Burning a 10 billion note

Last week I heard something very worrying. Our oil imports totals Nu. 10 billion (USD 200 million), which I am told is net profit from the hydropower exports. Five years ago, as a freelance columnist, I wrote this piece for Bhutan Times. I am afraid the fears I expressed then have sadly materialised.

Time to ponder seriously? You bet! If this 10 billion thing is true.  

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Bhutan Times, Sept. 2007

Less oil, more thinking please

Thimphu has more cars than the total length of the road

A figure I saw on Kuensel, some issues back, stunned me for a moment – Nu. 2.1 billion (6% of GDP) spent on oil imports!  The report also states that the figure will increase in coming years as more vehicles get added to the already registered 30,000 vehicles in the country.  This I thought was more frightening.  Because as countries and multinational companies work towards reducing the dependence on petroleum we seem to be naively going headlong towards it.  Modern society is built on inexpensive fossil fuel (petrol, diesel, kerosene etc).  A simple example of the case in point is that if you look around or to yourself - the cloth that you are wearing, the shoes you are on or the soap that you had used this morning; everything has involved a petroleum product in one way or the other.  For production, for marketing or for transport to you as consumer.

Energy, or the lack of it, will be the defining issue for nations in this century and beyond.  The world is expecting another energy crisis.  Countries will go to war (if they have not gone already), companies will go to courts and communities will fight – all for the control of world’s limited energy.  Experts even speculate that ultimately nation’s sovereignty will be linked directly to how much this nation has control over its energy demands.  Many countries unfortunately do not have choice but to play on the whims of oil producing nations or companies.  One thing is clear – the era of cheap oil is gone.  And with India and China gulping more energy than anyone had predicted, oil price will only increase while the world’s production has peaked and oil wells are now slowing drying up.  Experts predict the price will rise to a level where ordinary citizens cannot afford.

Now bringing this global issue into Bhutan’s context, what does this mean?  It means the next world’s energy crisis will affect us very badly - unlike the last one.  The reason is simple – we have more cars now.  But there is one good news and, of course, one bad!  The good news is that with the harnessing of hydropower to the fullest, Bhutan will be one of the few countries that will be energy-independent and thereby relatively safe from global oil politics.  In fact thanks to India, we are already exporting surplus power which is becoming the mainstay of our national economy.  The bad news is that we are becoming, or we have already become, dependent on oil (Kuensel’s and RMA report say so).

So what do we do?  Obviously we cannot export electricity and at the same time become dependent on somebody’s energy.  Hence some serious rethinking needs to be done as to how we could use hydropower to meet our energy needs.  High time we set some short, mid and long-term goals on how much we can increase our dependence on hydro-power while reducing the demand for fossil fuels.  

First and foremost, however, we need to make the commercial power reliable for consumers.  It is a shame that we boast of exporting electricity but with a slight breeze or a drizzle there is a black-out.  Power grids have to be improved and distribution system has to be upgraded.  We cannot expect people to switch-on to radiator heaters if there is a power-cut on the day it snows.

Then a more serious consideration - the public transport system.  It is surprising that much-talked-about Thimphu Structural Plan (whoever did that) did not keep any provisions for electric trams, mono-rails or electric buses.  Thimphu’s population will definitely explode and with growing economic activities movements will increase.  There will be the need for mass rapid transport system.  Only with electric trams and rails can this be achieved.  Even if oil keeps flowing in, we cannot keep running our cars and buses.  Because every economic forecast for Bhutan predicts prosperity.  And prosperity would mean more cars which would ultimately lead to congestion of roads. 

Then the inter-city transport network.  Besides the widened Thimphu-Phuntsholing highway, we need to think of alternative transport system.  Phuntsholing and the other border towns are going to be linked to the Indian Railways network.  A narrow-gauge railway system inside the country is not an impossible dream.  If the British built the Darjeeling toy trains a century back, at least we Bhutanese, who claim to have defeated the British in a Duar war, can build a railway a century later.

Ropeway is another electric-driven eco-friendly technology.  This is of course nothing new.  I proposed this idea more than ten years back during the formulation of the Vision 2020 Document.  A ropeway ride from Thimphu to Punakha would, for example, need just one hour compared to the three-hour grueling drive.  Intermediary stations can be built on Dochula Peak, Talo and Nobgang.  Places like Gasa could well be connected with ropeways and cable cars.  Many Swiss and Italian resort towns have excellent facilities and may be a study-tour to these places would enlighten our planners and decision makers.

Finally, cars running on CNG are already on the road in India.  It is definitely a cheaper alternative than diesel or petrol cars.  Bangladesh has a huge reserve of natural gas and they want our electricity.  We could barter a win-win deal for both.  Solar energy is another source we could maximize.  Our houses need improved energy-retention techniques like double-glassed windows and ceilings.  We could even go back to mud walls which have better insulating properties than concrete.  My Japanese architect friend, Kaneko-san, has already built two such houses in Thimphu.

Whatever said and done, we need to think seriously, a little long-term and little out-of-the-box.  We need to shed off the “rugged-terrain-poor-country” mentality.  To start with we should stop buying, with public funds, Toyota Landcruisers that consumes a lot and pollutes even more.

Dorji Wangchuk is an independent filmmaker and media consultant and a guest columnist for Bhutan Times (dorjiwangchuk@druknet.bt)

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