Finland Futures Research Centre
China Succumbs to Mekong Nations
August 30, 2010
China has made a significant policy about-turn in response to a sharp contest with the United States for friends and influence in Southeast Asia. After years of rebuffing increasingly anxious requests for information about its dams on the upper reaches of the Mekong River from countries lower down the river's course, Beijing has relented.
China's change of tack comes as Washington is moving to broaden its non-military engagement with Indochina. Dozens of U.S. officials have been shuttling back and forth to the region promoting cooperative agreements since July last year when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched what is known as the Lower Mekong Initiative. The aim is to take advantage of China's less than stellar reputation in Southeast Asia by offering development aid and assistance to Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos for whom the lower reaches of the Mekong River are a vital economic resource.
At the same time, the U.S. has signed the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation with the 10-nation club of regional countries, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. This treaty affirms U.S. commitment to regional peace, stability and involvement in ASEAN processes and institutions.
China is very much aware it has a public relations problem in Southeast Asia, in part because of its belligerent military activities and outlandish territorial claims in the South China Sea. But for the countries through which the Mekong River flows much suspicion of China stems from its secrecy over its dam-building projects on its stretches of the 4,880 kilometre-long river, which it calls the Lancang.
In recent months there has been a crescendo in the always intense public criticism in the region claiming China's four dams on the upper Mekong are affecting water flows, disturbing fish migrations and populations, and are threatening the livelihoods of up to 70 million people.
But in June, China shifted policy and officials from the Mekong River Commission (MRC), created by a 1995 agreement between Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand, were invited to China's Yunnan province to look at two of the four dams. They are reported to have received detailed information about the operation of the dams and their effects on river flows. The dams were the Jing Hong, already in operation, and the massive Xiaowan, one of the world's tallest dams whose reservoir will take up to 10 years to fill and which will hold 15 billion cubic metres of water, more than five times the capacity of the other three Yunnan dams put together.
China also invited the MRC to send officials to Beijing to discuss how China might play a fuller role in the commission's activities.
China and Burma, which its ruling military regime calls Myanmar, have always kept at arms length from the MRC.
Like all autocratic regimes, they try to avoid exposing their internal affairs to any outside scrutiny or influence, and have therefore only taken "dialogue partner" status with the commission. China has, until now, been equally unforthcoming about sharing information with the MRC.
MRC officials have usually only learned when decisions have been made and ground broken about Beijing's dam-building plans on the 44 per cent of the Mekong than runs through Chinese territory after rising in the mountains of Tibet. And China has plans for at least another four dams on the Mekong to generate electricity and control floods. Information about management of the completed dams has been equally hard to come by with China only recently giving detailed information about the wet season flows of water. Now, apparently, China has indicated it will give information about the dry season flows too.
If China continues to openly share information about its dams and the life of the Mekong in its territory, it will do much to clear up a lot of disagreements and conflicting analysis about what is happening to the Mekong, which does not seem to be functioning as it has in past decades. Most concerning are low water levels and their effects on such natural wonders as the Tonle Sap, the great lake in central Cambodia usually filled to overflowing every year by waters from the Mekong during the rainy season. Fish from the Tonle Sap not only provide an incredible 80 per cent of the protein in the diet of Cambodia's 15 million people, the lake also acts as reservoir that feeds water back into the Mekong during the dry season and allows year-round cultivation and cropping in the delta region of Vietnam.
But the low volumes of water in recent years have frequently been blamed on China stemming the flow of the Mekong to fill the dam reservoirs feeding its hydroelectric schemes. But MRC experts such as chief executive Jeremy Bird doubt this is so. He says he thinks prolonged drought in Southeast Asia is the most likely cause.
Australian author, historian and consultant on southeast Asian affairs, Milton Osborne, says the way the Chinese have tried to defend themselves against the charges by using misleading statements and information has damaged Beijing's cause. Osborne points to China's regular response that it can't be held responsible for what happens on the lower Mekong, because only about 13 per cent of the water in the river at that point comes from China. This, Osborne says, is nonsense because during the dry season, when the effects on features such as the Tonle Sap are most profound, at least 40 per cent of the water in the Mekong comes from China.
Source: The Vancouver Sun
China Flexes Hydropower Muscle
August 27, 2010
IPS - After all the turbines in the Xiaowan hydropower station sputtered to life this week in China's south-west Yunnan province, the Asian giant was able to lay claim to having the world's largest hydropower capacity.
