Energy

Electricity production

Mekong drowned in water politics

The mighty Mekong River is the heart and soul of Southeast Asia. Millions of livelihoods are linked to it, especially in terms of food, energy and water security. Besides giving birth to one of the planet’s most biodiverse river basins, the transboundary nature of the ...

EDITORIAL

Vietnam and Thailand attract German solar energy funds

A German crowd investing platform for green energy is looking to further expand in Southeast Asia after most recently acquiring a Thai solar project.  Ecoligo bought SEA Rooftop Solar, the Thai solar subsidiary of German utility giant RWE, in December. With the deal, whose price has not been disclosed, ...

JENS KASTNER

China Belatedly Notifies Mekong Nations of River Disruption

Earlier this week, I wrote about the sudden drop in water levels along the Mekong River in northern Thailand, and their likely link to the filling of a dam reservoir upstream in China. The fall first became apparent on January 4, when locals in the Thai port town ...

Sebastian Strangio

Mekong Levels Reportedly Plummet Due to Chinese Dam Activity

Water levels on the Mekong River have fallen due to the filling of a Chinese dam on the upper reaches of the river in Yunnan province, according to locals and river monitors. The fall was reported on January 4, when locals in the Thai port town ...

Sebastian Strangio

China notifies Mekong River neighbours it is holding back waters

China has notified downstream neighbours it is holding back the Mekong River flow at a hydropower dam on the waterway’s upper reaches for 20 days, as part of a new data-sharing pact, the Mekong River Commission (MRC) and Thailand said on Wednesday. The statements came a ...

Panu Wongcha-um, Kay Johnson

Lao Plan to Build Another Big Mekong Dam Dismays Villagers, Concerns Thais

Laos is preparing to build what will be its seventh of nine planned large-scale Mekong River mainstream dams, the latest project in its controversial economic strategy to become the “battery of Southeast Asia,” sources in the country told RFA. The 728-megawatt Phou Ngoy Dam, with a ...

Reported by RFA’s Lao Service. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Analysis: Years in the making, Vietnam’s Mekong Delta policy takes the long view

Vietnam’s Mekong Delta is approximately the same size as the Netherlands — about 41,000 square kilometers (16,000 square miles) — and is home to 17 million people, very nearly the same population as the Netherlands. Perhaps that made dialogue easier. Unlike many foreign experts, the Dutch ...

David Brown

Analysis: How Vietnam came to embrace a new vision of the Mekong Delta’s future

On any list of places menaced by climate change, Vietnam’s broad and fertile Mekong Delta ranks near the top. And yet, as I wrote for Mongabay four years ago, rising seas and changing weather patterns are not the only threats to the delta’s fabled fecundity. A spasm of ...

David Brown

Hydropower vs Heritage: Will Laos Lose Luang Prabang?

The Lao government’s high-risk plan to install a massive dam on the Mekong River, perilously close to the renowned UNESCO World Heritage site of Luang Prabang, shows a disregard for its legal obligations to protect the renowned site, according to conservation experts. Minja Yang, the former ...

Tom Fawthrop

More dams would devastate the ailing Mekong River

Once, not that long ago, the Mekong River in Southeast Asia was a formidable waterway. Navigating much of the 4,350km-long river was a real challenge. The Mekong, which originates in China and empties into the South China Sea in Vietnam after passing through four other ...

Daniel T Cross

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