Energy
Hydro standards ‘below par’, study finds
Chinese money accounts for the overwhelming majority of investment in Cambodia’s anaemic energy sector, but while the government has been happy to take Beijing’s loans for the construction of hydroelectric plants, a study published last month found that such investment came with both ecological and ...
Rough seas impede oil spill cleanup
Thailand’s Marine Department on 27 February said it had not been able to clean up the oil spill from the capsized cruise liner Ocean Dream off Koh Nok in Chon Buri’s Si Racha district due to high winds and waves impeding their operations. In a press statement, the department ...
Power reaches villages high up in the mountains
Life has become different, and easier, for people who live high up in Vietnam’s mountains. That is because electricity has come to places in Lai Chau Province where there had not been electricity in the past. Sometimes people there would make electricity from an oil generator but the ...
Thai communities vow to appeal against Laos dam
Even after losing a battle in the Thailand Administrative Court, a group of Thai villagers are not giving up. They have filed appeal after losing the first community-led lawsuit in the region to challenge a large dam on the Mekong river. On 25 Dec 2015 the ...
Programme to focus on sustainable production
Seventy per cent of enterprises with high energy needs and emissions and 50 per cent of industrial production establishments will apply clean and energy-saving technologies by 2020. This is the agenda of a newly approved national action programme on sustainable production and consumption for the period ...
Families displaced by dam get new houses
Some 14 families of 85 people who recently moved to make way for the construction of the Don Sahong hydropower project in Champassak province have received new houses. The houses were handed over on 15 February in Don Sahong village, Khong district, in the presence of provincial ...
The Mekong river: Damned if you do
The Mekong watershed nurtures extraordinary biodiversity, with new species of plants and animals discovered every year. It has also nurtured humans. Tens of millions of people—much of the population of Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam—depend on the Mekong. Planners think the Mekong has a gift to give: hydropower. ...
Cambodian CSOs seek Lao dam discussion at summit
Frustrated by Laos ploughing ahead with its controversial Don Sahong dam despite past promises to consult neighbouring countries, Cambodian civil society representatives have called on Prime Minister Hun Sen, US President Barack Obama and ASEAN chair Le Luong Minh to raise the issue at next week’s ...
Attapeu hopes to build wind power
The wind speeds in some parts of Attapeu province are sufficient for the development of wind power in the neighbourhood however wind turbines are not yet seen there. Director of the provincial Energy and Mines Department Mr Vithaya Phommachanh told Vientiane Times on 10 February that there ...
Action programme on sustainable production and consumption approved
Seventy per cent of enterprises in Vietnam with high energy needs and emissions and 50 per cent of industrial production establishments will apply clean and energy-saving technologies by 2020. This is the agenda of a newly approved national action programme on sustainable production and consumption for ...