Energy
Laos urged to conduct impact studies
Member countries of the Mekong River Commission have sent a request to the Lao government to carry out thorough impact studies prior to the construction of the Pak Lay hydropower dam in order to minimise risks in the future. Keep reading ...
It’s decision time for Southeast Asia as power demand soars
Southeast Asia’s energy demand is expected to grow by two-thirds by 2040, requiring massive investment in new energy generation and transmission. Installed capacity will double from 240 gigawatts to 565 gigawatts, which amounts to adding a bit more than Japan’s total electricity capacity. Keep reading ...
How China’s Big Overseas Initiative Threatens Global Climate Progress
China’s Belt and Road Initiative is a colossal infrastructure plan that could transform the economies of nations around the world. But with its focus on coal-fired power plants, the effort could obliterate any chance of reducing emissions and tip the world into catastrophic climate change. Read ...
Environmental damage continues months after Laos dam collapse
IN July, a hydroelectric dam collapse in Laos released five billion cubic meters of water into surrounding countryside – the equivalent of two million Olympic swimming pools. The resulting flood killed dozens, devastated communities, forced thousands to flee and ripped through areas of protected rainforest. The ...
Dams threaten traditional way of life in Mekong Basin
Sak Siam, 69, chief of Chnok Tru, a village in central Cambodia, is worried. The floating village of about 1,700 households is located on a tributary of the Mekong River. “The villagers will be unable to survive if the fish catch decreases further,” he said. Hydroelectric ...
Best of 2018: Disaster after disaster on the Mekong
From sea to source, the Mekong River stretches nearly 5,000 km through six countries. More than 60 million people depend on its waters for survival, and it is second only to the Amazon in its biodiversity. Photographers Gareth Bright and Luke Forsyth spent eighteen months travelling ...
The last 92 Irrawaddy dolphins in Mekong River may not survive
Experts are concerned that the Mekong dolphin is unlikely to survive Cambodia’s modernisation as a new dam is planned. It says, “building dams destroy habitats” and lists threats to dolphins, including pollutions and gillnets. It looks like an insect-eaten papyrus. The Irrawaddy dolphin is a critically endangered ...
Nathan A. Thompson
Researchers seek alternatives to Mekong River hydropower dam
The Mekong River, flowing from the Tibetan Plateau through Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam to the South China Sea, is a hotbed of ecological diversity. The roughly 60 million people who live in the region, many in poverty, depend on the river and its ...
ASEAN countries lag on renewable energy
Renewable energy sources include mainly biomass, waste to energy technology, wind, solar, run-of-river, impounding hydropower sources, ocean, geothermal and hybrid systems. The current renewable energy surge is due largely to booming solar panel deployment in China and throughout the world. It grew by 50 per ...
Lao Dam Collapse Creates Hardship for Student Far From Floodwaters
Laos’ worst flooding in decades — the rupture of a dam in July that inundated 12 villages and killed at least 43 people, leaving hundreds more missing – is still reverberating far away in the capital of the poor, landlocked country. Survivors of the flooding ...
