Circle Of Blue | By: Keith Schneider | GPE – December 12, 2017:
In unfolding global energy revolution, expensive and ecologically risky dams may not be right choice to generate more electricity.
The bend in the Mekong River where Laotian authorities want to build the Pak Beng hydropower dam is described as one of the most beautiful stretches along all of the 4,000-kilometer (2700-mile) river. High bluffs tower above farm fields and tropical forests. Fishing villages lie along the shoreline. The deep and dark waters teem with fish and birds soar above the shallows.
Laos’ plan to build the 912-megawatt, $2.3 billion dam is a step in one of the world’s most aggressive hydropower development programs. The tiny landlocked nation of 7.1 million people is setting out to build 350 hydropower projects and add 26,000 megawatts (26 gigawatts) to the 6,300 megawatts of electrical generating capacity that Laos currently produces from its 42 operating hydropower dams. Along with the Pak Beng dam, two are under construction downstream, and three more are planned to cross the Mekong River.
“The Department of Energy has the ambitious plan to raise the electrification ratio to 95 percent of families across the country,” Xaypaseuth Phomsoupha, a director general in the Laos Ministry of Energy and Mines, told an international water and hydropower conference last year. “This plan is amongst the priorities of the government to eradicate poverty in the country.”
It is also a plan that is seen by many villagers, the region’s environmental organizations, and some officials in neighboring countries as making a mockery of the Mekong’s natural beauty and its central value as a source of fish, irrigation, and businesses that better fit conditions of the 21st century…
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