A great deal of money will be spent to import coal and diesel. The Norochcholai coal power plant which is being constructed will emit hazardous smoke causing a considerable environmental pollution, pointed out Prof.H.Sriyananada at a media conference held at Hotel Nippon recently.

Prof.Sriyananada said that utilisation of coal power energy is not a suitable thing for a country like SriLanka where there are enough ways to generate renewable energy and natural gas to meet the energy demand.

"It has been estimated that 50 per cent of the foreign exchange earned by tea, coconut and rubber is being spent on importing fuel and in the future the whole 100 per cent would be spent on this purpose," he said.

He said that Norochcholai plant would generate 300 MWs.

"This is not a large amount. India manufactures 1700 MWs using wind power. Only we need is to know the technology well," he said.

According to him, the estimates have pooved that a 300MW thermal plant requires 2640 MTs of coal per day and annually it requires 963,000 MTs.

Pro.Sriyanada noted about the importance of dendro and solar energy manufacturing." These methods may not do harm to the environment. But people don’t like to move into alternative sources in SriLanka that they think it belonged to Stone Age. But all the other developing nations are quite happy to accept alternate methods," he said.

According to him, USA and UK are shifting away from diesel and petrol and are beginning to manufacture energy sources through alcohol and sugar cane. He said that Sweden plans to sustain the whole energy demand using renewable energy in 15 years time.

Prof. Arjuna De Zoysa pointed out important point that how the government is going to transport coal from the harbour.

"Power and Energy Minister has said that 60 per cent of thermal plant is run by coal. But what is true is only 6 per cent plants use imported coal for energy manufacturing. All the other countries have their coal mines near by the plant," he noted.

These scientists and environmental consultants urge government to stop the implementation of Norochcholai coal power project.

"We want the government to review all other fossil fuel based projects with a view to making them compatible with phasing out fossil fuels in twenty five years and use multi criterion approach to project evaluation," said the Environment Consultant Piyal Parakrama.