Will 'world's biggest' hydro power project light up Africa?

Will 'world's biggest' hydro power project light up Africa?
By Teo Kermeliotis, for CNN
June 28, 2013 -- Updated 1126 GMT (1926 HKT)

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/28/business/biggest-hydropower-grand-inga-congo/index.html

The government of the DRC is seeking to harness the power potential of the Congo river by building Grand Inga, expected to be the world's biggest hydroelectric project when completed. The government of the DRC is seeking to harness the power potential of the Congo river by building Grand Inga, expected to be the world's biggest hydroelectric project when completed.

DR Congo moving ahead with plans to build the world's biggest hydroelectric project
When complete, Grand Inga could have a massive capacity of 40,000 megawatts
Project construction will begin in October 2015
But critics argue that the project will only serve the mining firms and not benefit the rural poor

(CNN) -- The world will have seen nothing like it.

It is being hailed as the holy grail for power, the biggest hydroelectric project ever built that would harness sub-Saharan Africa's greatest river and light up half of the continent.

But will the ambitious plan to tame the mighty Congo River, a mega-project first conceived in the 1970s, finally get going and what will be its actual impact?

Last month, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo announced in Paris that the construction of the first phase of a new set of energy projects at the country's Inga Falls would begin in October 2015. The new $12 billion development, dubbed Inga 3, is expected to have a power output of nearly 4,800 megawatts (MW), with South Africa agreeing to buy half of the electricity generated.
Grand Inga site. Click to expandGrand Inga site. Click to expand

But the DRC government's bold vision ultimately involves five further stages that would complete the "Grand Inga" mega-project, giving it an astonishing capacity of 40,000 MW -- that's twice as much as the Three Gorges dam in China, currently the world's largest hydro project.

When completed, Grand Inga could provide more than 500 million people with renewable energy, say its proponents.

"A myth dreamed of for 40 years, Grand Inga is becoming a reality with an action plan spread over several plants which will be added in stages," the DRC government said in a statement after the Paris meeting.

Powerful river

With a length of 4,700 kilometers, the Congo is Africa's second biggest river, after the Nile, and the world's second largest river in terms of flow, after the Amazon. At the Grand Inga site, some 1.5 million cubic feet of water flow steadily through a network of cataracts every second, dropping about 100 meters to form the world's biggest waterfall by volume.
Ethiopia builds infrastructure for growth
Zambia's investment in infrastructure

Yet the power potential from the river's rapids has largely gone unexploited in a country plagued by violence and corruption for decades -- just 11.1% of the DRC's population has access to electricity, according to the World Bank.

So far, the only two projects built to tap Congo's potential are two smaller dams -- Inga 1, commissioned in 1972, and Inga 2, a decade later. Both of them are almost exclusively used to provide energy for the mining companies in the southern DRC's copper belt but are currently undergoing extensive rehabilitation as they perform far below capacity.

Seeking funds

The DRC government hasn't yet decided on the developer of Inga 3, but three consortia from China, Spain and Korea/Canada are the frontrunners in the competitive selection process. The financing will come from both public and private sources: the Africa Development Bank, the World Bank, the French Development Agency, the European Investment Bank and the Development Bank of Southern Africa have all been named as potential contributors.

But will the DRC, a country with a risky investor profile, be able to raise enough money to build the mammoth project? Some say that with $12 billion required just for Inga 3 -- the entire project has an estimated cost of $80 billion -- it's going to be an extremely tough and complex task to find the huge sums needed.

"It almost defies imagination that this kind of money is going to be available," says James Leigland, technical adviser to the Private Infrastructure Development Group. He notes that several different players will "have to come to the party with equity," from multilaterals, commercial and national development banks to the DRC government and the developer of the project.

"It is hard to imagine how all of this is going to fall into place," says Leigland. "They've started, they've made a commitment to proceed on the basis that South Africa will take a huge amount of the power, but getting from here to there it's just a very long road," he adds.

Transferring power

Indeed, the pledge by energy-hungry South Africa to purchase about half of Inga 3's future power production is essential for the project to attract finance and get going.

The two countries are currently negotiating a treaty to finalize the details of a power purchasing agreement, including the construction of transmission lines to transfer 2,500 MW of Inga 3's production to South Africa. The exact routing of the energy corridor is not yet defined, but it is expected to be over land, through different countries in the southern part of the continent.

A World Bank spokesperson told CNN that such power exports could potentially raise considerable revenues for the DRC. "With energy resources on this scale, DRC can play a pivotal role in meeting not only its future domestic energy needs for poverty reduction and economic development, but also the energy needs at regional and continental levels," said the spokesperson.
Development of projects like Inga 3 and subsequent Grand Inga is essential for growth, more jobs and improved well-being in Africa.
World Bank spokesperson

"With only one in 10 Congolese households having access to electricity, development of projects like Inga 3 and subsequent Grand Inga is essential for growth, more jobs and improved well-being in Africa."

Power to the people?

Yet, not everyone agrees. With half of Inga 3's power traveling south, and nearly all of Inga 1 and 2's energy bypassing the DRC's rural communities to be consumed by the mining industry, critics say the country's poor will see no benefits from the project.

"All the electricity that will be generated from Inga 3 is for commercial purposes and nothing is going to supply the communities," says Rudo Sanyanga of International Rivers, an NGO working against destructive riverside projects.

"The assumption being promoted is that by developing Grand Inga and exporting, or supplying the mines, will then create jobs in the mining industry and it will trickle down to the community -- but it has never worked," adds Sanyanga.

Instead of pouring billions into mega-schemes, the group argues there are less costly and more effective solutions that can be deployed to tackle the continent's energy poverty, especially wind, solar and micro hydropower projects.

"They should prioritize decentralized energy and have a combination of grid and off-grid planning," says Sanyanga. "If they really want to get electricity to the people, not only in the rural areas but as well as in the cities, they have to have another plan which is cheaper than grid development."
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Will Ethiopia's 'grand' new dam steal Nile waters from Egypt?

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

Will Ethiopia's 'grand' new dam steal Nile waters from Egypt?

Africa's largest hydropower project, a new 6,000-megawatt dam on the Blue Nile, has sparked a row between Egypt and Ethiopia. But it could increase the overall water flow in the Nile.

By William Davison, Correspondent / June 25, 2013

Egypt is newly worried about a huge Ethiopian dam now under construction on the Nile's main tributary – a concern that reflects arid Egypt's overwhelming reliance on the world's longest river.

Egypt and the Nile are bound together: The Nile, called "God's gift to Egypt," helped the nation become one of the first agricultural civilizations, and it still supports most farming there.

But Ethiopia – the source of almost 86 percent of the water flowing to Egypt – is equally adamant that it has been denied a fair share of the river by agreements between Sudan and Egypt in the 1950s that divided the river between them.

Ethiopia two years ago started building what will be Africa's largest dam on the Blue Nile. It is a clear indication, despite anger from Egypt, that upstream Nile countries will no longer simply accept what they feel are inequitable water-sharing deals.

Ethiopia says its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, 20 miles from the Sudanese border, will not be used for irrigation. That means that once the 6,000-megawatt hydropower station is at full generating capacity, it will not consume precious water flowing to Egypt. 

Yet Ethiopia's decision on how quickly or slowly to fill a needed reservoir with Nile water flowing toward Egypt, plus potential rates of evaporation, are major potential sources of contention between the two nations.

After heated rhetoric, including military threats by Egypt and an unbending response by Ethiopia, the nations' two foreign ministers met last week. They agreed to study the dam's potential impact – but only as construction proceeds.

Ethiopia aims to fill the needed new dam reservoir quickly, in five years, to start generating power. Experts say five years is ambitious. They argue that wildly varying levels of rainfall in the Blue Nile basin requires a flexible approach. The job may take 20 years, in this view.  

To divert water into the new reservoir quickly, especially in low-rain years, may bring harm downstream, they say.

Long-term strategy

Yet in the long run, the Nile water can be conserved by moving storage away from inefficient dams such as the Aswan High Dam, which straddles the scorching border of Egypt and Sudan, and into cooler Ethiopia where there is lower evaporation.

As for evaporation rates, no consensus or exact science exists. But more usage and storage in Sudan and Ethiopia – and a reduced volume at Aswan – could save some 4 billion cubic meters of water a year, some studies say.  

When it is filled, Ethiopia's new reservoir or artificial lake will be about half the size of the US state of Rhode Island. Filling may start towards the end of next year, and swallow hills, forests, roads, bridges, and villages in this far-flung corner of western Ethiopia.

Last month, Italian dam builder Salini Costrutorri hosted a ceremony to mark the diversion of the Blue Nile as part of the construction process.