A "great leap forward" was how Liu Qi, deputy director of the National Energy Administration, described the expanding hydropower muscle of the country, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. "The rapid development of the hydropower industry is of great significance to optimising China's energy structure and reducing carbon emissions," Sun Yucai, executive vice chairman of the China Electricity Council, said in the same report.
The 700,000-kilowatt scheme of the Xiaowan power station is expected to push China's installed hydropower capacity to 200 million kilowatts, Xinhua reported. The country's second largest hydropower project, which cost 5.86 billion U.S. dollars, can "produce 19 billion KW hours of electricity every year, it added.
This power station will receive water from another showpiece of Chinese power: the Xiaowan dam, the world's tallest double-arch dam with a storage capacity of close to 15 billion cubic metres. The Xiaowan is the fourth dam that the Chinese have built out among a planned eight cascades of dams in the upper part of the Mekong River - which the Chinese call the Lancang - that flows through the mountainous Yunnan terrain. The Xiaowan Dam began impounding the Mekong's waters in October 2009, nearly two decades after the Manwan, the first among these dams, started to harness the waters of the 4,660-kilometre-long river.
But China's celebration of its dam-building feats, coming nearly 100 years after it built its first hydropower station near Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan, will not be shared by countries in the lower stretches of the Mekong, say activists. Many downstream communities have been reporting erratic water levels in the Mekong and blame this on China's construction of dams on the Lancang.
Following drops to the river's lowest levels in 50 years, green groups and sections of the media blamed the Chinese dams - particularly the Xiaowan - for affecting the livelihood of riverine villages in Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. A Chinese government effort in March to explain that these were due to a severe drought did little to ease the worries of villagers who depend on the river's ecosystem and fish catch for an income.
Fishing is the main source of livelihood for the 60 million people living in the Mekong basin, and the annual income from fisheries in the lower Mekong is between two to three billion U.S. dollars. "Many people living in the lower Mekong region will still believe that the filling of the Xiaowan dam reservoir contributes to a drop in the water level during the dry season," says Ame Trandem, Mekong campaigner for International Rivers, an U.S.-based environmental lobby. "It will remain so until the Chinese make public all the information related to its dam operations."
China's offer of some information about its dams to the Mekong River Commission (MRC) is insufficient, she told IPS. "China has been taking positive steps to be cooperative by releasing some details. But it still needs to be willing to be more accountable and transparent, since local communities have not seen the information given to the MRC."
The MRC, an inter-governmental organisation whose members include Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, says China's dams do not have the capacity to influence water levels all the way downstream, because much of the Mekong's waters come from lower basin countries. "The MRC doesn't anticipate that the Xiaowan dam will have a significant influence downstream on the lower Mekong," says MRC spokesman Damian Kean, echoing views that the Vientiane-based organisation aired when the Chinese dams were under fire early this year.
But "later on, as more and more dams come online, you are going to see a greater impact," he told IPS from the Lao capital. "All the lower Mekong countries want to see the right decision being made in this sector."
At the same time, China is well aware that the impact of its dams on the Mekong - which flows from the Tibetan plateau, through Yunnan, then passes Burma before snaking its way through the basin to empty out into the South China Sea in southern Vietnam - is not limited to the countries that share South-east Asia's largest body of water.
Since July, Beijing has also had to contend with the U.S. government, which has been reviving Washington's involvement in the region after the disengagement by the administration of George W Bush. In fact, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's push for greater cooperation between Washington and the Mekong basin countries during a visit to Thailand in July 2009 spurred warnings from U.S. experts about the danger that China's hydropower ambitions pose to other Mekong countries.
China's dam plans will turn the Mekong into a "Chinese River", warned Richard Cronin, the South-east Asian head of the U.S.-based Stimson Centre, in Bangkok this month. In an August article, the Washington-based 'Foreign Policy' publication urged the U.S. government to step into the fray. "Washington's willingness to get involved in the Mekong River dispute could create an almost perfect counterweight to China's strategy," wrote John Lee, visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington D.C.
For now, Beijing's response to growing U.S. criticism is to pursue 'soft power' diplomacy, says a regional analyst. "China wants to assure governments in the lower Mekong that they have nothing to fear."
Source: IPS
Vietnam-Laos power line ready by 2015
July 21, 2010
VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnam and Laos are accelerating the progress of a plan to build a 500-KV transmission line, said a senior official of the Electricity of Laos, a unit under the Lao Ministry of Energy and Mines.
