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"So why then did authorities recently give the final go-ahead to a Thailand-invested lignite mine and power station to be built only five-to-seven kilometers from the festival village of Hongsa? Sayaboury province, which cuddles like a spoon into Thailand, is Laos' center for domesticated elephants. It thus maintains the major gene pool needed for the survival of the species, which is fast dwindling." Banpu still has a joint venture with Ratchaburi in the $3.7-billion Hongsa lignite thermal coal power project in Laos. The 1,800-megawatt power plant, in which Banpu and Ratchaburi hold 40% each and the Laotian government 20%, is scheduled to be operational in 2015. Thailand Dirty Energy Mafia drive elephants to extinction. Interesting that Thailand is one of the most wasteful and in-efficient countries in the world. Laos power plant misses jumbo payout By Beaumont Smith http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/KI09Ae01.html SAYABOURY, Laos - The wildly successful Sayaboury Elephant Festival, held this year in the village of Hongsa, attracted more than 80,000 visitors, some elegantly attired, some dreadlocked ganja-inspired, despite the event's remote location in northwestern Laos. The 70 or so jumbos were by turns applauded, photographed and simply adored as they dipped like divas. Behind the scenes, women in traditional skirts took money from thirsty visitors, sticking wads of kip, the local currency, into capacious pockets. It was the sort of tourism that gains international plaudits, with money going directly into the hands of the villagers. The event, this year's was the third, is now one of Laos' biggest tourism-related money spinners. So why then did authorities recently give the final go-ahead to a Thailand-invested lignite mine and power station to be built only five-to-seven kilometers from the festival village of Hongsa? Sayaboury province, which cuddles like a spoon into Thailand, is Laos' center for domesticated elephants. It thus maintains the major gene pool needed for the survival of the species, which is fast dwindling. On the event's final day, saffron-clad Buddhist monks prayed and chanted, and senior Lao government officials watched, clapped and gave speeches in praise of their national symbol, readopted as a tourism signature and in particular the symbol of the forthcoming Southeast Asian Games to be hosted in the Laotian capital of Vientiane. But the happy dancing cartoon jumbos belie the decimation of their real cousins in "the land of a million elephants", which increasingly are at risk from Laos' electricity generation designs. "We are being told that the mine will bring jobs, and that may be true, but we want to know if we can live our lives in the village as our ancestors have done," said Mongkeo, a mahout at the festival. "We earned good money from the elephant festival and we are pleased that people want to come to see us. Now we don't know about the future. I know I have no skills in mining. I would probably just have to dig holes." The lignite mine plans, known as the Hongsa Thermal Power Plant Project, took on a surreal quality at last year's elephant festival, when a float in the grand parade was decked in acid orange and green bunting. On top and surrounded by nylon rosettes was an artist's impression of the power plant and mine, a science fiction monstrosity set in the plains of the picturesque Hongsa Valley. Sebastien Duffillot, program manager of ElefantAsia, a non-governmental organization (NGO) that provides technical assistance to Laos' Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock and currently assisting in planning next year's festival, is puzzled by the government decision. "There has been a lot invested in ecotourism, and Laos has a very good chance of being one of the global success stories," he said. "I think some people think that they can have electricity generation and elephants. There seems to be little comprehension of the consequences ... from building this power plant." Duffillot notes that money has been distributed to help Vieng Khao village (host of the planned 2010 festival) develop community-based ecotourism, including funds to decorate guest houses, provide English classes, find new trekking routes and design more tourist-friendly mounting stations. He notes that the mine site would be 12 square kilometers and that Vieng Khao is only five to seven kilometers from the site's epicenter. To mine lignite these days is as unhealthy as admitting to smoking five packs of cigarettes per day. Lignite is a dirty fossil fuel, so heavy in sulfur, carbon and water that often the only effective way of getting energy from its source is to process the lignite at the mine's mouth. Otherwise, the cost of transporting the coal often makes it uneconomic compared with other energy sources. A 2007 New Zealand report called lignite the "wettest, most inefficient and polluting coal there is" and noted in its assessment of a plan there to convert lignite to liquid fuels that one lignite facility would produce twice as much carbon dioxide per year as the total amount generated by coal-fired electricity in all of New Zealand. Environmentalists are now calling on governments to consider bringing international sanctions against countries that knowingly initiate high-carbon projects, such as the plans Laos has for Hongsa. Tellingly, the original project was rejected as uneconomic because it would have generated a mere 684 megawatts of power. The Thais and Laos have since been dickering over the price of the electricity and the plant's generating capacity. Questionable economics Banpu PCL, the Thai energy company leading the venture, promised 1,878 megawatts if they found an investment partner. Thai and Chinese businessmen, along with loans from the Chinese Import-Export and Development Bank, later enabled the Lao government to enter into an agreement, which includes the granting of a 25-year lease on the mine site. TMC news reported that in 2007, Banpu was sued for tort and other civil claims from the owner of the Hongsa Lignite project, Thai Lao Lignite (TLL) and businessman Siva Nganthavee, for billions of baht in damages (US$1 = 34 baht). Banpu entered into a joint venture with TLL as the concession owner, pushed the