Flash point: the filling of the reservoir

While that step raised ire in Egypt, it is more the reservoir filling that is a "major concern" to Sudan and Egypt, said an Ethiopian government official,  Debretsion Gebremichael, who wore a red cap marked Salini in the sweltering opening ceremony.

The volume of water to be captured in the reservoir is 74 billion cubic meters (bcm), according to project documents. That figure is almost equivalent to the entire annual volume of the Nile that flows into Egypt's High Aswan Dam, or 84 bcm.

If Ethiopia decided unilaterally to fill the reservoir as quickly as possible, that would be disastrous for Sudan and Egypt. It would consume the entire flow of the Blue Nile, or around 54 bcm, for more than a year.

The Ethiopian ministry of water and energy says it wants to fill the reservoir over a period of five or six years. Mr. Debretsion says Ethiopia is willing to "accommodate" other nations.

To fill the dam over a six-year period would mean 14 to 18 percent less Nile water moving to Egypt each of those years, if rainfall is average and the dam is filled evenly. That is the idea in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.

Experts say that idea may not be so simple. It is unlikely that water can be impounded evenly in an area where rainfall and river volumes vary dramatically, says Simon Langan, director of Nile Basin and East African studies at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI).

Ethiopia's Blue Nile, for example, has run as high as 70 bcm in 1929, and as low as 30 bcm in 1972 and 1984, this from a 2008 study of sediment in the Nile by Abdalla Abdelsalam Ahmed, a UN water expert from Sudan.

"They will draw 'excess' water during the wet season," Mr. Langan says. "With some proactive management, hopefully it could be varied even more with greater amounts of water in wet years and smaller amounts in drier summers."

Most of the Blue Nile's flow follows a three-month rainy season in the Ethiopian highlands that ends around September.

Filling the dam only during rainy season in wet years would mean "the effects on downstream users may be quite small," says Aanund Killingtveit, professor of hydrolics and environmental engineering at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

But that approach could take decades, argues Paul Block, an expert on from Drexel University in Philadelphia, who has been modeling the impact of the reservoir filling in light of climatic variability.

The approach to capturing water needs to be "flexible" depending on how much rain falls in Ethiopia's Blue Nile basin, Langan says. If the first few years of filling were "drier years this could have drastic implications," agrees Mr. Block, who is a professor of civil engineering and an expert on climate risk modeling and hydrologic forecasting.

Unpredictable future rainfull patterns complicate a scenario where Ethiopia wants to fill the dam as quickly as possible to generate electricity for export.

If Ethiopia fills the dam with 25 percent flow of the Blue Nile per year, the dam will fill in 11 years, says Block; if Ethiopia diverts only 10 percent, the time will extend past two decades, he figures.

Michael Hammond, a hydrologist from Exeter University in the UK, says such figures are about right. Yet even with less water in Aswan's reservoir, which holds a huge 150 bcm, Egypt may not lose out.

"My understanding is that if the impoundment is managed and operated well, Egypt could be assured a highly reliable supply of 55 bcm per year," Mr. Hammond argues. This is the figure Egypt set in a historic 1959 deal with Sudan.

Evaporation rates can be managed by small-scale conservation and reduce the some-500 bcm current loss in Ethiopia's highlands, says Langan. When the Renaissance dam is at full volume, it may have a loss only a fifth of the Aswan Dam's evaporation, or 10 bcm a year, according to the numbers offered by Block, whose studies are about to be peer-reviewed.


--
William Davison
Bloomberg News
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Eth. Mobile: +251 913 415 322
U.K. Mobile +44 784 552 9316
Skype: william.davison2
Twitter: @wdavison10

REN21 Report: A Sustainable Energy Future is Within Our Grasp

A Sustainable Energy Future is Within Our Grasp
Susanne Wong and Peter Bosshard
International Rivers, 06/25/2013
www.internationalrivers.org/node/8024

The staggering growth in renewable energy has the potential to
fundamentally change the way we generate and use power. Previously
dismissed as marginal technologies, renewables have become "increasingly
mainstream and competitive with conventional energy sources." This is
the conclusion of a new report on the global status of renewable
energies by the REN21 Network.

The new report finds that investment in renewable power (not including
large hydropower projects) and fuels reached $244 billion last year. If
only net investments (in projects which add rather than replace
generating capacity) are considered, global investment in renewables
surpassed investment in fossil fuels for the third year in a row.

Renewable energy technologies have also overtaken large hydropower
projects as a source of new power generating capacity. In 2012, a
whopping 45 gigawatts (GW) of new wind power plants came online. Solar
power added 30 GW - on par with large hydropower - and has now surpassed
the milestone of 100 GW.

The REN21 report finds that renewable energies can make up a much higher
share of electricity systems than was previously thought possible. In
2011, over 40% of Denmark’s electricity came from renewables,
primarily wind and biomass. The country recently announced plans to
source 100% of its energy needs from renewables by 2050.

The report finds that "renewables can reduce electricity prices
considerably and thus alleviate energy costs for consumers." According
to financial experts, these technologies are "coming to be seen as among
the lowest-risk investments." Finally, renewable energy is creating a
lot of jobs. In 2012, the sector directly or indirectly employed an
estimated 5.7 million people around the world.

Renewable energy plants are not only cleaner than large dams and thermal
power plants; they are also more effective in improving energy access
for the rural poor. While investment in industrialized countries
actually dropped in 2012, investment in developing countries expanded
rapidly. Already, the REN21 network finds, renewables "have proven to be
both reliable and affordable means for achieving access to modern energy
services. And they are only growing more so as technological advances
and rapidly falling prices (particularly for solar PV and wind power)
enable renewables to spread to new markets."

China, South Africa, Morocco, Mexico, Chile and Kenya brought about
particularly sharp increases in renewable energy capacity. In Morocco,
over 3,600 villages were electrified using off-grid systems and
mini-grids based on renewables. The Economic Community of West African
States plans to use mini-grids to provide electricity to 104 million
people by 2030, according to its 2012 renewable energy policy. Over 170
million people lack energy access in the region.

While renewable energy capacity is expanding rapidly, the growth rate
was even higher in 2011 than 2012. The REN21 Network reports that
investment slumped by about 35 percent in Europe and the United States
due to uncertainty about the future of support policies. Stable and
reliable measures such as feed-in tariffs for renewable energy and
renewable portfolio standards are required to ensure the continued rapid
expansion of environmentally and socially beneficial renewable energy
technologies.

Given the technological and commercial breakthrough of renewable energy
not least in developing countries, it is remarkable that the World Bank
continues to neglect these technologies, and has recently announced a
return to mega-dams for hydropower generation in Africa and other parts
of the world. The advances of renewable technologies are rendering
destructive large dams and fossil fuel plants obsolete. The choice
between renewables and these dinosaur technologies that are costly to
build and socially and environmentally destructive is clear. The last
hurdle to revolutionizing our energy systems is our political will.

"We stand on the cusp of renewables becoming a central part of the
world's energy mix. As technical constraints are overcome, most of the
alleged limitations to achieving higher shares of renewables are due to
a lack of political will to enact the necessary policies and measures.
It is time to address this remaining hurdle," ends the report.

REN21, the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century, is a
policy network that shares knowledge and facilitates the growth of
renewable energies. Its participants and members include governments,
international associations, NGOs, the private sector, scientific
institutes and other interested parties. The network's latest Global
Status Report was produced with contributions from 500 experts,
including from International Rivers.
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Solar energy: African economies' secret weapon

Fastest-Growing Companies
Solar energy: African economies' secret weapon
June 25, 2013

http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2013/06/25/africa-solar/

In recent years, the continent has become a haven for renewable energy, spearheaded by small, tech savvy companies keen on capitalizing off of the global south's hunger for energy.

By Keith Proctor
Fenix International CEO Mike Lin in Rwanda

Fenix International CEO Mike Lin (left) with entrepreneurs in Rwanda

FORTUNE -- In the developed world, electricity is cheap and as available as the nearest outlet. But in off-the-grid Africa, energy poverty is endemic. Car batteries are tapped to charge mobile phones. Kerosene is a popular light source -- as well as a dirty, dangerous one.

With national grid expansion lagging well behind growth in demand, increasingly Africans are looking not to centralized, fossil fuel-based solutions, but to the sun.

To date, solar power plays only an auxiliary role in Africa's energy mix, but growth in solar use is emblematic of a regional shift toward renewables. In 2004, the African renewable energy sector was valued at $750 million. By 2011, it reached $3.6 billion. Late last year, the U.N. projected that by 2020 the value of the African renewable energy sector would reach $57 billion.

Solar is particularly well-suited to sunny, equatorial Central and East Africa, where, in the words of one entrepreneur, "energy is every day beating people on the head." In recent years, the region has become a haven for renewable energy, spearheaded by small, tech-savvy companies keen to capitalize on the global south's hunger for energy.