Boungnong Bouttavong, deputy director of the Technical Department of the Electricity of Laos, said on Monday that the power line connecting Vietnam’s Central Highlands city of Pleiku and the southern Lao province of Ban Hatxan was expected to be up and running in 2015.
The project is designed to facilitate electricity trading relations between the two countries and other ASEAN countries.
Speaking to the Daily on the sidelines of the two-day 28th ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting on Energy (SOME 28) in the resort town of Dalat that started on Monday, he said the feasibility study for the project was still underway.
SOME 28 is a main preparative meeting for the 28th ASEAN Ministers on Energy Meeting (AMEM 28) and related activities taking place from July 19 to 23 with a key theme "Energy and Climate Change".
"The developer of the project is Vietnam’s Song Da Corporation, and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) will hopefully be the provider of technical and financial support for the development of this project," he said.
"We hope the construction of the transmission line will be completed by 2015, then Laos will export a total installed capacity of more than 1,000 MW of electricity generated from several hydropower plants in Ban Hatxan to Pleiku City via this 500 KV line," he added.
Bouttavong said one of the hydropower plants in Ban Hatxan had been already constructed by Song Da Corporation. The corporation will continue building more hydropower dams in its broader project in the Lao province with a combined capacity of over 1,000 MW each year.
In the future, the 500 KV transmission line will also be used for the power interconnectivity among ASEAN countries, such as between Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and other ASEAN countries, said the Lao official.
According to Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade, attending AMEM 28 are some 500 international delegates, including energy ministers from 10 ASEAN countries and high-level officials from Japan, South Korea, China, India, New Zealand, Australia, Russia and the U.S.
The meeting covers many important issues in ASEAN, such as inter-connection of ASEAN’s electricity grid and gas pipeline system, coal and energy conservation, renewable energy development, regional energy policies and power interconnection between countries in the Mekong sub-region.
Source: VietNamNet/SGT
Solar future for Cambodia
July 9, 2010
CAMBODIA’S rural electrification fund is planning a bulk purchase of 12,000 solar panel systems next month to help spread green power to rural villagers who are not connected to the national grid, its executive director said.
The REF – a World Bank-supported public institution aiming to provide electricity to every Cambodian village by 2020 – plans to sell the solar panels to rural households on a monthly payment basis, executive director Loeung Keosela said.
Foreign and domestic vendors will be invited to submit bids next month to supply the REF with 12,000 sets of solar panels, batteries and wiring, he said, which will then be sold individually to rural Cambodian households.
“If we procure in bulk sizes, hopefully the cost of individual systems will come down,” he added.
To obtain the new solar equipment, Loeung Keosela said rural families would be required to make a down payment, as well as monthly payments of around US$3 or $4 depending on the size of the system.
Many rural households already spend a similar amount per month on batteries or diesel generators, he said.
The project is funded by the World Bank’s $67.92 million Rural Electrification and Transmission project loan, which is set to expire on January 31, 2012.
The REF previously experimented with grants directly subsidising the cost of solar panels for households, he said, but the plan had limited success. “Only about 90 systems were sold,” he said.
Source: Phnom Pen Post
Lao dams don't impact Mekong River: Lao energy minister
July 6, 2010
VIENTIANE, July 6 - Dams on the Lao tributaries of the Mekong River have no impact on the low water levels currently characterising the Mekong River, said the Lao PDR Minister of Energy and Mines, who affirmed that his country will abide by international agreements if it builds more dams on the Mekong River.
Members of an extraordinary committee studying the alarming drop of the Mekong River's water level, Democrat MP Suthat Ngernmuen, chairing the committee, visited Thailand's neighbour to the northeast to gather data on dam construction and water management in the branches of the Mekong River in Laos.
Minister of Energy and Mines Soulivong Daravong reported to the Thai parliamentary committee that Laos considered the impact on the Mekong River in its operation of the dams.
The Nam Ngum and Nam Theun dams haven't affected the water level in the Mekong River as the waters reserved in the dams will be finally released into the Mekong River. In the past dry season, water from the Nam Theun dam helped increase the water level in the lower Mekong River, so it is not too dry, the Lao minister said.
Speaking about the idea to build a dam on the Mekong River, Mr Soulivong said that the proposal to build Pa Mong Dam on the Mekong mainstream was initiated 30 years ago and the plan was scrapped.
