Severely Polluted Mongolia Tries a Cleaner Power Source
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Version 0 of 1. SALKHIT, MONGOLIA — On a desolate, wind-raked hilltop not far from the Mongolian capital, white-helmeted workers were busily lifting, tugging and erecting 80-meter poles and fitting them with enormous pinwheel-like turbines in Mongolia’s first foray into wind-generated power. With 31 of these 260-foot, or 79-meter, turbines made by General Electric, the Salkhit, or Windy, Wind Farm will be able to produce 50 megawatts of power when it goes online in early 2013. That is enough to supply Mongolia’s 860-megawatt central grid with approximately 5 percent of its energy needs Inside a V.I.P. yurt near the turbines, Hulan Davaadorj, an investment analyst for Clean Energy, a unit of Newcom Group, gave a PowerPoint presentation to a group of visiting businessmen, outlining the details of the $120 million effort. Newcom Group is the company behind the wind farm project. The eco-friendly plant about 45 miles, or 70 kilometers, from the capital, Ulan Bator, will save Mongolia 150,000 tons of coal and reduce carbon dioxide emissions 180,000 tons annually, Ms. Hulan said. It also brings the latest renewable technology to a country hamstrung by inefficient combined heat and power stations built by the former Soviet Union. Ulan Bator has two main coal-fired power stations, one built in 1965 and the other in 1984. “This plant is needed because you cannot have development and growth without energy,’’ Ms. Hulan said. ‘‘The country is developing rapidly, so new energy will be the basis for this growth.” Harnessing wind power is part of a new policy plan by the Mongolian government, which is looking for innovative ways to diversify into renewable energy, despite a wealth of coal reserves — Mongolia has about 100 billion tons of coal underground. Earlier governments started small-scale renewable energy initiatives like the subsidized sale of solar panels to nomads, with assistance from the World Bank. The project brought solar panels to 100,000 herder families, who move three or four times a year across Mongolia’s grassy steppes and sunburned deserts. The push to develop cleaner energy is fueled by an environmental disaster in Ulan Bator, identified by the World Health Organization as the world’s second-most polluted city, after Ahvaz in southern Iran. According to a 2011 report by the World Bank, the population’s exposure to fine particulate matter in the city was, on average throughout the year, six to seven times as high as the most lenient World Health Organization targets. That pollution is largely attributed to the tens of thousands of families living in slum areas called “ger districts,” where residents burn raw coal in winter to keep warm. Coal-fired power stations, exhaust from vehicles and dust from construction sites also contribute to the airborne particulate matter. According to a study produced by the Public Health Institute of Ulan Bator, the number of people sickened by respiratory disease increased 45 percent between 2004 and 2008. A 2011 study by Simon Fraser University in British Columbia reported that one in ten deaths in Ulan Bator can be attributed to air pollution. “We live in a globalized world now, so whatever happens in other countries can affect Mongolia, and what happens here can affect other countries. So to reduce our carbon footprint, we need to use clean energy when we develop our new power sources,” Ms. Hulan said. Renewable energy will not fix all of Mongolia’s problems. By nature, this type of power cannot provide a constant supply of electricity — the more heat- intensive coal plants must generate that. Wind power can contribute as much as 20 percent of the electricity in the central grid. “Mongolia has tremendous potential for solar and wind, but this is something that has to be carefully approached because of the nature of renewables. They don’t provide the same reliability as more conventional sources of energy,” said Shane Rosenthal, deputy country director for the Asian Development Bank in Ulan Bator. With double-digit G.D.P. growth last year, Mongolia is emerging as an important economic and energy power player in the Asia-Pacific region. As it grows, the country will need energy to propel its expanding capital city and its burgeoning copper and coal mines. For now, the Newcom project is the only wind farm under construction in the country, but the Ministry of Environment and Green Development said that other companies had shown interest in developing wind farms, particularly in the Gobi region. Oyu Tolgoi, a $6.5 billion mine in the Gobi Desert, will need to import power from China to run its copper concentrator. But after four years, the investment agreement states that Oyu Tolgoi will have to switch to domestic power. Tavan Tolgoi, one of the biggest coal fields in the world, with 6.4 billion tons of coal reserves, will also need power to operate a coal-washing plant at its site in the Gobi Desert. Then there is the $10 billion industrial park planned for the city of Sainshand. All these projects will require new sources of energy, and the government is considering its options. One likely source is a proposed 450-megawatt power plant, code-named CHP5, planned for Ulan Bator. GDF Suez, based in France, is the lead bidder in a consortium to develop the project, which is expected to be in operation by 2015. It would be coal-fired but would use newer, cleaner technology; Newcom, Sojitz of Japan and Posco Energy of Korea are also involved. According to a statement from GDF Suez, the Mongolian government will buy power from the plant under a 25-year deal. Steam from the plant will be used for city heating in Ulan Bator, where winter temperatures plummet to minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 Fahrenheit). About 340 kilometers east of the capital, Prophecy Coal of Canada is proposing construction of a 600-megawatt plant. Prophecy says the plant would help Mongolia end its energy reliance on Russia and eventually allow the country to export power to China. “First we want to build a plant that will satiate domestic demand for power,” said Oscar Mendoza, general manager for Prophecy Coal in Mongolia. “But our concept is to build a plant that can go from 600 megawatts all the way up to 3,600 megawatts or even 4,800 megawatts.” Yet wind technology seems to be gathering momentum among Mongolia’s leaders. In November, Mongolia was host to a conference, Renewable Energy in North East Asia, that highlighted a proposed Asian supergrid, an ambitious plan to connect power grids from Japan to India. The host for the conference was President Tsakihi Elbegdorj, named a 2012 Champion of the Earth by the United Nations Environment Program for his eco-friendly policy leadership. Prime Minister Norov Altankhuyag has also reshaped his government’s stance on the environment by taking the Ministry of Environment and adding a “Green Development” division that will, in theory, develop renewable and environmentally responsible energy. As part of the effort to use renewable energy sources, Newcom Group is working with Japan’s Softbank to develop a 300-megawatt wind farm in the Gobi Desert. “They see the potential for generating large-scale power generation based on wind, to export power to China and Korea and eventually to Japan,” said Tumentsogt Tsevegmid, the chief representative of General Electric in Ulan Bator. “After Fukushima, the Japanese said they want to shut down their nuclear program, so they need additional power,” he said, referring to the nuclear disaster and the Fukushima Daiichi plant after the tsunami last year. “ Mongolia can help.” |