MORE: Anthony Weiner: Underdog or lone wolf?

Silicon Valley-based Fenix International is one such firm. The company developed the ReadySet unit, a plug-and-play battery that can be charged either by solar panels or bicycle. While the ReadySet has a range of functions -- it has USB and car cigarette lighter ports -- it was primarily designed to assist mobile phone charging in off-the-grid markets.

According to GSMA, a mobile operators trade association, total mobile connections in Sub-Saharan Africa surpassed 500 million in the first quarter of this year. That number is expected to grow by another 250 million over the next five years. In Africa, more people have a mobile phone than electricity. They're part of a global population of off-the-grid mobile users that, in 2009, was estimated at 500 million. Without access to power, that's a lot of dead batteries.

"The growth in mobile connections in Africa is tremendous," said Mike Lin, Fenix's CEO and founder. "This is the canary we're looking at."

To date, Fenix has sold 3,000 ReadySet units in Uganda, where the company maintains its largest field office, and 5,000 total worldwide. Early adopters include entrepreneurs who use the ReadySet to provide local phone charging for a fee.

"It's almost like a mini-franchise," said Fenix's Lyndsay Handler, the company's regional director in East Africa. "It's a simple solution that's scalable. Right out of the box, people can produce a smooth income over the course of the year."

Lin, who initially shoe-stringed the company with $100,000 in credit card debt, recently concluded a new fundraising round, enticing major corporate investors like Orange, the French telecom, and Schneider Electric, an energy management firm. Lin expects Fenix to reach profitability in the next two to three years.

The vast power of the developing market consumer

In The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, the late C.K. Prahalad, a prominent management professor, argued that companies can make a profit and do good by designing products and services for the "base of the pyramid" -- the roughly 3 billion people who live on $2.50 or less a day.

Donn Tice, CEO of solar manufacturer d.Light, studied at the University of Michigan under Prahalad. San Francisco-based d.Light -- a manufacturer of high quality, affordable solar lamps -- has been for several years at the vanguard of the affordable solar industry. A 2013 recipient of the $1.5 million Zayed Future Energy Prize, d.Light sells 400,000 lamps a month worldwide.

For Tice, d.Light's successes are proof of Prahalad's thesis. "Solar is an opportunity to both make a big difference in the world and to do it profitably and in a self-interested way," he said.

MORE: PC sales suck (a little less)

Among solar entrepreneurs, the notion that market-based solutions can improve lives is a key article of faith. Kerosene often comes up. The "dirty light" source deteriorates in-house air quality and is expensive. Poorer Africans spend nearly a third of their income on kerosene; the continent as a whole annually spends about $10 billion on it. The fuel is also dangerous. One of d.Light's founders, Sam Goldman, spent four years in the Peace Corps in West Africa and witnessed its hazards in the form of a child disfigured by a kerosene fire. Similarly, in 2009, Fenix's Handler was working for a non-profit in rural Kenya when a kerosene fire claimed a neighbor's baby.

Yet local dependence on fuels like kerosene will not be alleviated by grid expansion, which lags too far behind demand. This is a global problem. Populations in developing economies are getting richer and are demanding more power. More people with more income equals rising consumption of energy.

"It creates a powerful demand generation loop," Tice said. "Supply can't possibly keep up. The centralized grid system is broken. Nuclear is too capital intensive, and high risk." Solar, he said, offers a scalable, affordable means to alleviating energy poverty.

A few kinks �

Yet in the near term, a number of challenges will check this ambition. Affordable solar is in a nascent stage. Adoption is still quite low. According to Tice, in most of the countries in which d.Light operates, solar use doesn't top 5%. Nowhere is it greater than 10%.

This is a typical business challenge: How do you convince customers to try something new? For solar companies in Africa, this is aggravated when fly-by-night competitors dump cheap knockoffs into the market. "We're seeing more Chinese generics show up," Lin said. "You have fake batteries being sold. And fake solar panels. That kind of garbage undermines the market."

Even when customers are willing to buy solar products, these companies face a sales challenge: purchasers may not have enough cash on hand. For example, Fenix's ReadySet costs about $150. For an average Ugandan, that's a serious investment. According to the World Bank, Uganda's 2011 Gross National Income (GNI) per capita, adjusted for purchasing power parity, was $1,320. In villages, income levels are even lower. In the rural north, according to 2009-2010 data from the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, annual income is less than half the national average.

Companies have responded by developing "pay-as-you-go" plans or in-house financing. Fenix recently started to offer microloans to customers purchasing the ReadySet. According to Lin, the company has to date extended $50,000 in credit.

For solar companies in Sub-Saharan Africa, among the most vexing problems is distribution. In many rural areas, customers are hard-to-reach and may have had little exposure to solar power. Where solar companies can, they team up with established retailers. But this has its limits. For example, while MTN, Africa's largest telecommunications provider, sells the ReadySet through its retail outlets, those outlets are for the most part concentrated in urban areas.

"Only a very small percentage of potential customers are using solar," said Handler.

At least for now, she said, familiar energy solutions, like kerosene, remain king.

"We're having to create a whole new market," said Tice, acknowledging the challenge. "We're creating from scratch entirely new distribution channels."

Solar Africa meets Avon?

When Katherine Lucey founded non-profit Solar Sister, she wanted to empower female entrepreneurs in countries like Uganda, while simultaneously distributing affordable solar products in the countryside.

"About five or six years ago, lots of solar companies started designing for the base of the pyramid," she said. Prices were coming down, products were getting better, more reliable, and there was a plethora of supply. The problem: not enough investment in distribution.

Lucey is a former New York investment banker who specialized in financing large energy projects. With Solar Sister, Lucey built a grassroots distribution network modeled on direct sales firms like Avon. The ideal salespeople for solar products, Lucey said, are local women.

"In these communities, women are the customers for energy, they manage household energy needs ... so they can evangelize about the product," Lucey said. Women's extensive personal networks allow Solar Sister to reach deeper into the bush than traditional retailers, and Solar Sister provides training and start-up financing.

MORE: World's biggest companies: Still xenophobic, after all these years

"This approach embeds distribution deep down in the community," Lucey said.

The organization recently expanded from Uganda to Tanzania and Nigeria. At present, Solar Sister supports 400 female entrepreneurs. Within three years, Lucey plans to grow that number tenfold -- though with more resources, she said, "we could explode it by a hundred."

According to Lucey, the demand for solar among off-the-grid Africans makes the Sub-Sahara a natural candidate for the large-scale expansion of alternative energy. "We look for that tipping point where green energy competes economically with the electrical grid," Lucey said. "In Africa, we are so far past that point."
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Dam removal on Carmel River set to begin/LA Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dam-removal-20130624,0,4731164.story

$84-million removal of a dam on Carmel River set to begin

Dismantling of the silt-filled San Clemente, to start next month, is being called California's largest-ever dam removal.

By Bettina Boxall, Los Angeles Times

June 23, 2013, 6:35 p.m.

More than 90 years ago the San Clemente Dam rose on what John Steinbeck called in a novel "a lovely little river" that "has everything a river should have."

These days, that's not so true of the Carmel River, which empties into the Pacific Ocean just south of Carmel. The river is overpumped. Flood plain has been lost to development, and the silted-up San Clemente is vulnerable to collapse in an earthquake, threatening 1,500 downstream structures.

But next month, in what officials say is the state's largest-ever dam removal, work will begin on a three-year project to dismantle the 106-foot-tall concrete dam and reroute half a mile of the river.

The demolition will open up 25 miles of spawning and rearing habitat for a threatened population of steelhead trout, help replenish sand on Carmel Beach and eliminate a huge headache for the utility that owns the dam.

"I can't tell you I know anyone who wants San Clemente to stay," said Robert MacLean, president of California American Water, an investor-owned utility that provides water to about 100,000 people on the Monterey Peninsula.

Built in 1921 about 18 miles from the river's mouth, the dam hasn't been used as a water source for years. Deemed seismically unfit by the state in the early 1990s, it also has suffered the ultimate fate of dams.

It filled up with sediment. Most of what San Clemente now holds back is dirt and gravel, not water.

There is enough sediment piled behind the dam's arch to fill 250,000 dump trucks. Figuring out what to do with it was a major challenge. Letting the dirt wash downstream would increase the flood risk. Trucking it out would be expensive and disruptive. Filling up a canyon was an environmental no-no.

So project managers decided to leave it where it is. Instead of moving the dirt, they are going to move the river channel, diverting half a mile of the Carmel into the bed of a nearby creek that flows into the river just above the dam.

"It really is innovative," said Joyce Ambrosius, Central Coast supervisor of the federal National Marine Fisheries Service, which has worked with the utility and the California State Coastal Conservancy on the dam removal.