joint venture partner out of the deal, according to the complaint. TLL and Hongsa Lignite Co are claiming against the Lao government for US$3 billion. The government, through its Lao Holding State Enterprise, stands to make a mere US$2.5 million per year from taxes and shares in the deal. It was able to participate after agreeing to a loan of $100 million from China's EXIM Bank. It is not clear if Laos' estimated annual profit from the venture includes the cost of debt servicing. The Thai investors, including the Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding Company and the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), will be the main beneficiaries of the power generated. Yet they have admitted in their technical reports and to the Thai English-language newspaper The Nation that the quality of the lignite is low, producing only 2,400 to 2,500 kilocalories, which will be converted to 10 megajoules. According to international lignite industry codes, an economic energy ratio for such projects is 10-20 megajoules, so the Hongsa mine just barely scrapes past the benchmark measure. Geologist Surasit Areesiri of World Drilling Services, who did the geophysical analysis for the mine, did not respond to questions about energy outputs and economics. Steve Raines, a coal mining engineer in Woollongong, New South Wales, who attended the first elephant festival in Sayaboury, agreed that the mine will create huge problems unless it is carefully built and monitored. "I don't see much reason to build lignite mines of that energy output unless there is nothing else. Hasn't Laos thought of renewables?" he said. "To run a safe and environmentally clean lignite mine these days costs a fortune. Lignite is one of those old-fashioned fuels that we choose to avoid now unless it's pulling 20-plus megajoules. It's a big price to pay so your neighbors can run air conditioners. The modern approach would be to leave it in the ground and go with renewables." The operation of "brown coal" plants, particularly in combination with strip mining, is often politically contentious due to environmental and safety concerns. Its something that Laos' National Assembly is said to be concerned about in areas where eco-tourism is taking off. Using an average of 13 million tonnes of lignite per year, the 12 square kilometer site will necessitate the relocation of 15 villages, the Vientiane Times quoted government sources as saying. Given the mine's location, it is likely that some of those villages are home to the mahouts who put on the increasingly popular with tourists elephant festival. Residents of the mahout villages around Hongsa are still uncertain which of them will be required to move. Relocation due to construction is one thing, as it usually comes with some form of economic package and assistance. But involuntary relocation due to possible fallout of fly ash, acid rain and at times heavy aerial contamination by carbon disulphide, which will likely result in chemically induced devastation of plants used for elephant fodder, is quite another. Sayaboury province has already been unsustainably logged, and both work and food sources for elephants are dwindling. Acid rain and sulfur dioxide emissions from the mine and plant will provide additional burdens to the people and elephant herds of the area, environmentalists say. "The difficulty is that there is no information. We don't know which villages will be moved," said Madame Keo, a mahout's wife in the area. "Lao people don't usually criticize government projects, but we are angry in private." According to an Australian volunteer biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Service (WCS) who curated an exhibition of Laos' disappearing species, "The government seems to be conflicted between industrial development and the donors wanting to develop an eco-development model. From my conversations with other biologists here, it appears that the Lao government thinks that modernization and development is all about covering the place with concrete, getting rid of the trees and the wildlife. "They praise the wildlife at ecotourism conferences and other international meetings, and then give the go-ahead to destroy the very thing that makes Laos special: its fantastic environment. The ones who make decisions don't realize being modern is to care about the natural environment and to be eco-conscious." Laos power plant misses jumbo payout By Beaumont Smith The WCS now runs an elephant conservation program in Laos' southern provinces, where large-scale logging, dams and mining projects threaten some of the globe's last remaining wild tropical places. They are carefully monitoring human-elephant conflicts, as dams inundate mineral licks, food sources and well-worn tracks for elephants. Muted protests A consortium of donor and government agencies, including the Lao Journalists Association and conservation groups, are planning to use the upcoming Southeast Asian Games, where the mascots will be two cutely named cartoon elephants, Champi and Champa, as an opportunity to highlight the country's disappearing wildlife. But the focus will be on prevention of poaching and changing tastes for wild foods. The push for land conversion for economic development, such as required for the lignite mine, is beyond criticism. The government does not countenance opposition to national policies, and villagers have reported in the past armed troops supporting government officials to negotiate certain contentious land concessions. Another lignite mine and power generation plant operated by EGAT in Mae Moh, near Lampang in northern Thailand, attracted sustained local and international criticism that prompted investigations by Thailand's Ministry of Natural Resource and Environment. Air monitoring found excessive levels of sulfur dioxide, which had caused significant health problems in the surrounding community. It has been estimated that the Mae Moh power plant has annually contributed about 4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emission into the atmosphere, representing one of the biggest regional contributors to climate change. As a result, a complex and expensive set of engineering and technical controls, including meteorological warnings, now govern the running of the controversial plant. Those controls