the geologist Osiris de Leon urged the Government this Sunday to continue supporting the private sector for the conversion of its electricity generation units that work with petroleum derivatives, so that from now on all these generation units operate with natural gas.
In this sense, he explained that the natural gas It constitutes a cleaner energy, friendlier to the environment and much cheaper, in order to continue overcoming the erratic energy management of the past and meet the global objectives of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. carbon dioxide (CO2).
positively assessed the operations of the Eastern Pipeline and of the company energies, the latter owner of a plant made up of three turbines with power of 100MW each, and that operate with natural gasas well as from Quisqueya I Y Quisqueya II, which has made it possible to greatly reduce CO2 emissions into the atmosphere and bring us closer as a nation to the goal to which the country has committed itself in the Summits of the Parties (COP) to reduce its emissions of carbon dioxide to help curb the global warming.
“Hence you plant like Energies, Quisqueya I and Quisqueya II that between the three add up to about 730 megawatts are an ideal solution for a society like the Dominican one because they replace old fuels that provided greater volumes of carbon dioxide and now they use natural gasvia a gas pipeline that goes from Boca Chica to San Pedro de Macorís, which has been an extraordinary investment made at the ideal moment, when the world begins to look at the natural gas as an ideal solution in terms of energy”, he said.
He said that this solution is representing to the nation an answer in the economic order and in the environmental order, and it is what the whole society should salute because in the future all the energy will be produced under a scheme similar to that.
The geologist pointed out that given the positive results that the Dominican society is having with the conversion of plants of the electric park that today are using the natural gas with excellent results in terms of costs and benefits to the environment.
“It is necessary to suggest to the Dominican State, as well as to the private sector, to make investments to transform all those plants of the thermal system that to date have not been transformed so that in the future they will be using natural gas because the natural gas it is much cleaner, it emits less carbon dioxideand the economic result is positive both for the Government and for the private sector that produces the energy and for the user who will end up buying energy at the lowest cost”, he specified.
De León argued that the annual reduction of greenhouse gases in the operations of the electric plants a natural gas of the company Energas are of the order of 265 thousand tons of CO2, and if we add to this the operations of the electric plants Quisqueya I and Quisqueya IIwhich have also been transformed to operate with natural gas and each one saves about 245 thousand tons of CO2 per year, the benefits to the environment increase.
“The three plants annually save close to 750,000 tons of CO2, equivalent to planting 25 million trees to capture CO2 or removing 300,000 vehicles from daily traffic that emit CO2 through their exhaust pipes. go into the atmosphere and the commitment of the Dominican Republic when signing the Summit of the Parties is to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide“, he claimed.
He acknowledged that the country has made significant progress in energy matters by converting several plants that previously operated with liquid fuels and now operate with natural gasat the time of valuing the years of work, the enormous effort and the high economic investments made by the companies that introduced modifications in their electric plants to be able to operate with natural gassince they make a strategic contribution to the country’s economy and lower the cost of energy received by consumers.
He explained that the National Interconnected Electric System (SENI), as a whole, has to focus on practices that take into consideration the environmental sustainability of the electricity sector, reducing CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, since CO2 is the main greenhouse gas greenhouse, which, today, registers a global concentration of around 420 parts per million in our atmosphere, and this high concentration of CO2 is contributing to a greater number of storms and hurricanes, with long droughts that reduce food production and they endanger the food sustainability of society, and with dangerous heat waves that, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), generate complications of cardiovascular diseases in the elderly.
The expert explained that the natural gas It is low in pollution because it has a very clean combustion since it is made up of 95% methane gas (CH4), so it does not emit solid particles such as PM10 and PM2.5 that affect air quality and the human respiratory system.
He added that the natural gas It is used as it is extracted, that is, it does not require any transformation process as is required for propane gas or butane gas.