An official groundbreaking ceremony was held Friday for the project, which will cost about $84 million. American Water is putting up $49 million. The state is contributing $25 million from previously authorized bonds, and the federal government is providing $2.4 million.

The rest will have to be raised from foundations and private sources, including the Nature Conservancy, which has committed $1 million to the effort.

"We saw this as part of a bigger-picture effort to restore the Carmel River and bring it back to life," said Trish Chapman of the coastal conservancy.

American Water is also under state order to stop pumping from downstream wells that are drawing from the lower reaches of the 36-mile river. That is forcing the utility to develop new supplies, which, along with the dam removal, will add about $30 to the average monthly residential water bill.

Although the dam has a fish ladder for migrating steelhead, it's not a very good one. Fishery managers hope that free passage will increase spawning and boost the dwindling number of south Central Coast steelhead.

Biologists estimate that there are only about 500 steelhead on the river, which provides some of the region's best habitat for the fish. Like salmon, steelhead are born in fresh water, spend several years in the ocean and then return to their native rivers and streams to spawn.

Getting rid of the dam will also help another threatened species, the California red-legged frog, by eliminating the reservoir � a breeding ground for bullfrogs that eat the red-leggeds.

The dam property includes 928 acres of chaparral and oak woodlands that American Water will donate to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management � the federal government's largest landowner � when the demolition is complete. Neither the state nor the U.S. Forest Service, which manages the nearby Los Padres National Forest, wanted the land.

The river will not be dam free when the San Clemente structure is gone. The Los Padres Dam lies about five miles upstream. It too is filling up with sediment. But it is still used for water supply, and MacLean said his company is just beginning to evaluate its options for the Carmel's last dam.

bettina.boxall@latimes.com
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River be damned: Mekong dams article, Sydney Morning Herald

River be damned

June 14, 2013

by Dave Tacon

The mighty Mekong, the lifeblood of many Asian nations, and holiday destination for an increasing number of Australians, is being heavily dammed. Can the river, and the people who depend on it, survive?

A boy stands on the banks of the Mekong River near the relocation site for a Lao village, which was moved to make way for the Xayaburi Dam.

A boy stands on the banks of the Mekong River near the relocation site for a Lao village, which was moved to make way for the Xayaburi Dam. Photo: Dave Tacon

As the narrow longtail boat glides downstream from the dusty hamlet of Nong Kiew towards the golden temples of Luang Prabang, mirror images of jungle, vertical limestone cliffs and impossibly steep mountains shimmer in the waters of the Nam Ou River, a tributary of the mighty Mekong.

Endangered Asian elephants and Indochinese tigers still roam the upper reaches of the river within Phou Den Din National Protected Area, one of 20 national parks in Laos. This is the beauty that tourists, many Australians among them, come so far to see.

Yet this undeveloped region in northern Laos is about to be jolted into the industrial age. Three hours downriver from Nong Kiew, a scar of ochre-coloured dirt and rock stretches for kilometres: construction of the Nam Ou 2 Dam is steamrolling ahead.
A local worker is dwarfed by the nascent Nam Ou 2 Dam.

A local worker is dwarfed by the nascent Nam Ou 2 Dam. Photo: Dave Tacon

''We started early this year and we'll be finished in three years,'' boasts a Chinese engineer dwarfed by a colossal concrete dam wall. Conversation is brought to an abrupt halt when his superior arrives. ''You have to leave,'' he says. ''We don't want pictures of this posted on Weibo [the Chinese version of Twitter].''
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The 450 kilometre-long Nam Ou, one of the few Lao rivers traversable by boat for its entire length, will soon be severed seven times over by a 350-kilometre stretch of hydropower dams built and maintained by Chinese giant Sinohydro.

The Nam Ou 2 belongs to the first phase of the $1.95 billion project, which is expected to be operational by 2018. Details surrounding the project are scant. Even the final destination for the proposed 1146 megawatts of hydropower is unclear, although the Lao government claims the first three dams, Nam Ou 2, 5 and 6, will provide electricity for domestic consumption.

Details of the other dams have not been made public. Ultimately, the Phou Den Din National Protected Area will be partially inundated by the two northernmost dams, the Nam Ou 6 and 7, in violation of Sinohydro's own environmental policy against development inside national parks. A pristine waterway and one of the last intact ecosystems in the region will change forever.

Despite concerns of environmentalists and objections by neighbouring Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, the tiny, landlocked nation of Laos is following China's lead in its exploitation of the Mekong River and its tributaries.

China already has five hydropower dams operating and three more are planned for the upper reaches of the Mekong, the river that begins in the Tibetan Plateau and continues through China and five south-east Asian nations on its way to the South China Sea. Questions remain as to whether the river and those who depend on it for their livelihoods can survive.

''The government tells us that this will develop Laos,'' says 65-year-old fisherman Thongsai Chanthalangsy, speaking at his village half an hour downstream from the Nam Ou 2 construction site. ''It's not for the people,'' he continues, ''the power will mostly be sold overseas. We can't talk to the government. We have to follow what they say.''

Chanthalangsy has been advised that his home, which falls within the catchment of the planned Nam Ou 1 dam, will not be submerged, yet many other homes in his village will be.

''They will build more dams and the problems will get worse. When it's finished there might not be enough water for our gardens and not enough fish to catch. There won't be compensation. We'll have to move.''

The Mekong and its tributaries are the front line of a massive development drive by Laos' communist, one-party leadership to lift the nation from the ranks of Asia's poorest countries.

Although hydroelectric power will bring much-needed revenue to the impoverished country, many fear that dams will cost dearly Laos, and all those for whom the Mekong is a lifeblood. In Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, more than 60 million people depend on the Mekong for food, income and transportation.

Ground zero for the Mekong is the gargantuan Xayaburi Dam, a project led by Thai construction firm Ch Karnchang. Dynamite and heavy machinery have already blasted, gouged and scraped away entire mountainsides above both banks of the swift-flowing waters about 30 kilometres from the provincial town of Xayabury.

Steep, winding, unmade roads carry a constant procession of trucks, earth movers, workers and occasionally armed soldiers to the expansive site. The $3.4 billion price tag of 810-metre-long and 32-metre-high Laos-Thai mega dam is being footed by a conglomerate of six Thai banks.

On its completion in 2019, around 95 per cent of the hydropower dam's 1260 megawatts will be exported to Thailand. This is almost a third of the power generated by the 16 major dams of Australia's Snowy Mountains Scheme, built over a period of 25 years to generate around 3700 megawatts.

Along with the immediate environmental impact of a project of such magnitude, hundreds of villagers have been resettled to make way for the dam.

At the new village, Natornatoryai, close to the construction site, teacher Khao Thevongsa, 28, is dissatisfied with the location, with its steep hills of barely arable land and the constant stream of traffic to the site.

She hopes that the dam may become a tourist attraction in its own right. ''We have to start from zero,'' she says, ''but when the dam is finished maybe tourists will come here to see it and we can earn more money.'' Almost every answer to a question begins with, ''We don't have a choice.''

About 300 were first shifted to Natornatoryai, which is about 35 kilometres from the river. ''The old people didn't want to move here,'' says 63-year-old Khamkeo Daovong as her daughter-in-law and child play on her concrete floor. ''I was born near the river and so were my parents. Many people cried when they saw their new homes.''

Daovong complains that her house was unfinished when she moved in. The mismatched cinder-block and terracotta bricks were paid for out of her own pocket to keep out the dust and wind. Compensation in the form of rice and about $16.40 in cash per month dried up after one year instead of the promised three.

''I was given pigs and ducks to raise, but it's very difficult to make money. I used to pan for gold, but now I just do nothing.''

According to non-government organisation International Rivers, about 25 families have already left the village to return to the river to fish, tend their river bank gardens and pan for gold.

For those who live in Laos, open opposition to the dam is unthinkable. The Lao regime has a history of ruthlessly silencing dissent.

On December 15 last year, Sombath Somphone, 62, a prominent campaigner for the environment and the rural poor, and a champion for sustainable development, was abducted from a police roadblock by two unidentified men in the nation's capital, Vientiane.

Somphone, the 2005 recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay prize, often referred to as Asia's Nobel prize, has not been seen or heard from since. The Laos government denies any involvement. The official explanation for his disappearance was a ''business dispute'', although the activist has no business interests.

The incident brought rare international attention to Laos, as then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her successor, John Kerry, led calls for a thorough and transparent investigation into Somphone's whereabouts and wellbeing.

International calls to the Laos government for action and information on Somphone remain unheeded. In a recent statement by New York-based watchdog Human Rights Watch, Asia director Brad Adams accused the Lao government of direct involvement in the activist's disappearance.

''Lao authorities have not answered the simplest questions, such as why, if Sombath was kidnapped, did the police at the scene do nothing to protect him,'' Adams said. ''The absence of any real investigation points to the government's responsibility.''

