There was an eye-opening news item from Oslo, Norway by AFP which was published in a local daily on May 11. It was about heralding the beginning of a new era by providing pollution-free motive power for coastal self-propelled vessels and similar ferries carrying cars, buses and trucks. These vessels could be particularly useful for Bangladesh where every day thousands of vehicles used for transporting essential items from one place to another are required to go across rivers at different locations.
Let us imagine a battery operated self-propelled coastal vessel or river crossing barges usually propelled by diesel engines that are in service across many river crossings and small coastal cargo boats. If they use batteries charged at night, when demand for electricity is at its lowest with many generators running well below their minimum load and having higher specific fuel consumption for low loads. This could well be a cost effective solution and will cut down our overall consumption of imported liquid fuel for power generation. The charging of batteries could lead to economic fuel consumption for the minimum load of generation sets in our power plants.
Norway has turned the idea into reality based on their experiments with battery operated shallow draft coasters on their shores and many car ferries across their fjords all over the coastal areas across the country. We could adopt this idea for our coastal areas and river crossings across Bangladesh.
The authorities of IWTA and R&H should take up the option and implement the same with top priority to contain our increasing use of imported liquid fuel for these jobs. I will implore upon the Honourable Prime Minister to ensure that this matter is implemented at the earliest, more so because no high technology is involved in this matter. This will curtail the use of liquid fuel for coastal vessels, river crossing ferries and powered barges.
Engr. S. A. Mansoor
Dhaka.
[email protected]
- Sunday, 5 May 2024 |
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