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Pakistan gets ADB loan for LNG port facility

Sign up for our daily Energy Newsletter Asian Development Bank extends loan to Pakistan to help build LNG facility near Karachi. UPI/Stephen Shaver MANILA, Feb. 27 (UPI) — The Asian Development Bank said Friday it was supporting efforts to help Pakistan build its first liquefied natural gas terminal with a $30 million loan. Pakistani company Engro Corp. will get funding from the ADB to build the regasification terminal at a port near Karachi. The plant will be able to convert as much as 3 million tons of LNG per year to gas for use in state power plants. ADB investment specialist Mohammed Azim Hashimi said the loan would help Pakistan build a cleaner, more efficient and more diverse power sector . "Pakistan urgently needs to utilize its existing power generation capacity fully, while reducing its reliance on costly imported diesel fuel for electricity generation," he said in a statement. […]

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A Thirsty, Violent World

Credit Photograph by Mauricio Lima/The New York Times/Redux Angry protesters filled the streets of Karachi last week, clogging traffic lanes and public squares until police and paratroopers were forced to intervene. That’s not rare in Pakistan, which is often a site of political and religious violence. But last week’s protests had nothing to do with freedom of expression, drone wars, or Americans. They were about access to water. When Khawaja Muhammad Asif, the Minister of Defense, Power, and Water (yes, that is one ministry), warned that the country’s chronic water shortages could soon become uncontrollable, he was looking on the bright side. The meagre allotment of water available to each Pakistani is a third of what it was in 1950. As the country’s population rises, that amount is falling fast. Dozens of other countries face similar situations—not someday, or soon, but now. Rapid climate change, population growth, and a […]

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Filthy India air cutting 660 million lives short by 3 years

NEW DELHI (AP) — New research estimates India’s air pollution is cutting 660 million lives short by three years on average. The study published Saturday in the Economic & Political Weekly highlights the extensiveness of India’s air problems after years of pursuing an all-growth agenda with little regard for the environment. Thirteen Indian cities are now included on the World Health Organization’s list of the world’s 20 most polluted. That pollution burden nationwide is estimated to be costing more than half the population at least 3.2 years of their lives. The study’s authors acknowledge their estimations may be too conservative, as they are based in part on satellite data that tend to underestimate levels of fine particulate matter known as PM2.5. India has a sparse system for monitoring air quality.

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U.S. to Monitor Air Quality in India and Other Countries

HONG KONG — The United States says it will expand air-quality monitoring at some overseas diplomatic missions, following several years of reporting pollution data in China. The goal is to increase awareness of the health risks of outdoor air pollution, which easily spreads across borders, Secretary of State John Kerry said in announcing the program on Wednesday. The program is intended to help United States citizens abroad reduce their exposure to pollution and to help other countries develop their own air-quality monitoring through training and exchanges with American experts, he said. “We’re hoping that this tool can also expand international cooperation when it comes to curbing air pollution,” Mr. Kerry said . The program, run in conjunction with the Environmental Protection Agency , will begin to operate in India in a few months. New Delhi has some of the world’s worst air pollution, and residents there are becoming increasingly […]

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Pakistan Close to Agreement With Qatar Over LNG Supplies for Power Plants

ISLAMABAD—Pakistan is close to striking a long-term deal worth potentially $22.5 billion or more to import liquefied natural gas to help fuel the country’s power stations and ease its crippling electricity crisis, Pakistan’s top energy official said. “We are negotiating with Qatar and a few other sources,” said Pakistani Petroleum Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “The deal will be very competitive and very beneficial for Pakistan.” An agreement with Qatar is expected by early March, Pakistani officials say. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif came to office in May 2013 on a pledge to reduce the country’s electricity shortages, which see power regularly cut to homes and businesses for eight or more hours a day. Tackling the electricity deficit, however, has thus far largely eluded Mr. Sharif’s government. The government has promised to eradicate the electricity shutdowns, known as load shedding, by the […]

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Pakistan Braces for Major Water Shortages

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Energy-starved Pakistanis, their economy battered by chronic fuel and electricity shortages, may soon have to contend with a new resource crisis: major water shortages, the Pakistani government warned this week. A combination of global climate change and local waste and mismanagement have led to an alarmingly rapid depletion of Pakistan ’s water supply, said the minister for water and energy, Khawaja Muhammad Asif. “Under the present situation, in the next six to seven years, Pakistan can be a water-starved country,” Mr. Asif said in an interview, echoing a warning that he first issued at a news conference in Lahore this week. The prospect of a major water crisis in Pakistan, even if several years distant, offers a stark reminder of a growing challenge in other poor and densely populated countries that are vulnerable to global climate change. In Pakistan, it poses a further challenge to Prime […]

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What is driving Pakistan’s fuel crisis?

Pakistani motorists wait for their turn to fill their vehicles at a petrol station in Islamabad on January 22, 2015 (Photo: AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty Images) The shortage of imported oil began some two weeks ago, with affected areas almost grinding to a halt. Across the country, many buses have been taken off the streets, and scuffles have broken out at gas stations where people wait in long queues for fuel. Although the situation has eased slightly, the crisis prompted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to pull out of last week’s World Economic Forum meeting in Davos. Pakistan has to deal with chronic power cuts, and tackling the energy issue was one of Sharif’s main campaign pledges ahead of the 2013 general election. The situation was recently exacerbated by an apparent rebel attack on a key power line which plunged around 80 percent of the South Asian country into darkness over the […]

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U.S., India embrace over renewables

Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama face the media at Hyderbad House in New Delhi on January 25, 2015. President Obama is on a three day visit and will be the guest of honor at at India’s Republic Day celebrations. UPI NEW DELHI, Jan. 26 (UPI) — Advancing a renewable energy sector in India is a shared priority for the New Delhi and U.S. governments, the Indian prime minister said. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted President Barack Obama in New Delhi to discuss economic, energy and nuclear developments. Obama’s visit comes two weeks after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry welcomed the signing of billions of dollars worth of clean energy investments in the Indian economy at a New Deli investment conference. "For President Obama and me, clean and renewable energy is a personal and national priority," the prime minister said in a statement […]

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Obama Ends Visit With Challenge to India on Climate Change

NEW DELHI — President Obama pressed India on Tuesday to do more to curb the pollution that is choking its capital and contributing to global climate change , as he wrapped up a visit that yielded no meaningful breakthrough on the issue. While India and the United States agreed to cooperate in promoting cleaner energy, Mr. Obama left after three days without the sort of specific commitment to curbing greenhouse gases that he won in China last year . Instead, he used a farewell speech before his departure to argue that India had an obligation to step up, despite its economic challenges. “I know the argument made by some — that it’s unfair for countries like the United States to ask developing nations and emerging economies like India to reduce your dependence on the same fossil fuels that helped power our growth for more than a century,” Mr. Obama […]

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Rebels Tied to Blackout Across Most of Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Towns and cities across Pakistan plunged into darkness early Sunday when what officials said was an attack by militants on a transmission line short-circuited the national electricity grid, presenting a new indictment of the government’s faltering efforts to solve the country’s chronic power crisis. Emergency efforts to end the blackout, widely described as Pakistan ’s worst ever, resulted in a partial restoration of power in the capital, Islamabad, and the most populous city, Karachi, by Sunday evening. Even so, 80 percent of the country remained without power, including the provincial capitals of Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta, an official said. The minister for water and power, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, blamed separatist rebels in the western province of Baluchistan who, he said, had blown up a critical transmission line. But experts said the attack only highlighted the growing vulnerability of Pakistan’s power grid, which has come under severe […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple