LAHORE: Speakers at a conference said the government should prefer generating energy from available resources of coal, wind or solar instead of relying on imports.

A conference on ‘Future Prospects of Clean Energy in Pakistan’ was organised by the Electrical Engineering Department of Government College University (GCU) here on Wednesday.

Stressing research on producing clean energy from indigenous resources, Engineer Almas Haider said energy security should be Pakistan’s priority instead of just clean energy.

“We should prefer generating energy from our available resources whether its coal, wind or solar instead of relying on imports,” he added.

He claimed that Pakistan had been importing oil and gas worth about $14 billion every year, which was the root cause of all foreign loans. In case of war, Pakistan could face severe energy crisis, he said, adding the previous governments had only added oil-based power generation projects.

PEC Chairman Jawed Salim Qureshi said Pakistan was moving in the opposite direction in energy sector.

“The sustainable energy solution for Pakistan was only solar, wind and hydropower mix. We do not need energy from any other source in the long term,” he said.

He added that there were 50,000 jobless engineers in Pakistan demanding the government announce a national internship programme for them.

ACHIEVERS: More than 90 students in Punjab have received the Outstanding Cambridge Learner Awards 2016.

According to a press release, eight of the 90 students achieved highest marks in the world and 20 in Pakistan in a single subject.

The winning students outperformed thousands of candidates worldwide who sat Cambridge O’ Levels, IGCSEs and International AS & A’ levels exams.

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2017