Bangladesh has no natural fuel (coal or oil), and natural gas reserves are finite and declining! Alternative sources of energy, that is naturally available to us, needs to be maximized. The sooner it is the better! In this regard some of the proven and promising options are open and needs to be developed and harnessed. Government should provide all help that is needed to accelerate this effort by encouraging and supporting private as well as public initiative, through setting up a number of small solar power stations which are connected to our grid and provide sizable power in say 70 to 100 Megawatt range in suitable locations in Bangladesh!
Solar power at the mini-level as rooftop solar panels is already being installed on many roofs in Bangladesh. One way of encouraging it would be for PDB to buy this power from such installations, at a rate in line with their own regular cost of power generation on Taka/KwH rates! This will encourage more installation of solar panels in urban locations while the government will be getting pollution free power, without the need to buy and consume any fossil fuel for it!
Anotherregular fuel source is from household garbage that can supplement regular fuel and provide power say around 20 to 30 percent of the total plant capacity, the balance coming from conventional fuel. The extra cost involved will be in sorting, segregation and dumping off the unusable waste. This cost will not be more than the cost of traditional fuel that it will reduce. On a positive side, it will reduce overall garbage disposal costs.
More promising is the generation of methane (natural gas) from human solid toilet waste. It will eliminate the costs involved in the collection and disposal of this sanitary waste and partially treating it and dumping it into rivers, thus creating a permanent source of spreading germs of many dangerous diseases, all across the country.
Sadly no one talks about this regular potentially unhygienic
hazard, mixing in and polluting our river waters.
In Thailand this was started around 20 or more years back. Today it supplies around eighty percent or so of the power generated in that country.
Power can also be tapped from the many natural gas pressure reducing stations, where instead of a pressure reducing valve, we can use a pressure reducing turbine coupled to an alternator is provided. That can provide fuel free electric power! However, this is possible only near the gas well head, where large volumes of gases pass through pressure reducing stations!
This too will be totally pollution free electricity. These are some of the potential sources of non-conventionally fuelled power that is available to us. It will also help us to dispose these wastes, and make them germ and harm free too!

The writer is a retired electrical engineer