped from 5,000MW last week to a paltry 1,000MW on Thursday,” says another official of the company.
The Tarbella Dam received only 17,000 cusecs of water and the Mangla lake 14,000 cusecs on Thursday. Outflows of the dams were barely enough to generate around 1,000MW, said the official.
More than half of the country was without power at any given point of time on Thursday, said the official, adding that one should not forget that it is still winter. Once the mercury starts rising, the loadshedding would go up correspondingly.
The company had to shut down some of its inefficient plants because of their Rs25 per unit price. It brought down thermal generation from over 2,500MW to around 1,200MW, creating a shortfall of 1,300MW on this head alone.
To massive add to the company woes is the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) which was supplied over 700MW by PEPCO, despite the fact that it is a private company that is supposed to generate its own power. The PEPCO official says the KESC does not pay its bills, and adds to circular debt, squeezes fuel supplies.
But the company is helpless as the government does not want to snap KESC supplies, laments the company official.
11 Comments on "Pakistan: Gas, fuel shortage creates mass outages"
Kenz300 on Sat, 17th Mar 2012 8:51 pm
Every country needs to develop a plan to balance population, water, food, oil, energy, resources and jobs. The massive population growth of the middle east countries does none of the above.
Newfie on Sat, 17th Mar 2012 10:03 pm
Pakistan will be one of the first failed states in the Peak Oil era.
BillT on Sun, 18th Mar 2012 2:17 am
This is coming to the Us eventually. Think about the hydroelectric power plants that rely on regular rain to keep them operational, or other plants that rely on water for cooling (nuclear) or even an even supply of fuel. ALL energy costs are going up and they will climb exponentially eventually. Pakistan is only one of several in trouble today. Japan is in trouble and Europe is dependent on Russia for energy. The US may think it is safe, but is only a closing of the Straights from the same problem.
MrEnergyCzar on Sun, 18th Mar 2012 4:26 am
Sounds like Peak Oil symptoms…..they can be pretty ugly..
MrEnergyCzar
Arthur on Sun, 18th Mar 2012 10:41 am
I am not entirely convinced that in an aera of resource depletion failed states are inevitable. Europe had strong states able to raise taxes and armies before the fossil fuel aera.
Ken Nohe on Sun, 18th Mar 2012 12:11 pm
This is in fact quite frightening since Pakistan is one of the most populous nation on earth as well well as a nuclear power.
On the other hand, the human population explosion must stop and it will have to start somewhere. We may already be one major volcanic eruption or large El Nino away from a not so pleasant reckoning.
BillT on Sun, 18th Mar 2012 12:43 pm
Arthur, Europe’s armies before fossil fuels were horseback and swords. Europe is dead and just hasn’t fallen over yet. The Us is a failed state and is also just propped up by a printing press and lies. Our economy is contracting along with our oil imports. They are tied together. When cheap plentiful oil ended, so did the economy built on it. Now we are on our way to living the way the rest of the world lives…with much less.
Arthur on Sun, 18th Mar 2012 3:17 pm
I do not believe Europa or America are ‘dead’. Industrial society to a large extent is dead. So what? Industrial society is a scheme where you are forced to buy a car to drive to the car factory to earn money to pay off the car. 😉
Richard Heinberg claims that new hapiness is just over the horizon if we stop brainwashing ourselves in thinking that hapiness is equal to the maximum number of ‘products’ we own. Sitting in the coffee house, playing a game of chess with a friend (like in the Dutch 17th century), costs nothing and is more fun than sitting in an office staring at a screen, making money to pay of the Beamer parked in the lot downstairs (20th century). Russia outright collapsed after 1991, surviving was admittedly difficult, but the vast majority did survive, even in that harsh climate. I am a Dutch with protestant heritage. The modern world started more or less here: Holland was the first state with some political clout with consolidated Protestant state religion, the first central bank, the first corporation (VOC), protestant work ethic replacing medieval catholic contemplative life. The calvinist revolution was exported to Britain in 1688 (‘Glorious Revolution’) and America (Pilgrim fathers; hotel Mayflower is just around the corner from where I live), The American Declaration of Independence is an almost literally translation of the two centuries older Dutch document ‘Acte van Verlaetinghe’. Many British will likely protest but I see Holland rather than Britain as the true spiritual blue print of America. But in the light of the coming crash it is time to bury the materialistic expansionist Protestant heritage and come up with something more fitting for the coming age and it’s new conditions. A new religion for the end of the oil age.
visitor in Europe on Sun, 18th Mar 2012 8:51 pm
Europe is definitely not dead. I arrived here 4 weeks ago from Australia, the land of plenty.
To me there is really not much difference between Germany and Australia. People are wealthy and positive and expecting things to stay as they are.
Not even the more than 8 dollars per gallon for petrol keeps people from driving like crazy with high speed on the Autobahn. I speak the language and haven’t heard anything about worries.
Europe is not dead.
Ken Nohe on Mon, 19th Mar 2012 1:23 am
I agree with the comments: Europe is not dead, it is just bankrupt. 20 years ago, Russia did overcome its somewhat similar if broader systemic crisis but with plenty of oil…
The risk for the system is not in Europe despite what people may say, this is just a trigger. Countries like Pakistan, Egypt or Bangladesh will be the early victims. Their economic weight is not much but the domino effect on neighboring countries could be high.
Arthur on Mon, 19th Mar 2012 4:00 pm
Ken is right, for me Egypt is particular vulnerable. From an Eric Margolis column: “For the past forty years, US foreign aid programs have provided at least half or more of Egypt’s grain imports. Egypt’s limited fertile land cannot feed its growing population of 84 million.”
If the US for some reason cannot/does not want to deliver this grain, Egypt is toast.
BTW, Europe is not bankrupt. 80% GDP debt on average is not bankrupt. Imports and exports are in balance. Austerity measures are in place everywhere in Europe. The awareness of the energy and resource problems is among the highest on the planet, first of all in northern Europe. Massive investment in wind and solar-energy are uncontroversial. Sure, we are going to fall flat on our industrial faces, but we will survive.