However, while the project may be resumed in the future, it will be a low dam which does not violate conditions agreed by international members. Whether the project resumes or not depends on feasibility studies which will be conducted first to find advantages and disadvantages.
“We have studied so many planned dam construction projects but there has been no decision to build any so far. Two dam projects in Saiyaburi and southern Laos near Cambodian border have been studied,” he said.
He confirmed that Laos will comply with international agreement and regulations transparently, particularly regarding the Saiyaburi dam which is believed to be of potential benefit to both Thailand and Laos.
According to the initial investigation, there are no problems related to flooding but the dams will affect fish stocks. A solution will be worked out on that, he added.
Meanwhile, Khempheng Pholsena, Minister to the Prime Minister's Office, clarified to the committee that the Lao economy this year has grown 7.8 per cent and is targeted to grow eight per cent.
However, Lao development is expected to be done in parallel with environmental conservation, the minister said.
The Lao PDR is targeting an increase in forest areas from the existing 41 per cent of the country to 70 per cent in 2020. (MCOT online news)
Source: MCOT
Nuclear industry blooms in Vietnam
June 17, 2010
The door has been opened for more foreign firms to enter Vietnam's infant nuclear power industry. Opportunities for foreign businesses to take part in nuclear power initiatives in Vietnam are set to be multiplied with the government announcing a series of nuclear power plants to be built up to 2030.
Under Decision 906/QD-TTg signed last week by prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung regarding nuclear power development till 2030, Vietnam will build 14 nuclear power reactors with total capacity of around 15,000-16,000 megawatts, accounting for 10 percent of the country's total electricity capacity. The plants will be built at eight locations in central Ninh Thuan, Binh Dinh, Phu Yen, Quang N gai and Ha Tinh provinces.
The move means more business opportunities are being offered to foreign companies such as China's Dongfang Electric Corporation and Guangdong Nuclear Power Group, France's Areva,
Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Toshiba Corporation and the United States' Westinghouse Electric Company. Foreign partners are allowed to be involved in up to 60-70 percent of a nuclear power project's total construction value.
Vuong Huu Tan, head of Vietnam Atomic Energy Commission, said those foreign companies wanted to provide their advanced technologies to land big contracts after failing to be a contractor for Vietnam's first nuclear power plant in Ninh Thuan province.
"All nuclear power plants must be built by international companies because domestic companies do not have enough experience and technology," said Tan.
Vietnam has started work on its first nuclear power plant in Ninh Thuan which will consist of two 1,000 megawatt reactors. State-owned Electricity of Vietnam last month announced that it was negotiating with a Russian company to build the plant.
Construction of the first plant could be started in 2015 and the second plant in 2021. The first plant is expected to be up and running in 2020.
Francois Nguyen, International Energy Agency's (IEA) senior policy advisor, told the Vietnam Energy Summit in HCM City last week that "nuclear power will become a promising source for generating electricity in developing countries like Vietnam following the world's pressure on energy-related carbon dioxide abatement and desire for renewable and green energy."
He said: "Traditional coal-fired and combined cycle gas turbine generation power is the cheapest sources. However, nuclear power plant development is the most competitive solution regarding financing cost as an environment friendly and proven technology."
Diversifying electricity generation sources would be key to Vietnam's energy security with a mix of coal, gas, hydro and nuclear power, Nguyen stressed, adding that the diversification would help the country reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels.
The National Assembly last year approved the Nuclear Power Law, providing a framework for a nuclear regulatory body and technical support organisations such as nuclear safety and environmental radioactivity monitoring centres.
The country also signed a memorandum of understanding with the US to nurture nuclear plant human resources, upgrade infrastructure, manage radioactive waste, guarantee nuclear security and build light-water nuclear reactors.
Source: Intellasia
Vietnam to build pumped-storage hydropower plant with capacity of 1,500 MW
June 17, 2010
HANOI, June 17 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam is expected to build a pumped-storage hydropower plant with total capacity of 1,500 megawatts in the country's northern mountainous province of Son La in 2013, the government website reported Thursday.
Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai has given an in-principle approval to the construction of the plant, said the report.
The plant will be the first pumped-storage hydroelectric power station in the country and is designed to be an environmentally- friendly one, according to the report.