The reasons for the activist's disappearance are unclear. But Somphone's abduction has worsened an already fearful climate in Laos' environmental grassroots organisations.

Land rights and enforced disappearances aside, dams on the Mekong have serous ramifications far beyond the borders of Laos. The Xayaburi Dam is the first of 11 dams planned for the Lower Mekong River, nine of which are in Laos. Environmentalists have already blamed China's five Mekong dams, as well as drought, for some of the lowest water levels seen on the river in 50 years. China denies it is responsible.

On top of providing crucial sediment for arable land downstream, the Mekong sustains the world's largest inland fishery, with 877 species. According to conservation group Great Rivers Partnership, this supplies an industry worth between $3.84 billion and $6.89 billion.

Fish are a foundation of regional food security. In Cambodia, 80 per cent of the nation's animal protein is provided by freshwater fisheries. Alarmingly, a study of the proposed 11 Lower Mekong hydropower dams by the International Centre of Environmental Management concluded that the dams would reduce fish numbers by 26 per cent to 42 per cent.

Regional famine is a worst-case scenario. Claims by the Lao government and Xayaburi dam officials that fish ladders will allow safe passage for migratory Mekong fish species have been met with great scepticism.

Organised dissent to the Xayaburi Dam has mainly come from Thailand. A flotilla of Thai fishermen and villagers who worked the Mekong travelled to Vientiane to protest during the Asia-Europe Meeting.

In April, delegates from eight Thai provinces on the Mekong were joined by protesters from Cambodia as they occupied the entrance to the headquarters of the dam's construction company, Cr Karnchang, one of the dam's financiers.

Although limited at present, opposition to dams on the Mekong may be about to rise rapidly as more dams are built and their impact becomes apparent. Beyond street and river protests, there are rumblings at the highest levels of government that threaten to become a diplomatic stoush.

Should the worst fears of environmentalists materialise, countries downstream from the dams stand to bear the brunt of any damage to the Mekong's ecosystem. Although Vietnam and Cambodia have plans for their own hydropower projects, they have already objected to the Xayaburi Dam through the Mekong River Commission, of which Thailand and Laos are also members.

Both countries have argued that work on the Xayaburi Dam breaks an agreement forged in December 2010 that no dams would be built until studies on negative trans-boundary environmental impacts were completed.

Vietnam has called for a 10-year moratorium on all Mekong dams. Such concerns have been brushed aside by Lao Deputy Minister for Energy and Mines, Viraphonh Viravonghas, who claimed the extensive construction is merely ''preparatory work''.

''Laos has simply ignored the requests repeatedly made by Cambodia and Vietnam to study the trans-boundary impacts of the dam,'' says Ame Trandem, south-east Asia program director at International Rivers.

''The Mekong is becoming the testing grounds for new technologies, which may prove to have disastrous effects. The entire future of the river's ecosystem is at stake. The Xayaburi Dam is just the tip of the iceberg.''

Dave Tacon is an Australian journalist based in Shanghai.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/river-be-damned-20130613-2o6r4.html#ixzz2WsFm6pCn
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Two stories about Chinese construction firms competing in the international market

[1] Chinese firms invest in emerging markets energy for EU toehold, 11
June 2013, Reuters News, by Maja Zuvela

[2] Build it up
17 June 2013, Global Times
Zhang Ye

***

[1] Chinese firms invest in emerging markets energy for EU toehold,
11 June 2013, Reuters News
By Maja Zuvela

STANARI, Bosnia, June 11 (Reuters) - When China's Dongfang Electric
Corp. bid to build the Stanari power plant in northern Bosnia, the
strategy was simple: sacrifice profits for a toehold in emerging Europe.

Against little competition from European investors still hurting from
the debt crisis, Dongfang's offer for the 550 million euro ($713.18
million) Stanari plant was too good for its project managers, UK-based
Energy Financing Team, to refuse.

"The logic was clear," said Savo Markovic, head of the 300 megawatt (MW)
plant where construction began in May. "Dongfang offered to carry out
the job at almost half the cost and the China Development Bank lent 350
million euros for the project at favourable terms".

It's a trade-off increasingly occurring as Chinese firms take on
discounts and risks in exchange for access to central and southeastern
Europe. The Balkans and neighbouring regions offer economic growth,
looser regulation - and a place at the gates of the European Union for
firms that can help countries progress to EU power generation standards
and EU membership.

"Chinese companies are clearly searching for an entry point into Europe
and they see the region as an entry point into Europe," said Gabor Gion,
Deloitte's Central Europe Chinese Services Group Leader.

"They are willing to spend the money when the rest of the world is in
need of money. This is a perfect match".

For Dongfang the Stanari project was indeed a strategic fit.

"We were ready to lower our profit margin as we are hoping the project
will serve as a springboard for expanding our market strategy," said Hu
Minsheng, the Dongfang project manager. "We are interested in exploring
the market in Bosnia and surrounding countries and unexploited hydro
potential."

Bosnia is particularly popular because it is one of few Balkan nations
able to export electricity due to significant hydro power, which can
store surplus, and is seeking the cash and know-how from foreign
investors to enable it to expand.

China's state-run hydro power engineering firm Sinohydro was picked to
build a 35 MW 120 million Bosnian marka ($79 million) plant on the
Neretva river, and five Chinese firms are short-listed to partner
Bosnia's top utility EPBiH in a 450 MW coal-fired plant worth 1.5
billion marka - the country's largest investment since the end of its
1992-95 war.

ENERGY ENTRY POINT

According to Chinese Ministry of Commerce figures cited by consulting
group Deloitte, the value of all Chinese investment in Europe grew to
$77 billion in 2012 from $59 billion in 2010.

If similar trends continue, that figure could rise to $100 billion in
2014 with about half the total amount flowing into emerging Europe,
stretching from the Balkans to the Baltics.

Underscoring China's ambitions in central and southeastern Europe,
former Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao announced last April the opening of a
$10 billion credit line and $500 million investment fund dedicated to
increasing trade with the region.

Experts say the energy sector in particular is drawing China's interest
because so much of that part of Europe is still dependent on aging,
polluting coal-fired power plants.

Polish boiler maker Rafako, for example, has recruited North China Power
Engineering to its consortium to build a 900 MW coal-fired power unit
for Polish utility Tauron at its Jaworzno site.

But the need is most acute in the Western Balkans where mostly state-run
utilities have invested little since the wars of the 1990s when many
power plants, grids and other energy infrastructure were destroyed or
badly damaged.

As a result, Balkan governments have offered concessions such as
building and land rights - allowing ownership to companies over a period
of years before they must be handed back to the State - as well as
simplifying regulations relating to planning and permits.

"The region is getting more interesting for the Chinese because of less
strict public procurement procedures," said Zeljko Lovrincevic, analyst
at Croatia's Institute of Economics.

"Chinese firms... are not strictly profit-driven. They look at a project
as an opportunity to expand business presence and engage part of their
own workforce," he added.

Close historical links also help. China was a staunch supporter of
Yugoslavia's communist regime and maintained strong links with the
states created after its break-up - particularly Serbia, which opened
its doors to Chinese immigrants and goods during a time of international
isolation in the 1990s.

In return, Serbia has received substantial Chinese funds, including a 1
billion euro soft loan from Export-Import Bank of China in 2011 to
upgrade its national power grid. It is currently negotiating another
loan to add a new unit at the Kostolac coal-fired plant and Serbian
power utility EPS is in talks with China Environmental Energy Investment
Ltd and Shenzhen Energy Group Co Ltd. on a 2 billion euro investment.

Montenegro also hopes to attract more than 1.5 billion euros in Chinese
investment, half of that into the energy sector.

Slovenia is the only Western Balkan nation to have become an EU member.
Croatia will join the bloc next month, Montenegro has started membership
talks and Serbia expects the go-ahead to start the talks soon.
Macedonia, Albania and Bosnia are all at earlier stages of the process.

For Dongfang's Hu Minsheng in Bosnia, winning projects on the edge of
the EU is a step towards striking deals inside it.

"This is our pioneer project on European soil and we... want to expand
our market Europe-wide starting from this project. We have to prove here
that Chinese companies can do a good job."

(Additional reporting by Petar Komnenic in Podgorica and Michael Kahn in
Prague; Editing by Sophie Walker)



****
[2] Build it up
17 June 2013, Global Times
Zhang Ye

Governments around the world used to employ Chinese construction firms
just to build bridges, railways and other infrastructure projects. But
now they want them to invest in them and run them too.

"In the past, we would just go abroad with machines and technical teams,
building what customers wanted and waiting for the payment," Zhao Hui,
who has been working in infrastructure construction in Africa since
1998, told the Global Times.