included the installation of electrostatic precipitators and forced oxidation flues to remove excessive sulfur from the plant's emissions. Despite the government-initiated controls, a Greenpeace study in 2002 showed how the Mae Moh Power Plant produces 4.4 million tonnes of fly ash along with 39 tonnes of the neurotoxin mercury annually. The samples of fly ash tested contained three times more arsenic and 14 times more mercury than is found in normal soil. Fly ash can be used in construction and sequestered inside cement, but a lignite mine on the scale proposed for Hongsa would produce more than is possible to capture, experts say. The major difference between Mae Moh and the proposed lignite project for Hongsa is that the public was allowed to express its displeasure in more democratic Thailand. In Laos, public demonstrations are frowned on and people's fears of government reprisals run deep. This bodes ill for Hongsa, where people and animals are dependent on locally grown fodder, food crops and ground water. Environmentalists say that it is likely that the adjacent river Kene, a source of fish for nearby villages, will suffer contamination from pollutants spewed out by the plant. Fish are known to take up mercury. Inorganic mercury, present in a lignite mine's fly ash, can be converted by bugs found in soil and fresh water into the very poisonous methyl-mercury, a potent neurotoxin affecting both humans and elephants. "Elephants may look huge and invulnerable, but they are very sensitive to diet, stress or change," said Richard Lair, one of the world's leading experts on Asian elephants, from his home in Lampang. "They can get diarrhea and die just from social stress. This [mine and power plant] may just kill a lot of the remaining herds." Dwindling herds Elephants are already highly endangered in Laos. For every live birth there are around 10 deaths, with many perishing due to lack of care or disease. There are estimated to be only 10 to 14 elephants under 10 years old in the country. If replacement is not soon achieved by breeding programs - one of ElefantAsia's goals - the species will soon be extinct in Laos. At the present ratio of births to deaths, this will happen in perhaps less than 30 years. Meanwhile, even adult numbers are diminishing in the so-called "land of a million elephants", as touted in government tourism literature. There are only 480 domesticated elephants left in Laos, about half the number of 10 years ago. Many have been overused in logging operations and have failed to breed. Now that the forests are shrinking, there is little for them to do or eat. The mahout tradition in Sayaboury province is ancient in its spiritual significance and Buddhist rituals. Images of the Buddha riding an elephant can be found in many of Sayaboury's temples. Hongsa, in particular, is famous throughout Southeast Asia for its elephant trapping and taming skills. Traditional veterinary medicines, such as the use of forest herbs found to be effective in treating most minor ailments such as lacerations and boils, have recently been enhanced by modern technology from visiting international doctors. It is not, then, merely the extinction of a species that is at stake, but also a complex and still living culture that is making contributions to modern science. Rather than reaching an inventive and possibly profitable solution to its national symbol's future, Laos seems set on following its neighbors into human-elephant confrontations, where jumbos usually lose. Bounthana, a resident of the elephant-centered tourist village near Vientiane known as Ban Na, was until recently on the front lines of the conflict. He recounted in an interview how "our villagers were hungry after a herd of 30 elephants trampled our gardens. Our people were so angry they wanted to kill them. We could sell the tusks and toe nails." Klaus Schwettman, a national ecotourism consultant, came to the rescue with a United Nations-funded project designed to enable people to not only coexist with elephants, but also make the jumbos into an asset. Schwettman was alarmed at the increasing pressure on herds by land conversion to plantation crops and a rise in poaching. His fears were realized when five elephants were killed in one month in the middle of this year, in the Lao Ministry of Defense-administered Phou Khao Kuai protected area in Vientiane province. Brutally butchered for parts, the elephant's faces had been hacked off. Another was killed in Phou Phanang, an area in Vientiane province also under control of the Ministry of Defense. Each loss is a disaster for both the elephants and villagers of Ban Na, who have recently been making a good living from elephant tourism. In Sayaboury, two domesticated elephants allowed to roam in the wild were recently shot and injured. The bull escaped serious injury, but the pregnant cow, which had as local tradition dictates been sent to the wilds to mate and had done so successfully, lost her calf, and most likely her life. At the same time, despite rapidly dwindling herds and projects that threaten elephants' livelihoods, the authorities are giving away their remaining jumbos for diplomatic purposes. The government's recent decision to give as a gift two four-year-old elephants to North Korea as a gift angered the NGO community. "These animals are in actual fact priceless - many times more valuable than the fanciest car," said Duffillot, noting that the sale of endangered species like elephants is illegal internationally. "So why not rent them for say three years at $1 million a year as other countries are doing? That is what China charges for its pandas. Elephants in Lao are as rare as pandas." The irony is that if the Hongsa lignite mine project were scrapped and Sayaboury province was made into an internationally recognized center for elephant breeding, priced at $1 million per elephant per year, the government would potentially earn more profits than from its controversial energy project, say eco-tourism advocates. The mining lease for Banphu's lignite project is for 25 years, which means that at present low levels of elephant replacement compounded with the likely environmental damage from the project, the elephants and the project might both expire at the same time. Beaumont Smith is a Vientiane-based journalist.