The pumped-storage hydroelectric power generation method stores energy in the form of water, pumped from a lower elevation reservoir to a higher one at times of low electrical demand. When there is higher demand, the stored water is released back into the lower reservoir through turbines, generating electricity.
The plant is expected to be operational in 2018, according to the report.
Source: XinHuaNews
China, US angle for Mekong influence
June 15, 2010
BANGKOK - The Mekong River is steadily emerging as a testing ground for China's public diplomacy. Beijing, it appears, wants to reach out to its southern neighbors who share the river more as a friendly giant than an imposing bully.
An unprecedented move to lift the veil of secrecy surrounding two of four Chinese built dams on the upper stretches of the river that snakes through southern China is only the latest in a diplomatic shift towards more openness that has been taking shape since mid-March.
On June 7, senior government officials from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam were offered their first glimpse of the newly built Xiaowan dam and the older Jinghong dam as part of a fact-finding tour. It was a groundbreaking journey into the mountainous terrain of China's Yunnan province that had until this month been forbidden territory to officials from the Mekong River Basin countries.
The welcome mat was rolled out by Beijing in early April during the first summit of the Mekong River countries, including Myanmar, in addition to the four basin countries and China. That summit, held in the Thai resort town of Hua Hin, was to mark the 15th anniversary of the 1995 Mekong Agreement, which paved the way for the creation of the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an inter-governmental body of the four lower Mekong countries tasked to manage and develop the basin area.
"The Chinese government indicated at the summit that they would like to be more open with governments in the lower Mekong countries," said MRC spokesman Damian Kean from his headquarters in Vientiane. "It was keen to address the concerns of the lower basin countries."
Some saw a noticeable turning point for China in March as it started to shed its secretive policies about its designs on the Mekong River, which begins its 4,660-kilometer long journey from the Tibetan plateau, heads through Yunnan, then passes Myanmar before snaking its way through the basin to empty out into the South China Sea in southern Vietnam.
What prompted this move, some suggest, was the withering criticism China's four completed dams and plans for several more came under as the river dried up earlier this year, hitting lows not seen in the past 50 years in some areas of the basin. There are approximately 60 million people living in the basin, many of whom depend on fishing in the Mekong for their livelihoods.
Significantly, Beijing offered its olive branch through Thailand, the Southeast Asian country where most of the anti-dam criticism by environmental and grassroots activists emerged. Groups like Save the Mekong Coalition, a Bangkok-based network, had earlier declared that the "changes to the Mekong River's daily hydrology and sediment load since the early 1990s have already been linked to the operation of the [Chinese] dam cascade".
Chen Dehai, a diplomat from China's embassy in Bangkok, held a press conference in March that broke Beijing's silence about the dams, which has prevailed since the Manwan, the first of the China's dams built on the upper Mekong, came on line in 1992.
The Chinese dams were not the reason for the record drop in the Mekong's water level during this year's dry season, Chen told reporters. "The average annual runoff volume of the Lancang River at the outbound point [of China] is approximately 64 billion cubic meters, accounting for only 13.5 percent of the Mekong's run off volume at the [South China] sea outlet," he said, using the Chinese name for the Mekong.
Another Chinese diplomat echoed this view during a rare appearance at a discussion about the Mekong held on April 1 at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. Yao Wen, the first secretary to the Chinese mission in Bangkok, said the Xiaowan, the largest of the dams, had begun to impound water since July 2009, but that such operations had stopped at the beginning of the dry season.
During his visit to Bangkok in March, Hu Zhengyue, China's assistant foreign minister, reportedly offered reassuring words of friendship to its Mekong neighbors. "China would not do anything to damage mutual interest with neighboring countries in the Mekong," Hu was reported to have told Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.
"China has realized that its past approach of avoiding public engagement and public diplomacy with the lower Mekong countries has not worked," said Carl Middleton, Mekong program coordinator for International Rivers, a US-based environmental lobby.
Yet what seems lacking so far is recognition by Beijing of its past errors in building four dams without consulting communities in the lower Mekong, Middleton said. "People need to be compensated for the past errors."
The information about the dams that China is now willing to share with the lower Mekong countries and the MRC should be given to the communities in the lower Mekong, he added. "China needs to recognize that the Mekong is a shared river if regional peace and prosperity is to be achieved."
Achieving such regional peace is in Beijing's interest for geopolitical reasons, say analysts, in the wake of new interest shown by the US government to help manage and develop the Mekong river, which Washington arguably lost interest in soon after its defeat during the US war in Vietnam.