But recently, some of China's major contracting markets, such as
countries and regions in Africa, have offered a warmer welcome and
greater government support to firms and investors who offer abundant
capital, he said.

At the 4th International Infrastructure Investment and Construction
Forum held in Macao from June 6-7, ministerial-level government
officials from 26 countries and regions said that they want Chinese
contractors to invest in the projects, as well as building them.

The officials said that they have many necessary infrastructure
projects, but that they lack the funds needed to undertake them.

Facing this change in the market, domestic contractors need to develop
and move beyond the traditional model of labor-intensive construction,
said Diao Chunhe, chairman of the China International Contractors
Association (CICA) during the forum.

Time to change

Infrastructure construction projects typically require considerable time
and financial investment, which governments of many countries simply
cannot afford, James Stewart, chairman of global infrastructure practice
with KPMG, told the Global Times.

The Indian government, for instance, has announced $1 trillion worth of
investment in infrastructure development over the next five years, 50
percent of which is expected to come from private institutions and
foreign investors, Stewart said.

Indonesia has opened up 28 PPP (public-private-partnership) projects to
investors around the world. PPP is a private business venture, which is
operated through a partnership between a government and the private sector.

Dedy S. Priatna, deputy minister at the Indonesian Ministry of National
Development Planning, said at the forum that the government intends to
offer increased support for the development of local PPP projects.

Both PPP and BOT (build-operate-transfer) models require firms capable
of constructing as well as financing and operating the project, and this
constitutes a sustainable development direction, said Diao.

In addition to the changing business environment on the ground,
diminishing returns from the traditional contracting model have also
made it necessary for domestic firms to adjust their approach.

The traditional contracting practice mainly relied on price competition
when labor and material costs were still low, but now that advantage is
disappearing, Liu Jinzhang, vice president of China State Construction
Engineering Corp (CSCEC), said at the forum.

"As well as tightened profit margins amid increasing operating costs, we
are also suffering from some governments' delayed payment," Zhao said.

Long road

Rather than waiting for payments for low-profit construction, many
Chinese contractors are planning to invest in infrastructure
development, and some of them have already made good progress, said Zhao.

Sinohydro Group, a domestic hydropower station construction firm, has
invested over $6 billion in dozens of projects in countries such as
Cambodia and Laos.

Among these investments, three projects have been completed and come
online, bringing the company an annual sales income of more than $100
million, said Sheng Yuming, deputy general manager of the company's
overseas business department.

Liu from CSCEC noted that his company plans to invest over 200 billion
yuan ($32.6 billion) in global infrastructure development every year.

Chinese companies "have lots of financial capacity" and easy access to
Chinese or international financial institutions, which is a competitive
advantage over foreign peers who are struggling with insufficient
financial capacity, said Stewart.

But there is still a long way to go in transforming the country's
construction contracting sector, said Zhao. "We know how to construct
sophisticated buildings from the ground, but do not know so much about
capital operations."

A report by KPMG released in June indicated that Chinese companies were
concerned about unclear investment targets and strategies.

Even though they can find promising projects and make clear plans, many
Chinese contractors will still have a hard time carrying the plan out,
said Diao.

A lack of sufficient understanding of local laws and cultures is also a
problem, and some Chinese firms have faced labor disputes in overseas
markets, he noted.

When he first began doing business in Africa in 1998, Zhao saw Chinese
contractors receiving a big welcome and lots of respect, but now they
are less popular, due to occasional cultural conflicts and breaches of
local laws.

A Chinese contractor receives a court summons in Africa almost every
week, he said, while firms from the UK or US seldom suffer from such
disputes, largely because they prefer to rely on local people to manage
the company's operations and personnel.

New management needed

Chinese firms lag behind their foreign peers in informatization of
management, meaning they are incapable of leaving the reins in the hands
of their local employees, said Diao.

Such a management model centers around applying modern information
technology (IT) to production and operations, aiming to enhance
enterprises' efficiency and competitive strength.

Applying this strategy would enable staff in Beijing to manage and
control business in remote corners of Africa efficiently and
effectively, which would save Chinese contractors a lot in operating
costs and boost their upgrading and transformation, said Zhao.

But some emerging markets have poor communication conditions, making
this system harder to pursue.

Internet bandwidth in some African regions costs more than in China, but
network speeds are much lower, making it difficult for Chinese firms to
deal with daily work via the Internet.

Additionally, poor communication across regions has hindered the ability
of domestic firms to cope with emergency situations, such as the civil
war in Libya, said Wang He, vice chairman of the CICA.

But it is impossible for firms to build up overseas communication
networks on their own, said Diao. "Therefore, the CICA plans to help
firms out, in partnership with domestic communications companies," he noted.

For instance, the China Satellite Communications Co could achieve
enhanced communication via access to local satellite receiving stations,
which is faster and safer than other kinds of communication networks,
according to Diao, who said that "a pilot project is expected to be
launched in Angola, southern Africa."

"But the project is still at the research phase," he said, suggesting
that its future prospects are hard to predict.
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$45.5m of Three Gorges relocation fund misused: audit

$45.5m of Three Gorges relocation fund misused: audit
Shanghai Daily
June 8 2013

http://www.ecns.cn/business/2013/06-08/67734.shtml

Around 279 million yuan (US$45.5 million) set aside for the relocation
of residents during the construction of the Three Gorges Dam has been
misused or misappropriated, the National Audit Office said yesterday.

Most was used for projects that had nothing to do with relocation or for
administrative management fees, China's top auditing office said, citing
the results of an auditing campaign between June 2011 and February 2012.

Local authorities in Hubei Province and Chongqing Municipality have
recovered all the misused money and will redirect it for resettlement
expenses, the audit office said.

By the end of 2011, the central government had allocated a total of 85.7
billion yuan to relocate residents and factories surrounding the Three
Gorges Dam. Almost 1.3 million people were resettled to make way for the
hydroelectric dam spanning the Yangtze River.

The audit office attributed the cause of problems to the complicated
level of construction, the long-lasting construction period,
difficulties in relocation and the incomplete regulations and systems in
the early stages of the project.

The audit also found 35 cases where funds totaling 113 million yuan were
misappropriated. Eleven people have been punished and more will be the
subject to a criminal investigation as cases have been transferred to
the police and the Party disciplinary office.

Construction mismanagement led to an extra investment of 808 million
yuan in the building of the world's largest hydro-power project, the
auditing watchdog said.

Other irregularities in bidding, project contracts, accounting and
equipment management were also found.

The Three Gorges project was designed to produce electricity, reduce the
potential for floods downstream and increase shipping capacity on the
Yangtze River.

The 1,983-meter-long, 185-meter-high dam was completed and fully
operational in July when its final turbine joined the national grid and
the facility reached its full capacity of 22.5 gigawatts.

Last year, the Three Gorges Power Plant generated 98.1 billion
kilowatt-hours of electricity, according to the China Three Gorges Corp.

The project was launched in 1993 with a planned budget of 180 billion yuan.
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China revives Uganda's biggest power dam with $500 mln credit

China revives Uganda's biggest power dam with $500 mln credit
Source: Reuters - Fri, 14 Jun 2013 12:34 PM
www.trust.org/item/20130614123403-kvo98/

KAMPALA, June 14 (Reuters) - China has provided credit worth $500
million to Uganda to help pay for the construction of a large Nile River
hydropower dam at Karuma, a government document said on Friday, reviving
the $2 billion project stalled for years by a lack of money.

Construction of the 600-megawatt Karuma dam is expected to start before
the end of 2013 and likely to take five years to complete, the
government has previously said.

It would be Uganda's biggest hydro-electric dam, after the recently
commissioned 250 MW Bujagali power dam, also on the Nile. Most of
Uganda's 550 MW power output comes from hydropower generation.

The project's funding will come from government co-financing amounting
to $700 million and $500 million from China, showed a 2013/14 budget
document from the ministry of finance seen by Reuters on Friday. The
government plans to raise the rest from other development agencies.

China, as elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, has rapidly expanded
investment in Uganda in recent years, funnelling vast sums into projects
ranging from gleaming public office blocks to highways, hospitals and
underground internet cables.

Uganda is banking on Karuma to generate cheap, sufficient power to meet
fast-growing energy needs and support an economy eyeing double-digit
growth rates once crude oil production starts, anticipated in 2017.
(Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by James Macharia and Jeff Coelho)
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Negotiations about Arun III Dam to begin today

PDA negotiations with Satluj to begin today
http://ekantipur.com/2013/06/17/business/pda-negotiations-with-satluj-to-begin-today/373402.html
KATHMANDU, JUN 17, 2013

The Investment Board Nepal (IBN) will start power development agreement
(PDA) negotiations with Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam — developer of the
600-MW Arun III Hydropower Project — on Monday. IBN Chief Executive
Officer Radhesh Pant will lead the negotiations on behalf of the
government, while Satluj Executive Director RK Agrawal will lead his
company. The IBN had held a pre-PDA negotiation with Satluj a month ago.

