Archive for January, 2009

I found this amazing article, written sometime back in 2006, at the CSSForum and thought of sharing it here. It discusses Pakistan’s energy problems in detail. The article did not mention a specific author, however, it was posted by ‘humayun – the king’. So here it is:

Energy Crisis and Pakistan

An energy crisis is any great shortfall (or price rise) in the supply of energy resources to an economy. It usually refers to the shortage of oil and additionally to electricity or other natural resources.

The crisis often has effects on the rest of the economy, with many recessions being caused by an energy crisis in some form. In particular, the production costs of electricity rise, which raises manufacturing costs.

For the consumer, the price of gasoline (petrol) and diesel for cars and other vehicles rises, leading to reduced consumer confidence and spending, higher transportation costs and general price rising.

Future and alternative sources of energy

Some experts argue that the world is heading towards a global energy crisis due to a decline in the availability of cheap oil and recommend a decreasing dependency on fossil fuel. This has led to increasing interest in alternate power/fuel research such as fuel cell technology, hydrogen fuel, biomethanol, biodiesel, Karrick process, solar energy, tidal energy and wind energy. To date, only hydroelectricity and nuclear power have been significant alternatives to fossil fuel (see Future energy development), with big ecological problems (residues and water spending). Hydrogen gas is currently produced at a net energy loss from natural gas, which is also experiencing declining production in North America and elsewhere. When not produced from natural gas, hydrogen still needs another source of energy to create it, also at a loss during the process. This has led to hydrogen being regarded as a ‘carrier’ of energy rather than a ‘source’.

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