Energy

The water is so clear on the Mekong River in northeastern Thailand that the sunlight pierces through to the riverbed, transforming the waterway into a glinting, empty aquarium. It is beautiful but it means death. At this time of year in Thailand, this stretch of the ...

Hydropower dams, which use flowing water to turn a series of turbines to generate electricity, provide a source of energy that doesn’t rely on fossil fuels. But they also disrupt the flow of rivers, and impact the fish and people that live there. Scientists have been ...

The Mekong River Commission (MRC) held a forum last week in Laos to discuss with other Mekong nations before going ahead with construction of a Luang Prabang hydropower project on Mekong River. The Lao government presented detail of the Luang Prabang hydropower project in the ninth ...

A 700 megawatt (mW) coal-fired power plant has been approved for development in Koh Kong’s Botum Sakor district by the Cabinet. The $1.5 billion investment in the Independent Power Producer (IPP) plant is a  venture by Cambodian tycoon Okhna Kith Meng’s Royal Group. A source familiar with ...

Myitsone Dam project is well known for its controversial impact on Myanmar’s political landscape, as it involves on and off pressure from China to restart the project in line with the signed contract as soon as possible. But what is less prominent is the controversy over ...

In a momentous win for the Mekong River, this week the Thai Cabinet formally called for cancellation of the Lancang-Mekong Navigation Channel Improvement Project, popularly known as the Mekong “rapids-blasting” project.The cabinet decision is the culmination of decades of campaigning by Thai Mekong communities and ...

Rights groups and researchers have welcomed Thailand’s decision to cancel a Beijing-backed project to dredge and blow open a shallow and rocky stretch of the Mekong River along the Thai-Lao border. The move is a rare victory for groups and communities fighting to save Southeast Asia’s ...

On a wide bank of the Mekong River, yellow markers and visits by surveyors show preparations underway to build Laos’ third and largest dam on Southeast Asia’s most vital waterway. About an hour downstream, in the laid-back tourist centre of Luang Prabang, the dam’s developers heard ...

Việt Nam is pursuing an ambitious plan to become a global agricultural powerhouse by 2030, according to Government Resolution 53/NQ-CP. The resolution stipulates that Việt Nam must aim to rank among the world’s top 15 most developed agricultural countries and a global hub for agricultural logistics ...

NASA and the United States Geological Survey’s (USGS) Landsat 8 satellite captured images of the Mekong river before and after it turned from its signature brown to an unusual aquamarine color. According to authorities, it is possible for the green color to persist until the ...