Soft energy paths

You may try anything the shortage in energy is not going to go away. The technocrat has never been questioned in Pakistan. Rather he is eulogized and epitomised as a wise man. Why? He quantifies the future as if the technical aspects are all that matter. I am at great odds with technology for the simple reason that technology is in the service of Pakistan and not the other way round.
The recent story of a Western woman illustrates the dilemma, who enquired after a botched technical intervention from an oriental person as to why he did not use his common sense. Back came the answer from the technical person 'Madam, common sense is a gift of God, I have only technical knowledge.' The issues at the Planning Commission that Sardar Aseff Ahmed Ali, during his tenure brought out are indicative of what oriental wisdom and common sense can do and how we can debunk Western ways and seek answers from the wise and the poor of this country.
He has successfully shifted from chemical fertiliser to organic fertiliser with ease and his seriousness may be witnessed by going to Kasur and witnessing a simple revolution. He and his brother's nature are full of enquiry and inquisitive of how an alternate intervention can be used to the benefit of the poor farmer of this country. On one occasion, he invited himself to dinner at my house halfway to Murree and when I protested that it was too late for processing food for him, he simply stated that he was bringing the food himself. He is a sharp person and I knew he was after some technologies that I was experimenting within my garden. Sure enough in the dark he asked me to show him the new potato technology wherein I was using locally produced algae for fertiliser. There were other elements including the saving in labour and cost-effectiveness that Sardar Aseff Ahmed Ali immediately latched on to. So these men with common sense are hard to get and harder to satisfy till they get to a positive note that can help this country. Sadly, he was the victim of palace intrigues and as in Punjab they would say in his place has come a 'bara singha' (12 horned deer). The bara singha goes on unabated in his merry ways doing what he should not be doing - he after all is a technical person.
Recently, in an energy conference, I was to lock horns with another of those bara singhas [the auditorium was full of them - all from Wapda] who believes that engineering economics is the sole basis of survival of Pakistan never mind the social and moral values. The political consciousness is not aware of the debate that is raging elsewhere and simply shout each other down before the ever-noisy anchorpersons. The answer is not with them unless the soft energy technologies are encouraged and who will encourage this. The Alternate Energy Board (AEB) created with such fanfare by Musharraf and handed over to a person who is marking time just as his predecessor. At a seminar, a German consultant was asked to state when the soft energy option will be in position his reply was simply 'about 1% by 2020'. What trash? In the meantime, the AEB will give an NOC to all those who want to exercise their right to import soft technologies and try and get one if you can. Money-laundering is a poor word for the attitudes that have been built up in the AEB. When cheap options are to be exercised for an economy then the one and only way is to go for the jugular. But no, these johnnies sitting in Islamabad and disconnected with everyone and only wishing to save their backside are doing nothing. The only institution that tried to evaluate them was the standing committee of the National Assembly and the minutes are worth reading.
Our politicians should no longer accept the options given to us by the technocrats [take away the techno and what have we got left]. These technos are in top positions and sit smug in belfries where only rodents are found. Francis Bacon was right when he stated that the end of our foundation is knowledge of causes, the secret motions of things; and the enlarging the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things that are possible. The Western things are becoming more and more expensive and untenable and leading to an imperialism that is worse than seventeenth century colonialism. We are the babes of the technical world and refuse to learn as that is a lot more painful than seeking grandeur design. The political bosses would have us believe that mega structures will deliver. Well, they do not. We have to discriminate as matters are getting more and more dangerous. When shall we learn that the speeding of goods and services will not allow us the elbow space that we need? When we learn not to hurt human feelings and that an economy serviced by greed, avarice, envy, gluttony, luxury and pride - in fact all the deadly sins that we can think of such an economy is incapable of working that inner transformation for which we in Islam are urged to strive for.
Are we to pay for the sins of the few? Is the general public responsible for the debacle that the technocrats have brought upon us? The pervasive reappraisal of means and ends was never done with absolute people telling the uninitiated the means to end one crisis after another and inevitably landing us into another. Can there be a durable path to the energy crisis or are we to be mortgaged to Wapda? Do they call all the shots? Why does the political system not understand that there are other options and that these are not resource-starving but resource-enhancing. Very year that we go in for synthetic means of energy the investment increases by a factor of ten but if you do it after the Musharraf regime the factor increases hundred-fold. We cannot have an energy option that is based on the past years for that was flawed and this is more so. No one has asked a basic question as to how and what energy options are available with us for producing the basic electricity that we get from a barrel of fossil fuels. To make things worse we have an inept organisation and a corrupt one and the two are worse than terrorism itself. The death from terrorism leaves no feelings for a dead man but one who is dying slow death from the man-made organisations the death is full of squalor.
There are many reasons why the qualitative system does not work. Some are logistical, some are political, some are straight forwardly economical, and the answer is available in terms of investment needed. Can we afford it? Can we afford to make our poor even poorer because of the inflated bills that we get from the organisation that is supposed to have been generated from the taxpayer's money? Why, for instance, are they providing bulk electricity to MES for 58 houses in Islamabad? What is their compulsion for not carrying out conservation policies for the rich and why are there so many holy cows taking free electricity at the expense of the poor? What is the level of theft and what is the level of creaming that is going on? Why Wapda does not put its act together? What ails them? Some ail? The present options are not sustainable. The future belongs to soft technologies that will be revealed next time along with the cost to the Pakistani consumer; freedom from Wapda bills and the lineman's stupidities? Till next time?