Blogs
We have contacted our bilateral partner country,Slovenia and have compared our blogs 2a-c and have found some similarities and differences between our case studies and countries:
Slovenia’s case study:
The lives of people and the environment in the Shale valley have changed considerably over the last sixty years. Because of the great demand for electricity and coal that was in this region of Slovenia for the time being, a thermal power plant and a mine were built here.
According to the EEA report, among the 30 most damaging plants are coal and lignite coal-fired plants, most of which are in Germany and Eastern Europe.
The survey included 56 Slovenian plants. The largest pollutant in Slovenia and 82nd in the EU is the Šoštanj Thermal Power Plant (Teš), which in the five years from 2008 to 2012 estimated the agency to incur costs ranging from 763 million to 1.89 billion euros.
Existing TEŠ plants comply with environmental norms. The rehabilitation program has brought improvements to practically all discharges from the thermal power plant, except in the area of carbon dioxide. Its emissions depend directly on the efficiency of the power plant. For the accuracy and quality of the data, the Milan Vidmar Elektroinštitut from Ljubljana is the authorized energy institution; regular calibrations of measuring equipment are performed in the chemical analysis of sediment precipitation.
In TEŠ environmental projects in the last twenty years have been focused primarily on the rehabilitation of the negative impacts of air and water. In 1987, we started ecological remediation, so that electricity production is environmentally acceptable. Emissions of SO2, NOx and dust, consumption and water pollution have been reduced.
India’s case study:
India is a very populated country. It need a large amount of resources for it citizens. Oil is an important resource which is required for a number of things like automobiles, industries etc. Oil extraction is done by Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC). ONGC had many projects across the globe, but the project under study here is Bangladesh.
What are the environmental impacts of this resource extraction?
Open pits, ponds, and lagoons can contain wastewater, organic chemicals, petroleum hydrocarbons, surfactants and other substances which compromise the safety of our water. Pipeline explosions and wells (even if properly drilled) can cause drinking water problems by cross-contaminating aquifers. Development of gas wells may even require releases of methane and myriad toxic gases into the atmosphere.
Methane, the main component in natural gas, is up to 84 times more harmful to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, trapping heat more effectively and intensifying global warming. Preventable leaks and faulty infrastructure in natural gas production are so common that they contribute significantly to methane pollution in and around wild lands.
Who benefits from this resource extraction? Who is disadvantaged? How is this connected to colonization?
Both of the countries can be benefitted by this joint venture of oil and natural gas exploration from Bengal Basin. Bangladesh being a small country is having a surplus oil and natural gas resource but being an underdeveloped country with poor infrastructure cannot exploit its resources to its full potential. But India being a developed neighbouring country can utilize its modern and scientific technology and can deploy state of the art machinery to explore the untapped oil and natural gas resources of Bangladesh. Being a huge populous country, India can utilize this surplus oil and natural gas resources from Bangladesh at a cheaper rate. The geographical proximity between these two countries is another advantage. Besides, India being the one of the largest democracies of the world, it has strong political leadership which is beneficial to maintain a strong bond of friendship between the two countries. Thus, this bilateral relationship between India and Bangladesh can help in minimizing the aggression of colonization by the western countries.
We have found that in both countries, the temperature is increasing , and the soil is drying up and the frequency of heavy rain events and thunderstorms is increasing.
We have found that the thermal plant and oil extraction is leading to air and water pollution in the respective countries.However,efforts are being made in Slovenia to reduce emissions , whereas in India, as stated above in the case study, not much effort has been made to prevent leaks and the infrastructure being used to produce natural gas is, at times, faulty and weak.
Both the Thermal power plant(run by a public owned organisation)and the ONGC(state -owned)have no foreign involvement.
However, the ONGC operates on a much larger scale than the Sostanj power plant, and therefore contributes more to climate change.
Implementing environmental laws strictly and inspecting industries regularly and ensuring ecological remediation (which is being done in Slovenia) could be possible solutions to these problems.
This conference has helped us realise that big or small, each country is experiencing this serious problem, and we must help each other and thus , build a better world.
