Workshop C: Energy
By Richard Freeman, Schiller Institute, USA
Electricity is not, as is taught, a commodity with an associated market price. That is wrong: Rather electricity is the spearhead of industry, agriculture, and infrastructure, and of accelerated human development. In 2021, however, the electricity consumption in Afghanistan was a mere 145 kWh (kilowatt hours) per person, per year, which ranks Afghanistan below 180 other countries. My report will focus on how Afghanistan may become a producer of vast amounts of inexpensive electricity, with geometrically increased electricity generating capacity across the land. This would be realized within a generation of 25 to 30 years, by approximately the year 2050.
To build an electricity system up to a targeted goal, we need to know what that targeted goal is. This report assumes that, over thirty years, Afghanistan will achieve the electricity consumption level of China, where each Chinese citizen consumes 6,032 kilowatt hours of electricity per person, per year. This level is not a goal set in stone; we can raise or lower it through rational discussion. We use it as a guidepost or a horizon to determine the level of electricity consumption, which Afghanistan may seek to achieve to become a modern nation. Working backward from the projected electricity consumption levels, we determine the installed electricity generation capacity that Afghanistan would need to fulfil the electricity consumption levels.
Increase Electricity Generation
Based on the technological capability of the selected electricity-generating power source, and as well, its suitability to Afghanistan, the Operation Ibn-E-Sina program projects the power sources Afghanistan would use to produce its electricity: 27% will be produced by nuclear power plants; 25% by coal-fired plants; 25% by natural gas-fired plants; and 23% by hydro-electric.
The Afghanistan’s installed electrical generation capacity would rise from 600 Megawatts in 2021, to 45,587 Megawatts by the year 2050, a stunning increase of 76 times. This is ambitious and very exciting, but it is realizable.
In the first phase, Afghanistan will import the nuclear power plants. Under the new credit system we propose, and which will been spoken of during this conference, Afghanistan will pay a low interest rate of about 1 to 3%, with an initial grace period of 15 years, on which principal and interest payments are deferred. Eventually, Afghanistan will develop the companies and skilled labour force, to build its own power plants.
Gas-Fired Power Plants
The advantage of gas-fired power plants is that of the four modes of electricity generation—nuclear, gas, coal, hydro—they can be built the most quickly. Dave Flickinger, the president of the American-based Kiewit Power Group told Power magazine that, “The majority of [gas-fired] power plant projects are… often being engineered, procured, constructed and commissioned in as little as 28 to 30 months.” This presumes well-prepared and well-chosen sites. It may take a few months longer in Afghanistan; nevertheless, the plants could possibly be built within 3 years.
It would be gas-fired power plants that should be built first, for example, in order to supply electricity to newly built hospitals in Afghanistan.
According to a September 7, 2012 Reuters article, “Afghanistan has an estimated 59 million cubic feet (TCF) or 1.67 million cubic meters of natural gas, about half the proven reserves of Iraq,” which are quite large. This is a tremendous resource which could usefully be exploited to build gas-fired electricity plants in Afghanistan.
Coal-Fired Power Plants: Clean and Increasingly Efficient
Under the Operation Ibn-E-Sina plan, coal-fired plants can contribute 11,677 Megawatts of installed electricity generating capacity. It is noteworthy, that new super-critical coal plants are being built in major countries around the world, like China, India and Russia. They operate at a thermal efficiency of 44 to 47%, and are “clean coal;” their process of production eliminates the vast majority of emission of greenhouse gases, such as nitrous oxide (N2O) and sulphur dioxide (SO2) below international standards, and pollutants, such as ash, and lead.
Afghanistan has coal reserves estimated in 2017 at a low of 75 million tons, but an upper limit, reported in a 2018 research paper of 440 million tons of coal deposits, and they could be substantially larger. These reserves can be drawn upon for coal-fired electricity generation.
As with natural gas, Afghanistan has the coal reserves to produce abundant electricity. Get Afghanistan the coal mining equipment, and the coal-fired electricity plants, and it can become abundantly self-sufficient in electricity.
Hydro-Electric Power
Under Operation Ibn-E-Sina, hydro-electric power will contribute 12,892 megawatts of installed electricity generating power.
