In the Media

Article from The Cambodia Daily With as much as $1 billion slated for investment by Chinese companies in the Cambodian hydropower sector, a new report has raised serious questions about China's investment policy here, and attacked the lack of transparency in the power-planning process. Chinese companies are currently backing six major hydropower projects at varying stages of development in Cambodia. The report by International Rivers and the Rivers Coalition of Cambodia describes a trend where companies, backed by Chinese state-owned financial institutions, are rushing to exploit Cam

Here is a radio broadcast from VOA in Phnom Penh, Cambodia To listen to the broadcast in Khmer please follow this link:http://www.voanews.com/mediaassets/khmer/2008_01/Audio/mp3/080130%20China_MV.mp3 The radio broadcast has been transcribed into English and the transcript is reported below. At least two large Chinese companies have received investment licenses to take over hydroelectric projects in Cambodia.Meanwhile, Chinese companies are studying four other projects, officials said recently. But the dams seriously threaten the environment, according to two groups that released a report Mond

PHNOM PENH (AFP) Cambodia's two largest dam projects threaten to floodhuge swathes of protected forests, a conservation group has said, urgingreform in the country's burgeoning hydropower sector.International Rivers Network, in a report released late Monday, said thatthe Kamchay and Stung Atay dams, which seek to provide much-neededelectricity to the country, will instead wreak havoc on local communitiesand slow development.The US-based group targets in particular Chinese investment in the sector,which it said is powering forward through close ties between Cambodia'sgovernment and Beijing, unc

Article from The Irrawaddy Online Burma and China began construction on one of the largest dams in Burmasome two months ago; meanwhile, villagers in the area are beingextorted and abused by the Burmese army, according to sources.The Myitsone hydropower project is being built on the Irrawaddyconfluence about 26 miles (42 km) north of Myitkyina, the capital ofKachin State, in northern Burma.A source, who recently observed the dam site, told The Irrawaddy onMonday that about 20 Chinese and a handful of Burmese engineers areworking on the site, plus about 300 construction workers from the AsiaWorl

The construction of Cambodia's first and second biggest hydropower dams pose serious threats to eco-systems and the livelihood of thousands people in southwest of the country, an environmental conservationist report said Monday. Under an aid package of $600 million(Bt18.6 billion) from China, Cambodia is constructing the Kamchay Dam with an installed capacity of 180 Megawatts (MW) the biggest in Cambodia in the southwestern Kampot Province and the 120 MW Stung Atay Dam in Pursat Province. The Kamchay Dam developed by China's largest hydropower developer, Sinohydro Corporation, is located wholl

Translated extracts from article "Energy Policy: Hydropower and Global Warming" published in Jornal do Brasil, 27 January 2008. For full article in Portuguese click on: http://quest1.jb.com.br/editorias/cienciaetecnologia/papel/2008/01/27/ci...Alexandre Kemenes, Programa LBA (INPA)Bruce Forsberg, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA)John Melack, University of California, USABrazil is committed to producing inventories of all its greenhouse gas emissions. The first inventory of emissions from hydropower compared the emissions from tropical Brazilian reservoirs with thermal power p

Article from The Irrawidy Online Burmese regime-friendly conglomerate Asia World is forcing many hundreds of villagers in northern Burma to abandon their homes and resettle elsewhere as it prepares to build a hydroelectric system at Chibwe on the May Kha River.The project will force residents of the Washapa and Nyawngmawpa valleys to move, says a report by the Kachin News Group.Asia World is a contractor for Chinese state companies developing the hydro scheme, which pump most of the ensuing electricity into China's energy-hungry Yunnan province.The KNG says Chinese engineers have already been

Article from The Nation A series of dams proposed for the Nam Ngum River basin in Laos would have a serious impact on the livelihood of tens of thousands people due to huge areas being inundated and the blocking of fish migration routes, according to a social and environmental impact report. The report, compiled by Vattenfall Power Consultant with support from the Asian Development Bank, which will finance the Nam Ngum 3 Hydropower Project, was presented at a meeting in Lao capital Vientiane yesterday. The Lao government plans to build a series of dams in the Nam Ngum basin in Vientiane provi

Article from Bangkok Post The evidence is compelling that at this particular moment in Thai history, building new mega power plants is a tragic coupling of bad statistics and misguided thinkingAt the start of 2008, the Ministry of Energy approved four new mega-scale Independent Power Producers' (IPPs) power plants totalling 4,500 megawatts (MW). This was 71% higher than the already excessive 3,200 MW announced in the call for bids. In the past, these massive coal- and natural gas-fired projects have met with fierce community opposition.Many key decision-makers in government and business, as we

I was there to present the social and environmental impacts resulting from one such part-Norwegian supported and owned hydropower project in Laos met with staff of the state power utility Statkraft, the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) which have both been intimately connected with the project for many years. Full article is available to download as a .pdf file, please see below.