Sept.11, 2023 (EIRNS)—Russia and China are each offering to Afghanistan to build coal-fired electricity-generating plants in Afghanistan, in order to expand the country’s quite limited installed electricity generating capacity, and aid Afghanistan in its advance to becoming a modern economy.
Afghanistan does not possess a coal fired plant.
The March 6 Izvestia quoted Russia’s Ambassador to Afghanistan Dmitry Zhirnov that “businessmen from the Republic of Tatarstan signed a memorandum on the development of the coal thermal power in Afghanistan in Kabul. It is a trilateral project with Iran and Pakistan.” That means that Russia, Iran, and Pakistan would bring their considerable shared knowledge to bear on building coal thermal plants in Afghanistan.
The coal plants that the Russians would build only bear a faint resemblance to those of the 1980s and 1990s, and instead produce clean coal. Much of the alleged “greenhouse gasses” and pollutants are cut and reduced below stringent levels; they operate at a far higher efficiency—Russian coal plants are either supercritical or ultra-supercritical. The latter have thermal efficiencies of approximately 47%, where that percentage of the fuel’s heat content input translates into work to produce electricity—the thermal efficiency of older, “normal’ coal-fired plants is 33-35%.
But the Russian mission to Afghanistan in February year went further. Ambassador Zhirnov told Izvestia, “in addition, Russian engineers inspected Kabul boiler houses, heating networks, water supply systems, power substations and prepared a plan for the restoration of [Kabul’s] utility system.” Thus, Russia would do an important overhaul.
Respecting China’s role, an article in the April 24, 2023 Kabul Times, entitled “Afghanistan To Go for Coal-Fired Plant To Generate Electricity,” reported that, “previously, China’s Chamber of Commerce representative, during a visit to Afghanistan and meeting with Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat’s (DABS) head, had said his country was ready to invest in Afghanistan’s energy sector and generate 500 MW of electricity from coal. The Chinese official said China has experience in producing electricity from coal in 11 countries around the world, and that they are ready to install technical equipment and teams in Afghanistan.” (The article also reported on a domestic project to produce coal-fired plant electricity.) China also employs ultra-supercritical clean coal-fired plants, obtaining all the benefits.
Most remarkable, a June 2018 report entitled, “The State of Environment of Afghanistan 2011-2017,” states that “Approximate total coal reserves in Afghanistan are 440 million tons.” EIR is attempting to verify this claim. But if it is true—and other sources use this number—it is a large number. It would entrust to Afghanistan the condition that it could work with China and Russia to build advanced clean coal-fired (as well as nuclear, gas, and hydro) plants in Afghanistan, while exporting some of the coal deposits to other countries for earnings.
Initially, for the first 10-15 years, Afghanistan would import advanced coal-fired plants from Russia and China, but eventually, as it acquires the technological skills and capital goods, it would build its own coal-fired plants.