In mid-May, the MRC and the Mississippi River Commission inked their first deal for river management cooperation, confirming a plan that was unveiled last July by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during the first-ever US-Lower Mekong Ministerial Meeting in the southern Thai resort of Phuket.
During that visit, Clinton also signed the Treaty of Amity, a regional security deal that Beijing had already signed in 2003. "China's public diplomacy to reach out to the lower Mekong countries is a direct response to the US signing the Treaty of Amity last year," said Kavi Chongkittavorn, a columnist on regional affairs for The Nation, an English-language daily in Thailand. "Beijing lost the advantage it had and cannot afford to have a negative image in the region."
Source: AsiaTimes
Government establishes nuclear power steering board in Vietnam
May 6, 2010
In Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has decided to set up the Steering Board for the nuclear power project in Ninh Thuan province, which is chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai. The board's vice chairmen include three Deputy Ministers of Industry and Trade, Science and Technology, Construction, the Chairman of the National Assembly's Committee for Science-Technology and Environment and the Chairman of Ninh Thuan province. Other members of the board comprise officials of the Electricity of Vietnam Group, some ministries and Ninh Thuan province.
With the agreement of 77.48 percent of deputies, the National Assembly on November 25, 2009 approved the resolution to construct the first nuclear power plants in Ninh Thuan province. The National Assembly agreed to build two nuclear power plants in Ninh Thuan, with two turbines each supplying power to the national grid. The first plant, named Ninh Thuan 1, will be based in Phuoc Dinh commune, Thuan Nam District while the second one, named Ninh Thuan 2, will be built in Vinh Hai commune, Ninh Hai district, with a capacity of around 2,000 MW each. The capacity of the largest power plant in Vietnam at present, the Hoa Binh hydroelectricity plant, is 1920 MW.
According to the NA's decision, the two plants will have pressured water reactor technology, the most modern generation of reactors at the time the project was designed. The estimated funding in late 2008 for the two plants is around 200 trillion dong the construction of the first plant will be kicked off in 2014 and the first turbine will be put into operation in 2020. The largest investor of the first nuclear power projects is the state power monopoly, Electricity of Vietnam (EVN).
Source: VietNamNet Bridge
Nuclear firm in China to rope in new strategic investors
April 30, 2010
BEIJING: Nuclear power plant operator China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group (CGNPG) is planning to rope in new strategic investors as part of its plan to launch an initial public offering (IPO), a source familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
"CGNPG is planning to bring in new investors to replace some of the existing shareholders, and is a precursor to the company's long term plan of going public," the source told China Daily on condition of anonymity. Earlier reports said China Three Gorges Corp, which operates the Three Gorges project, is in talks to buy the 45 percent stake owned by China National Nuclear Corp (CNNC) in CGNPG.
According to a report by Guangdong-based newspaper 21st Century Business Herald, China Three Gorges Corp plans to increase its share holding in CGNPG to 70 percent over the long term. The paper said the two companies would be merged at a later stage. The plan has been sent to the State Council, and is expected to be announced in two months, said the report.
Pan Hongyan, a spokeswoman of China Three Gorges Corp, however, denied the reports on Thursday. "We haven't talked with CNNC nor CGNPG for the deal," she said. Industry insiders said it was logical for the two energy companies to deepen their cooperation. Further credence to this stems from the fact that China Three Gorges Corp is cash-rich and has the wherewithal to make such an investment, they said.
China Three Gorges Corp, the operator of the world's largest hydropower project, plans to increase its power output by 12 percent annually over the next decade. Power generation of the company is expected to reach 320 billion kWh in 2020, the company said on its website.
The company will also take part in development of other clean energies actively, it said. For instance, it will develop wind power and nuclear power in eastern China.
By the end of February, CGNPG had 4,000 megawatts of nuclear power capacity under operation. It is also building 21,000 megawatts of nuclear power capacity at present.
The company is also developing other clean energies including wind power and solar power. Its wind power capacity has exceeded 1,300 megawatts, the company said. China has approved construction of 28 nuclear power reactors, among which 20 have started construction, Sun Youqi, vice-president of CNNC, said in March.
China plans to increase its nuclear power capacity to 70-80 gigawatts by 2020, Huang Li, an official with the National Energy Administration (NEA), said in March. Given the rapid development of the industry, the figure is still conservative, she said.