"Preparations from both the parties have been completed. We will be on
the negotiation table on Monday and Tuesday," said a high-level IBN
official. The IBN, established in 2011 to facilitate large scale
investment projects, has also been holding PDA negotiations with two
other developers — SN Power and GMR Energy — for last three weeks. The
IBN has completed the first round of negotiations with these two companies.

Norwegian SN Power is developing 880-MW Tamakoshi 3 project, while
India's GMR is developing Upper Marsyangdi (600 MW) and Upper Karnali
(900 MW) projects.

"During the week-long negotiations, the developers and the IBN dealt
with some of the contentious issues that need to be settled before
moving towards the signing of the the final agreement," said Pant. The
existing Bonus Act has appeared as a bottleneck during the negotiations,
according to the IBN. As per the Bonus Act of Nepal - 1974, private and
public firms should share at least 10 percent of the profit to
respective employees annually.

"Developers have expressed serious concern over this provision as it
means the foreign developers that are spending billions of rupees in
Nepal have to spend a huge amount while sharing their profits with
employees," said the official. Two taskforces have been formed
comprising representatives from both the government and the developers
(SN Power and GMR) to review legal, financial, technical and managerial
issues. They have been given two weeks to identify a common point on
which both the government and the developers can agree. "We are trying
to achieve a win-win situation for both the developers and the country
by trying to ensure maximum benefit and high utilisation of the
country's water resources," said Pant.

If the PDA negotiations move ahead at the current pace, the government
will sign the final agreement within next three months, according to the
IBN. Investors sign PDA with the government so as to avert any possible
social, economic or policy-level uncertainties during the construction
of the projects.

Posted on: 2013-06-17 08:54
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River be damned [Lao PDR]

River be damned
The Age Newspaper, by Dave Tacon
13 June 2013
http://www.theage.com.au/world/river-be-damned-20130613-2o6r4.html

As the narrow longtail boat glides downstream from the dusty hamlet of
Nong Kiew towards the golden temples of Luang Prabang, mirror images of
jungle, vertical limestone cliffs and impossibly steep mountains shimmer
in the waters of the Nam Ou River, a tributary of the mighty Mekong.

Endangered Asian elephants and Indochinese tigers still roam the upper
reaches of the river within Phou Den Din National Protected Area, one of
20 national parks in Laos. This is the beauty that tourists, many
Australians among them, come so far to see.
Yet this undeveloped region in northern Laos is about to be jolted into
the industrial age. Three hours downriver from Nong Kiew, a scar of
ochre-coloured dirt and rock stretches for kilometres: construction of
the Nam Ou 2 Dam is steamrolling ahead.
"We started early this year and we'll be finished in three years,"
boasts a Chinese engineer dwarfed by a colossal concrete dam wall.
Conversation is brought to an abrupt halt when his superior arrives.
"You have to leave," he says. "We don't want pictures of this posted on
Weibo [the Chinese version of Twitter]."

The 450 kilometre-long Nam Ou, one of the few Lao rivers traversable by
boat for its entire length, will soon be severed seven times over by a
350-kilometre stretch of hydropower dams built and maintained by Chinese
giant Sinohydro.

The Nam Ou 2 belongs to the first phase of the $1.95 billion project,
which is expected to be operational by 2018. Details surrounding the
project are scant. Even the final destination for the proposed 1146
megawatts of hydropower is unclear, although the Lao government claims
the first three dams, Nam Ou 2, 5 and 6, will provide electricity for
domestic consumption.

Details of the other dams have not been made public. Ultimately, the
Phou Den Din National Protected Area will be partially inundated by the
two northernmost dams, the Nam Ou 6 and 7, in violation of Sinohydro's
own environmental policy against development inside national parks. A
pristine waterway and one of the last intact ecosystems in the region
will change forever.

Despite concerns of environmentalists and objections by neighbouring
Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, the tiny, landlocked nation of Laos is
following China's lead in its exploitation of the Mekong River and its
tributaries.

China already has five hydropower dams operating and three more are
planned for the upper reaches of the Mekong, the river that begins in
the Tibetan Plateau and continues through China and five south-east
Asian nations on its way to the South China Sea. Questions remain as to
whether the river and those who depend on it for their livelihoods can
survive.

"The government tells us that this will develop Laos," says 65-year-old
fisherman Thongsai Chanthalangsy, speaking at his village half an hour
downstream from the Nam Ou 2 construction site. "It's not for the
people," he continues, "the power will mostly be sold overseas. We can't
talk to the government. We have to follow what they say."

Chanthalangsy has been advised that his home, which falls within the
catchment of the planned Nam Ou 1 dam, will not be submerged, yet many
other homes in his village will be.

"They will build more dams and the problems will get worse. When it's
finished there might not be enough water for our gardens and not enough
fish to catch. There won't be compensation. We'll have to move."

The Mekong and its tributaries are the front line of a massive
development drive by Laos' communist, one-party leadership to lift the
nation from the ranks of Asia's poorest countries.

Although hydroelectric power will bring much-needed revenue to the
impoverished country, many fear that dams will cost dearly Laos, and all
those for whom the Mekong is a lifeblood. In Laos, Thailand, Cambodia
and Vietnam, more than 60 million people depend on the Mekong for food,
income and transportation.

Ground zero for the Mekong is the gargantuan Xayaburi Dam, a project led
by Thai construction firm Ch Karnchang. Dynamite and heavy machinery
have already blasted, gouged and scraped away entire mountainsides above
both banks of the swift-flowing waters about 30 kilometres from the
provincial town of Xayabury.

Steep, winding, unmade roads carry a constant procession of trucks,
earth movers, workers and occasionally armed soldiers to the expansive
site. The $3.4 billion price tag of 810-metre-long and 32-metre-high
Laos-Thai mega dam is being footed by a conglomerate of six Thai banks.

On its completion in 2019, around 95 per cent of the hydropower dam's
1260 megawatts will be exported to Thailand. This is almost a third of
the power generated by the 16 major dams of Australia's Snowy Mountains
Scheme, built over a period of 25 years to generate around 3700 megawatts.

Along with the immediate environmental impact of a project of such
magnitude, hundreds of villagers have been resettled to make way for the
dam.
At the new village, Natornatoryai, close to the construction site,
teacher Khao Thevongsa, 28, is dissatisfied with the location, with its
steep hills of barely arable land and the constant stream of traffic to
the site.

She hopes that the dam may become a tourist attraction in its own right.
"We have to start from zero," she says, "but when the dam is finished
maybe tourists will come here to see it and we can earn more money."
Almost every answer to a question begins with, "We don't have a choice."

About 300 were first shifted to Natornatoryai, which is about 35
kilometres from the river. "The old people didn't want to move here,"
says 63-year-old Khamkeo Daovong as her daughter-in-law and child play
on her concrete floor. "I was born near the river and so were my
parents. Many people cried when they saw their new homes."

Daovong complains that her house was unfinished when she moved in. The
mismatched cinder-block and terracotta bricks were paid for out of her
own pocket to keep out the dust and wind. Compensation in the form of
rice and about $16.40 in cash per month dried up after one year instead
of the promised three.

"I was given pigs and ducks to raise, but it's very difficult to make
money. I used to pan for gold, but now I just do nothing."

According to non-government organisation International Rivers, about 25
families have already left the village to return to the river to fish,
tend their river bank gardens and pan for gold.

For those who live in Laos, open opposition to the dam is unthinkable.
The Lao regime has a history of ruthlessly silencing dissent.

On December 15 last year, Sombath Somphone, 62, a prominent campaigner
for the environment and the rural poor, and a champion for sustainable
development, was abducted from a police roadblock by two unidentified
men in the nation's capital, Vientiane.

Somphone, the 2005 recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay prize, often
referred to as Asia's Nobel prize, has not been seen or heard from
since. The Laos government denies any involvement. The official
explanation for his disappearance was a "business dispute", although the
activist has no business interests.

The incident brought rare international attention to Laos, as then US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her successor, John Kerry, led
calls for a thorough and transparent investigation into Somphone's
whereabouts and wellbeing.

International calls to the Laos government for action and information on
Somphone remain unheeded. In a recent statement by New York-based
watchdog Human Rights Watch, Asia director Brad Adams accused the Lao
government of direct involvement in the activist's disappearance.

"Lao authorities have not answered the simplest questions, such as why,
if Sombath was kidnapped, did the police at the scene do nothing to
protect him," Adams said. "The absence of any real investigation points
to the government's responsibility."
The reasons for the activist's disappearance are unclear. But Somphone's
abduction has worsened an already fearful climate in Laos' environmental
grassroots organisations.

