News
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Zardari for concerted efforts to develop renewable energy
* President tells World Future Energy Summit corn as energy source led to hunger, instability in poorer countries
* Solar, wind power viable, efficient sources of energy
ABU DHABI: President Asif Ali Zardari on Monday called for a global partnership on renewable energy, particularly solar and wind resources involving both public and private sector, to ensure availability of affordable energy to the common man.
In a key-note address at the opening session of the four-day World Future Energy Summit, the president said that production of energy and its availability had become the driving force of economics and its ever increasing demand was sustained by greater use of the elements.
He said high-level participation of world leaders, policy makers, entrepreneurs, scientists and researchers in the summit was indeed a tribute to the vision for environmental conservation pioneered by late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, a great friend of Pakistan and a widely revered statesman.
On his arrival at the venue of the summit, the president was warmly received by Crown Prince Shaikh Muhammad Bin Zayed. The president noted that the UAE had demonstrated to the world and to the Muslim Ummah in particular, that trade and commerce, innovation and invention, and ideas and enterprise could make a desert bloom. “The UAE is the model for the future, and the city of Masdar is its crowning jewel. This is the moment of the beginning of a new era. The future is in our hands,” he added. About the development of renewable energy, Zardari said attempts had been made in the past to produce cleaner fuels, bio-fuels, but the cost to produce that energy was sometimes more than the energy it would in turn produce. “The intent was positive, even if the direction turned out to be wrong. It now seems that the choice of corn as the source material was not the wisest since the land and water taken away from food security has led to hunger and instability in the poorer countries,” he said, adding that the failure of corn was not necessarily the failure of ethanol. “There are other seeds that can be used for clean bio-fuels that need no fresh water. There are other non-food crops that grow in abundance in poor soil without fertilisation that are excellent sources of potential fuels,” he said, adding that our job was not to dwell about things that did not work in the past, but rather to find things that do work for the future. “We do not have the time to mourn. It is time to innovate.”
“In workshops, laboratories and research stations all over the world, the human mind is reaching a stage of development where solutions to the prohibitive costs of renewable energy are being found every day.” He said that solar and wind power were viable and efficient sources of energy. “If sunbeams were weapons of war, we would have had solar energy centuries ago,” he said, adding that with higher prices and growing scarcity of fossil fuel, solar power was finally emerging as a viable and efficient source of energy. Innovations and improvements in the panels could well make solar energy a major contributor to local transmission systems and the main driver of hybrid cars, small machines and instruments in the very near future, he said, adding that innovation was also making wind power more efficient and effective. app
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk