Citing examples from across Asia, including Bangladesh, the energy experts said that fossil fuels locked countries into long-term fossil fuel dependence, potentiality limiting their capacity to implement renewable energy projects, the cost of which kept steadily declining. They warned Asian countries, including Bangladesh, against increasing gas capacity as a transition fuel, saying that the countries were underestimating the consequences of methane emission and ignoring challenges posed by the price volatility of the fossil fuel. The energy transition in Asia is important as the region accounts for generating a third of the world’s GDP and also 70 per cent of emissions they said,.

‘We are still in the fossil fuel era as governments lack the political will and are unwilling to be innovative,’ said Grant Hauber, the institute’s strategic energy finance adviser for Asia, at a briefing. The government cannot just keep passing on the burden of the price volatility of fossil fuels such as liquefied natural gas and coal onto the people, he argued while commenting on frequent spikes in power tariffs.

Bangladesh’s installed power capacity increased by about 6 times over the past one decade and a half with about 300 per cent rise in the power tariff over the same period. The power capacity expansion was mostly based on fossil fuels. Energy experts cited Bangladesh frequently at the conference as an example of unreliability of liquefied natural gas as a source of energy because of its price fluctuations and supply chain uncertainty. A new report released meanwhile by the Seoul-based non-government organisation Solutions for Our Climate on Tuesday warned that rapid expansion of floating storage and regassification units in Asia and Europe undermined global climate goals.

The report titled Floating Doubts: The Risks of FSRUs in Expanding Methane Gas said that growing reliance on FSRUs as a solution to energy security challenges was locking countries into long-term fossil fuel dependence. Countries in Asia like Bangladesh with rising energy demand is turning to such units to diversify energy sources amidst depleting traditional piped gas supply only to discover they made a wrong choice, the report said. Bangladesh is at risk of developing surplus infrastructure with plans for four additional LNG terminal projects that would add an extra capacity of 21 million tonnes per annum by 2030 though it could not fully use its current capacity of 7.6 mtpa of two existing units.

Bangladesh’s LNG import peaked at 5.06mtpa in fiscal 2021-22 and dropped to 4.09mtpa the following year, the report noted. The report also highlighted that one of Bangladesh’s two FSRUs was out of operation since the end of May after being hit by the cyclonic storm Remal though the repair should have been completed in three weeks. The FSRUs are vulnerable to extreme weather events which is likely to increase as climate change intensifies, the report said, adding that there was no definite restart date announced by authorities in Bangladesh to bring back the FSRU into operation.

Energy experts at the conference forecast that the world was set to witness an oversupply problem in the LNG sector, potentially leading some investors building new FSRUs on speculative energy demand to bankruptcy. Asia generates 60 per cent of its power by burning coal and some of the countries in the region now plan to replace coal with liquefied natural gas, they said. Finding financiers for new coal projects became very difficult, they said, adding that the Asian countries should find ways to channel private funds into developing renewable energy capacity.

Phasing out coal is a challenge for many Asian countries for 30 per cent of revenue generated in the Indian state of Jharkhand is dependent on coal, energy experts from India said, adding that one billion people in the state indirectly depended on the coal industry. Energy experts also discussed new and developing technologies such as carbon capture and storage and hydrogen, casting doubt over their potentials to produce affordable and reliable power supply. ‘Green hydrogen is going to make a difference in the steel industry,’ said Simon Nicholas, the institute’s lead analyst.

A total of 80 speakers will discuss about a range of issues during the conference ending today. The first day concluded with a session that discussed how rooftop solar held promises for Bangladesh, India and Pakistan with regard to energy transition. Pakistan and India are making good progress on promoting solar home systems, an achievement Bangladesh achieved between late 1990s and early 2000s by setting up six million solar home systems, speakers said. But the number of solar home systems fell to just two million in Bangladesh because of aggressive expansion of fossil fuel capacity and a spike in the demand of electricity, said Khondaker Golam Moazzem, research director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue.

News Link: Asian govts urged to accelerate energy transition