Techno-Spatial Assessment of Waste to Bioenergy Potential in Pakistan /

Abstract

Pakistan is undergoing a multi-pronged energy crisis that is spread across the shortfall in the electrical energy supply, natural gas supply and greater than ever greenhouse gas emissions. The fix to this crisis in the form of large investments in the fossil fuel energy sector is underway but the sustainability of this fix is questionable at best. Another major issue with this approach is the non-indigenous nature of the resources powering the recently installed plants, which is not suitable to the already dwindling economy of the country. One of the major contenders when it comes to indigenous resources to curb this crisis is the mostly overlooked bioenergy. Being an agricultural based economy, the country has a lot of bioenergy potential but the efforts made in order to bring the bioenergy to the mainstream have been rather muted in terms of country’s energy policy as well as the private sector investments. One of the major reasons why it hasn’t been taken up by the investors and policy makers is the lack of a true to potential estimation of the bioenergy potential in the country even after the biomass atlas of Pakistan has been put forth. The biomass atlas, despite being a one of its kind comprehensive study, left a lot of gaps in the form of its overlook of the forestry residues to bioenergy, livestock animal waste to bioenergy outside of dairy farms and waste cooking oil to bioenergy. Another gap that was left unfilled by the biomass atlas was the comparison of the remote sensing based bioenergy potential estimation for crop biomass with the on ground potential calculated from the reported crop production in the country. This study projects a detailed analysis on the bioenergy potential on the gaps left uncovered by the biomass atlas of Pakistan and further projects the spatial potential variation in the form of potential of bioenergy in electrical energy terms, biogas supply to households, waste cooking oil to biodiesel and forestry residues availability across the study areas considered for each of the resource in graphic and intuitive GIS based maps. The study is very thorough and graphically detailed in terms of each of the resources and is a serious bid in favor of the bioenergy technology. The study also discusses, in detail, the approaches and suggestions to bring the technology to the mainstream in the country.