It is an excellent source of electricity, because Afghanistan has a large volume of water-flow. In northern Afghanistan, high in the Hindu Kush Mountains, snowpack accumulated during the winter months, melts and pours down into the major river systems: the Amu Darya, Helmand, Hari, Panj, Murghab, and Kabul river systems, and other shorter rivers and tributaries. Dams can be built along rivers at relatively higher elevations creating a man-made lake, or reservoir, behind the dam, where the water is stored. When the dam releases the stored water toward a lower elevation, the falling water, after travelling through a penstock, spins a turbine connected to a generator that produces electricity. The dams can also be used for flood control, and the stored water can also be released to irrigate agriculture and be used in industry.
According to the Quebec Association for the Production of Renewable Energy (AQPER), which is involved in hydro-electric power, it takes 4 to 7 years to build a hydroelectric power station, from the time of filing of the initial papers until the facility is up and running.
However, the level of hydro-electric power could be reduced by drought, which, in Afghanistan, over the past 2.5 years, caused by low levels of snow-pack in the Hindu Kush mountains, is reducing river flows and reservoir levels.
Nuclear Power Production
At the outset, Operation Ibn-E-Sina affirms that Afghanistan’s nuclear power plants would be civilian, only used for peaceful domestic purposes. For the first decade and one-half, the nuclear plant and fuel would be produced abroad and imported into Afghanistan. However, just as with 32 countries globally that operate civilian nuclear plants to produce substantial electricity, Afghanistan has the right, as a sovereign nation, to operate peaceful nuclear power plants to produce electricity for bountiful economic growth.
The Vast Benefits of Nuclear Power
Afghanistan will require an installed nuclear electricity generating capacity of some 8,163 megawatts, which we round to 8,000 megawatts. This could be produced by a range of nuclear reactors with capacities ranging between 250 MW (which are called Small Nuclear Reactors) adapted to kick-start rural electrification in smaller cities, and 1,000 MW for large urban areas such as Kabul where the water of the river can be used as a coolant.
Taking the required 8,000 MW of installed nuclear capacity, it would seem, based on meeting Afghanistan’s present and future economic configuration, the growth of the Afghan economy would be optimized, if four 1,000 MW nuclear plants; four mid-sized 500 MW nuclear plants; and eight 250 MW small modular reactor nuclear plants were to be built.
That’s a total of 16 nuclear plants, with an installed capacity to produce electricity of 8,000 MW. The urban and industrial centers would be anchored by the 1,000 MW nuclear plants, the rural and remote portions of Afghanistan would be anchored by the 250 MW plants. The number of plants recommended is not fixed, it could be more or fewer, and there can be a different distribution of wattage among them.
In consultation with nuclear and civil engineers, all the basic considerations must be worked out. They include: determining what are the locations for siting the first group of nuclear plants; what ground preparation must be done—leveling, grading, and earth quake-proofing; what will be the transmission line routes, etc. It may be asked why should 27% of the power plants to be constructed in Afghanistan be nuclear?
The first reason is energy flux-density, the energy density of coal combustion is 2.7 x 10^4 or 27,000 joules of energy per gram of coal fuel—with gas combustion in a similar range. However, the energy density of nuclear power is 3.7 x 10^9 or 3,400,000,000 joules of energy per one gram nuclear fuel. Put simply, nuclear’s energy-density is 100,000 times greater than that of coal or gas, which is why it has an advantage.
The second reason is that nuclear fission reactions are physical reactions of the nucleus of the atom, while the combustion of wood, coal, gas, and oil are chemical reactions. The fission reactions release far more energy. When the nucleus of uranium 235 undergoes fission, it releases 200 million electron volts.
The third reason is that the uranium reactor, once installed and running, can run for 18 months before it needs fuel rod changes. Nuclear power’s capacity factor—how long it can run out of all of the days of the year—is 92%, far higher than any other fuel source.
Solar Panels and Wind Farms
We do not suggest building solar panels and wind farms, or the use of wood or manure for power, as their energy flux-density and the amount of electricity they produce—relative to what is said they produce– is very low. They are part of a speculative bubble, a sinkhole for money, which in the wind power sector is registering significant losses in parts of the world.