Year: 2021

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince unveiled plans on Sunday to build a zero-carbon city at Neom, the first major construction project for the $500 billion flagship business zone aimed at diversifying the economy of the world’s largest oil exporter. Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in a rare televised appearance, said the city, known as “The Line”, would extend over 170 kilometres and be able to house a million residents in “carbon-positive urban developments powered by 100 per cent clean energy”. “Why should we sacrifice nature for the sake of development?” Prince Mohammed…

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KARACHI: The National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) on Sunday night claimed that it has “fully restored” its transmission system whose fault on Saturday night threw the entire country into darkness. “The NTDC grid stations of 220kV and 500 kV and transmission system have been fully restored across the country,” the NTDC spokesman said in a press statement. “Power has been restored in Peshawar, Islamabad, Jhelum, Gujarat, Sargodha, Sialkot, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Lahore, Sheikhupura, Okara, Sahiwal, Multan, Rahim Yar Khan, Bahawalpur, Dharki, Guddu, Rohri, Shikarpur, Dera Murad Jamali, Sibi and Quetta…

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Prime Minister Imran Khan has recently announced that there will be no more coal-based power plants in Pakistan. International climate lobbies have welcomed the statement but domestic energy circles or at least parts of them are not happy. Many people believe that Pakistan’s carbon footprint is too little and say we have vast coal reserves in Thar, which we have only begun to exploit and a lot needs to be done in this respect. The statement may be corrected or adjusted in coming days on technical advice from other parts of the…

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KARACHI: The Sindh government on Sunday demanded formation of an inquiry commission with representation of provinces to ascertain the cause of the electricity breakdown that plunged the entire country into darkness for several hours. Provincial Energy Minister Imtiaz Ahmed Shaikh demanded setting up of an inquiry commission and removal of the National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) chief, saying that hours-long nationwide power breakdown was the result of incompetence and failure of federal ministers. Talking to Dawn, he said that an inquiry commission with representation of provinces should be formed immediately…

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ABOUT seven kilometres from the Bholari turning point on left side of the Karachi-Hyderabad Motorway (M9), an uneven path leads to a barren land — the site of many windmill towers. From M9 I could barely make out the huge windmill towers, or wind turbine towers. As I reached the site I found some Chinese workers working. Each windmill tower having three long blades was approximately 100 metres high. The blades on the towers were rotating very slowly due to low wind pressure. This is one of the 10 wind…

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