Land rights and enforced disappearances aside, dams on the Mekong have
serous ramifications far beyond the borders of Laos. The Xayaburi Dam is
the first of 11 dams planned for the Lower Mekong River, nine of which
are in Laos. Environmentalists have already blamed China's five Mekong
dams, as well as drought, for some of the lowest water levels seen on
the river in 50 years. China denies it is responsible.

On top of providing crucial sediment for arable land downstream, the
Mekong sustains the world's largest inland fishery, with 877 species.
According to conservation group Great Rivers Partnership, this supplies
an industry worth between $3.84 billion and $6.89 billion.

Fish are a foundation of regional food security. In Cambodia, 80 per
cent of the nation's animal protein is provided by freshwater fisheries.
Alarmingly, a study of the proposed 11 Lower Mekong hydropower dams by
the International Centre of Environmental Management concluded that the
dams would reduce fish numbers by 26 per cent to 42 per cent.

Regional famine is a worst-case scenario. Claims by the Lao government
and Xayaburi dam officials that fish ladders will allow safe passage for
migratory Mekong fish species have been met with great scepticism.

Organised dissent to the Xayaburi Dam has mainly come from Thailand. A
flotilla of Thai fishermen and villagers who worked the Mekong travelled
to Vientiane to protest during the Asia-Europe Meeting.

In April, delegates from eight Thai provinces on the Mekong were joined
by protesters from Cambodia as they occupied the entrance to the
headquarters of the dam's construction company, Cr Karnchang, one of the
dam's financiers.

Although limited at present, opposition to dams on the Mekong may be
about to rise rapidly as more dams are built and their impact becomes
apparent. Beyond street and river protests, there are rumblings at the
highest levels of government that threaten to become a diplomatic stoush.

Should the worst fears of environmentalists materialise, countries
downstream from the dams stand to bear the brunt of any damage to the
Mekong's ecosystem. Although Vietnam and Cambodia have plans for their
own hydropower projects, they have already objected to the Xayaburi Dam
through the Mekong River Commission, of which Thailand and Laos are also
members.

Both countries have argued that work on the Xayaburi Dam breaks an
agreement forged in December 2010 that no dams would be built until
studies on negative trans-boundary environmental impacts were completed.

Vietnam has called for a 10-year moratorium on all Mekong dams. Such
concerns have been brushed aside by Lao Deputy Minister for Energy and
Mines, Viraphonh Viravonghas, who claimed the extensive construction is
merely "preparatory work".
"Laos has simply ignored the requests repeatedly made by Cambodia and
Vietnam to study the trans-boundary impacts of the dam," says Ame
Trandem, south-east Asia program director at International Rivers.

"The Mekong is becoming the testing grounds for new technologies, which
may prove to have disastrous effects. The entire future of the river's
ecosystem is at stake. The Xayaburi Dam is just the tip of the iceberg."

Dave Tacon is an Australian journalist based in Shanghai.
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China Huaneng Group's Lancang River Miaowei Hydropower Station Receives Approval from NDRC

China Huaneng Group's Lancang River Miaowei Hydropower Station Receives
Approval from NDRC
Industrial Info Resources China
June 12, 2013

[A summary of this article is below. For the full article, go to:
http://www.industrialinfo.com/news/article.jsp?newsitemID=235880&qiSessionId=3523EA66E0707BF1C7AE37C81F31FB41.wolf.
This article is by subscription only.]

Summary:

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) approved China
Huaneng Group's Miaowei Hydropower Station on the Lancang River on May
27, 2013, according to an announcement by HydroChina Corporation
(project designer) on June 5. The project has a total reservoir capacity
of 660 million cubic meters; involves a 139.8-meter-high, earth core,
rockfill dam; a left-bank spillway; a power diversion system; and a
surface powerhouse furnished with four vertical Francis hydraulic
turbine generating units each at 350 MW. Power generated from the
project will feed into the China Southern Power Grid. The first unit is
expected to begin operation in May 2015.

The main developer and operator is Yunnan Huaneng Lancang River
Hydropower Company Limited (Kunming, Yunnan), a subsidiary of China
Huaneng Group with a joint investment from Yunnan Provincial Investment
Holding Group Company Limited (31.4%) and Hongta Tobacco (Group) Company
Limited (12.6%).
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88 Generation Activists Meet Main Backers of Myitsone Dam

88 Generation Activists Meet Main Backers of Myitsone Dam
By Kyaw Phyo Tha
The Irrawaddy
June 10, 2013

http://www.irrawaddy.org/archives/36941

RANGOON-On a visit to China, Burmese activists from the 88 Generation
Students Group have urged the main backers of the controversial Myitsone
Dam to completely shut down the suspended project in north Burma.

A four-member delegation from the activist group met last week with
officials from state-run China Power Investment Corporation (CPI), the
primary investor of the hydropower dam in north Burma's Kachin State,
the group said in a statement on Friday.

The CPI officials briefed the delegation on their efforts to ensure the
$3.6 billion project adhered to international business standards and
caused the least possible environmental damages.

But 88 Generation leader Mya Aye said the project would nevertheless
have detrimental effects on the local population. He said CPI planned to
build the dam at the source of the Irrawaddy River, a cultural landmark
for the ethnic Kachin people that is also highly valued by the Burmese
for its historical and economic significance.

"Given those facts, he seriously requested a total shutdown of the dam,"
the group said in a statement on Friday.

The Myitsone Dam is a 6,000-megawatt hydropower project planned for
construction at the confluence of the N'Mai and Mali rivers, which meet
to form Burma's largest river, the Irrawaddy. It is part of a
seven-cascade dam project mainly financed and built by Chinese
state-owned companies. Much of the electricity generated by the project
would be exported to China.

The project, slated for completion in 2017, would be the 15th largest
hydroelectric power station in the world.

In September 2011, Burmese President Thein Sein suspended the project
until at least 2016, after his term in office expires. He cited
environmental concerns and widespread public criticism, including from
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy
(NLD) party called for the dam's suspension.

Last month, CPI also expressed a desire to restart the suspended project
in a meeting with NLD members who had traveled to China at the
invitation of the Communist Party of China.

"I welcome the 88 delegation's request," said Devi Thant Cin, an
environmentalist who has led campaigns against the Myitsone Dam since 2010.

She said the project's potential damage to the Irrawaddy River was a
national concern.

"We object to any attempt to resume the dam, by the government or
anyone," she said.
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Myanmar, India scrap two hydroelectric projects

Myanmar, India scrap two hydroelectric projects
NEW DELHI, India
HydroWorld, 06/06/2013
www.hydroworld.com/articles/2013/06/myanmar--india-scrap-two-hydroelectric-projects.html?cmpid=EnlHydroJune112013

Indian developers have canceled development of two large hydropower
projects planned for construction in Myanmar, sources report.

Affected by the decision are the 1,200-MW Tamanthi (also spelled
"Htamanthi") and 642-MW Shwezaye hydroelectric plants - both of which
would have been built on Myanmar's Chindwin River.

HydroWorld.com reported that India's National Hydroelectric Power
Corporation (NHPC) and Myanmar officials had signed agreements to
develop the projects in September 2008.

State-owned utility New Light of Myanmar then signed a memorandum of
understanding for the development of Tamanthi with Italian-Thai
Development Public Co. Ltd. of Thailand and Windfall Energy Services
Ltd. of Singapore in October 2008, before NHPC announced it was
preparing detailed project reports for both projects in August 2011.

Sources said the results of NHPC's report revealed the cost of
constructing the projects would likely have been prohibitive.

The combined price of the projects - coupled with mounting political
pressure from indigenous and environmental groups - was cited as the
primary reasons for their cancelation.
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Myanmar, India scrap two hydroelectric projects

 Myanmar, India scrap two hydroelectric projects

NEW DELHI, India

06/06/2013

Indian developers have canceled development of two large hydropower projects planned for construction in Myanmar, sources report.

Affected by the decision are the 1,200-MW Tamanthi (also spelled "Htamanthi") and 642-MW Shwezaye hydroelectric plants -- both of which would have been built on Myanmar's Chindwin River.

HydroWorld.com reported that India's National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) and Myanmar officials had signed agreements to develop the projects in September 2008.

State-owned utility New Light of Myanmar then signed a memorandum of understanding for the development of Tamanthi with Italian-Thai Development Public Co. Ltd. of Thailand and Windfall Energy Services Ltd. of Singapore in October 2008, before NHPC announced it was preparing detailed project reports for both projects in August 2011.

Sources said the results of NHPC's report revealed the cost of constructing the projects would likely have been prohibitive.

The combined price of the projects -- coupled with mounting political pressure from indigenous and environmental groups -- was cited as the primary reasons for their cancelation.