EXPLORING ALTERNATIVE ENERGY TO MEET ENERGY CRISIS OF BANGLADESH

Abstract

The explosive growth of worldwide energy demand has made it painfully clear that our traditional sources of electricity can no longer be expanded without creating a major environmental tragedy. Coal burning during the industrial revolution created localized disasters but the massive scale today is creating disaster on a global scale. Fuel costs are growing exponentially as the limits of our planet's resources is reached. Oil and natural gas supplies are running short but coal supplies were thought to be plentiful and cheap. The problem is that every ton of coal burned produces 3.7 tons of CO2! The idea of transporting and hiding forever that much CO2 was ludicrous from the start. To make matters worse, coal prices have quadrupled since 2003. Even if we ignore CO2, coal is an environmental nightmare. Mercury emissions make it dangerous to eat many fish today and may be responsible for our epidemic of autism. It will bring an end to the denial of coal's unsolvable problems. Already new laws are being considered to ban coal outright. But what is the alternative? Solar power works mainly during midday and wind power can stop almost completely from late night through morning. Weather conditions can completely disable both wind and solar. Geothermal power uses no fuel, produces no pollution and works reliably and steadily all day and every day. To choose the best alternatives for power solution, resource, capability, economic condition, geographic location, politics demand, growth rate, environmental factors etc are very vital. These factor are the prime consideration for power modeling. Keywords