P.OchirbatThis month I wish to discuss a new strategic perspective on sustainable development of fuel and energy.
We Mongolians do not take kindly to any change in the terms that we are accustomed to. For example, there was a furore in 1992 when the word “fuel” was dropped from the name of the“Ministry of Fuel and Energy” to make it simply a “Ministry of Energy”. Miners threatened to go on strike and protested before Government House, holding up banners that said, “Let us see how you produce energy without coal”. The law was hurriedly amended to allow the Ministry to revert to being that of Fuel and Energy.
Scientific discussions on fuel or energy focus on ways of using natural resources to generate electricity and distributing it to consumers after a process of technical transformation. They may cover resources such as coal, oil, gas, uranium, solar power, wind power, water power, as also various methods of using them to produce power and heat, and transmitting, distributing, selling and consuming these.
However, the new perspective on sustainable development strategy that I plan to talk about calls for separating the concept of energy from that of fuel-and-energy as an inevitable combination. The matter gains urgency as it concerns not just any one country but the whole world.
It is no longer enough to restrict ourselves to traditional energy sources like coal, oil and natural gas, or to find use for them solely to produce power and heat. Similarly, the end of the Cold War has also meant that uranium will be used not only for military purpose.Questions on “Limits to Growth” began to be asked in the second half of the 20th century, and answers are still being sought on how finite natural resources can meet the needs of a rapidly growing world population.
It is clear that development has to be sustainable. But what precisely does this mean? The basic feature of sustainable development is that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the capacity of future generations to meet their needs. How, then, do we meet the ever growing needs of human beings with natural capital that may not be renewable or takes much time to replenish?
There are two basic ways of doing this. One is to bring down the product ingredient down to a nanotechnology level, and the other is to use not only fossil fuels as energy source, but also the limitless energy flow from the sun and the wind. This is the essence of the new perspective on sustainable development strategy of fuel and energy.
I list blow some salient features of the new strategy.
1. We shall use coal not just for producing power and heat but also to get, with help from new technology, compounds such as coking coal, syn-oil, liquid gas and other raw material.
2. Coke-metallurgy combination will help make steel as the final product. Steel plants abroad will be allowed to use a Mongolian coking coal unit to produce the coke suitable to their technology.
3. Exporting Mongolian coalbefore adding value to it will be discouraged as being unprofitable. Any trade in an energy source must be on the basis of mutual benefit.
4. Producing energy coal for export and using coal as power source.
5. Developing technology to utilise oil shale, and use its special chemical characteristics to make oil shale the main material for syn-oil.
6. Foreign investment will be allowed only if it adds value to our raw resources. Exploration and extraction of the raw stuff can be left to Mongolians without foreign involvement.
7. Oil exploration requires much more finance and is more uncertain, so we shall have to continue with the present policy of encouraging foreign investment in this field. We should build a refinery with capacity to meet the entire domestic demand. The policy on natural gasshould be similar.
8. Countries such as Russia, the USA, France, Japan, India, China and South Korea have agreed to collaborate with us on uranium research and a research centre should be set up in Mongolia to work on facets of uranium exploration and processing. However, cooperation with the IAEA will be more fruitful, while not closing the doors on bilateral or multilateral cooperation.
9. As for energy production for sustainable development, our aim should be to turn Mongolia from an importer of power to an exporter. For this, it is important to modify both the structure and capacity of power production.
The likely sources of power are:
Nuclear power plant
Condensing power plant
Water power plant
Wind power plant
Solar power plant
Plants that use different other types of renewable energy sources.
The first 50 years of the 21st century will be dominated by energy from renewable sources (solar, wind and water power), followed by coal-based power and then nuclear power. Generating power from renewable sources is of utmost importance for Mongolia, where the demand for power from a central grid is low, and so is the density of population.Parliament has adopted a national energy programme and there is also a law on renewable energy. These have to be implemented on a priority basis. When we reach a certain level of success, we can think of further action. This should be our main strategy to achieve sustainable development. In Mongolia, 13 aimags have more than 20,000 MW wind power reserves and 9 aimags have more than 50,000 MW.
It will take time for renewable sources to produce enough power to meet domestic demand and also to become an exporter. Simultaneously with developing these, we must work on nuclear and condensing power plants.
In 2009 Parliament approved the national policy on radioactive mineral resources and nuclear energy and the law on nuclear power.The policy sets production of nuclear energy as a national goal. The estimated need for power in Mongolia in 2025 is 2500MW but our generation capacity this year is 993MW, of which 814MW is for the central power line. To meet our own demands and then to export, we need generation capacity of at least 4000MW. We should start sharing the experience and evaluating the experience of other countries to decide what percentage of this can come from nuclear power plants.
As far as using radioactive mineral resources in Mongolia is concerned, our initialsteps should be:
Exploration of uranium deposits
Exploring uranium ore
Processing uranium ore until it
reaches U3O8 level for exporting.
Considering the importance of the safety aspects of nuclear reactors, we should concentrate on building only small and medium ones, with capacity between 100MW and 400MW.
Mongolia undoubtedly has the capacity to take all these steps that I mention. There are deposits such as in Khaikhan, Kharaat, Gurvabulag, Mardai and Dornod Gurvansaikhanwhere the reserves have already been estimated, and we can start operating them one by one and produce U3O8.
Some experts believe Mongolia has 10 uranium deposits, nearly 100 uranium ore deposits and 1000 mineralized sites. We should select from among them the ones most appropriate for exploration, taking care not to use up everything that we explore. That is the principle of sustainable development.
I very much hope there will be a debate on the suggestions I make on the new perspective of sustainable development of fuel and energy in Mongolia.
P.Ochirbat