Search results

As the power and energy sector of Bangladesh has become increasingly susceptible to external shocks like Ukraine war and dollar crisis, the growing dependency on imported energy is being questioned from the energy security point of view. While the technology and policy actors hold depletion of gas resources and the need for diversification as the reasons to justify increasing import dependency, the proponents for energy security using indigenous resources point out at the negligence in exploring potential indigenous gas reserve and the inability to deploy renewable energy. Why in last one-decade Bangladesh adopted new energies like coal, nuclear, and LNG, rather than exploring natural gas and incentivizing solar and wind, has still remained a puzzle. This paper uses the rent seeking framework to identify how rent seeking structures differ across energy technologies and whether the differences had any implications for incentivizing some energy use while not incentivizing others.
Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (Hum.), Vol. 68(2), 2023, pp. 263-286

The declining cost of solar technology and declaration of Japan, China, and Korea to not invest in new coal power plants has opened up new possibilities for the expansion of solar deployment worldwide. Bangladesh has also scrapped the plan to build new coal power plant like many other lower middle-income countries in Asia. However, the lower middle-income countries were not able to take the opportunity of the declining solar cost in last one decade and the growth of solar remained in the formative phase for most of the developing countries. Bangladesh has already missed the target to generate 10% from renewable by the year 2020. The increasing emphasis on solar globally and locally has pushed the government to set ambitious targets without considering the techno-economic, socio-technical, and political feasibility of solar. This research has used process tracing based on policy documents and interviews to explore the mechanisms through which solar deployment grew slowly in Bangladesh. Then, this paper found out the feasible, moderately feasible, ambitious, and highly ambitious solar targets of Bangladesh and identified the factors that can increase the multi-dimensional feasibility of solar targets. It shows that market mechanism alone cannot increase feasibility of the target and argues that socio-technical and political feasibility must also be considered in setting realistic target.
Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (Hum.), Vol. 68(1), 2023, pp.33-56

Since the early 2000's trade liberalization, the state-owned sugar mills in Bangladesh have started to lose competitiveness. Before that this industry used to be considered a strategic sector because sugar is an essential food and the industry creates thousands of rural employments. In 2020, the government suspended operation of six out of fifteen mills with the excuse of loss. The closure of six mills has reduced the sugar production and negatively impacted the lives of farmers, workers, and businessmen. The government is considering foreign investment without considering the potential of government investment to revive the industry. Therefore, it is important to re-examine the factors that increased the cost and find out how the state could revive the industry under its ownership. This paper analysed the data of 15 state-owned sugar mills for 14 years (2006-07 to 2019-2020) using mixed method (fixed effect regression and interview) to explain the mechanisms of the cost increase. It found that the recovery rate, price of sugarcane, availability of sugarcane, age of mills, and interest payment are the most important determinants of cost. Modernizing the mills, making sugarcane available through sugarcane price incentives, timely payment to farmers, and diversifying products could contribute to cost reduction.
Social Science Review, Vol. 39(3), Dec 2022 Page 133-151