By: Mao Lijun, Wan Zhihong and Chen Jialu
Source: China Daily
Mekong could be in danger
April 8, 2010
Children swim in the Mekong River in Phnom Penh this week. A report released Wednesday says that upstream dams - including one to be constructed in Kratie province - pose a significant threat to the livelihoods of millions who are dependent on the river.
A MASSIVE dam slated to be built on the Mekong River in Kratie province is one of two projects that pose an even greater threat to human and food security and livelihoods than similar projects in China, according to a new report that calls for a moratorium on dams along the river.
The report, released Wednesday afternoon in Washington by the Henry L Stimson Centre, a nonpartisan think tank promoting international peace and security, raises an alarm about the US$5 billion Sambor Rapids dam as well as the US$300 million Don Sahong dam project in Laos, even as, in the aftermath of this week's Mekong River Commission summit, international attention has been focused on the potential harm caused to the river by Chinese-built dams.
"These two dams, more than others planned further north, threaten critical migratory paths for 70 percent of the most commercially valuable species of wild fish," states the report, titled Mekong Tipping Point: Hydropower Dams, Human Security and Regional Stability.
Richard Cronin, the report's lead author and a senior associate and director of the Stimson Centre's Southeast Asia programme, raised similar concerns about the Sambor Rapids project during testimony before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission in February, saying it would "create a total barrier to the spawning migration" of fish that travel through the Hou Sahong channel in the Khone Falls area of southern Laos.
In a prepared statement, Cronin said the Hou Sahong channel is "the only one of 18 channels that allows unimpeded year-round spawning migration by hundreds of fish species that are worth as much as $9 billion or more annually, and which supply up to 80 percent of the animal protein of as many as 60 million people".
Carl Middleton, Mekong programme coordinator for the International Rivers organisation, emphasised similar points on Wednesday, saying: "The Don Sahong and Sambor dams would block the major fish migrations that provide food security and livelihoods for millions of people who live alongside the Tonle Sap Lake and Mekong River."
According to International Rivers, the Cambodian government in 2006 granted permission for the China Southern Power Grid Company to prepare a feasibility study for the dam, which it states will have a capacity of 3,300 megawatts and be completed by 2030 at the earliest. About 70 percent of the electricity generated by the dam is expected to be exported to Vietnam.
In comparison, the Don Sahong project, to be developed in southern Laos by the Malaysian company MegaFirst Corporation Berhad, is expected to be completed by 2015 and generate between 240 and 360MW, much of which is expected to go to Thailand.
The report says that Mekong River Commission countries - Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam - should impose a moratorium on dam construction on the Mekong and on tributaries that are important for fish reproduction.
That moratorium, it states, should remain in effect until standards are established for environmental and socioeconomic impact studies and cost-benefit analyses of dam proposals, as well as for plans to cope with threats to livelihoods resulting from the projects.
Along with eight dams planned for China's Yunnan province, the report says, as many as 13 dams planned on the Lower Mekong in Laos, Thailand and Cambodia would "have an incalculable impact on human and food security and livelihoods in the whole Mekong Basin".
"Incredibly," it says, "there is no evidence that any country planning to build mainstream dams has made any provisions for alternative livelihoods or new sources of food security."
Though the harmful effects of the dams - particularly with respect to wild fish stocks - are likely to materialise quickly, the development of alternative employment options will take years, the report states.
In both Laos and Cambodia, it says, power generated by downstream dams will likely aid the industrialisation of Thailand, while Laotians and Cambodians will be forced to either work across the border or find new ways to earn a living. "These projects also pose a direct threat to the hard earned peace and stability of the Mekong Region and mainland Southeast Asia," the report states.
Pich Dun, secretary general of the Cambodia National Mekong River Commission, on Wednesday rejected the idea that the dam projects could lead to regional tension. "It's impossible to have any conflicts between the countries in the Mekong region," he said. "The MRC members have the right to develop dams, but in this regard there should be discussions before any building can take place."
He also said he was not concerned that the Sambor Rapids dam or any other proposed projects for the Lower Mekong would result in undue hardship for those who depend on the river for survival. "Whenever there is development there will be some damage.... We'll need to discuss how to minimise the effect," he said.
Asked about plans to mitigate the effects of the Sambor Rapids project, he said he could not comment on them in detail because he had not seen "the technical documents of the plan".
By: Steve Hirsch
FINLAND FUTURES RESEARCH CENTRE