Hydropower dams

Cambodia needs to focus on solidifying its national grid and shoring up its energy efficiency and transmission lines before expanding into more costly renewable technology, a visiting executive of German engineering giant Siemens said yesterday. ...

From the snowy plateaus of Tibet to the mountain gorges of China’s Yunnan province and beyond to the jungled borders of Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and down to the plains of Cambodia and paddy fields of Vietnam – the Mekong River is of crucial importance to ...

The Beijing-based PowerChina Resources Limited (PCR), a shareholder of Sinohydro Kamchay Hydroelectric Project Co. Ltd, which developed the Kamchay hydroelectric dam in Kampot, expressed its interest in building electricity transmission lines in Cambodia. ...

The controversial Don Sahong hydropower dam was off the agenda again during the second day of talks between Prime Minister Hun Sen and his newly appointed Lao counterpart Thongloun Sisoulith yesterday, despite international calls to halt construction and survey the dam’s environmental impact. ...

Dam Chan handed over the food in exchange for riel as she described hearing the loud bangs of dynamite in the distance. The 55-year-old has farmed and sold food in Preah Rumkel commune her entire life and is concerned about the future of her home ...

Hundreds of kilograms of dead fish have washed up on the shores of the Mekong in Stung Treng’s Thala Barivat district in the past month, and while environmental activists blame construction of the controversial Don Sahong dam upstream, officials yesterday said the fish are being ...

Residents from six villages in Oddar Meanchey’s Chong Kal district can now get some respite from the construction of a hydropower dam they claimed was encroaching on their land. ...

The Don Sahong hydroelectric dam threatens the last 80 Irrawaddy dolphins in the Mekong River – as well as the livelihoods of the people downstream in Cambodia, who depend heavily on the river’s resources. ...

Some 100 people from five villages in Oddar Meanchey’s Chongkal district protested over the weekend against a hydropower dam project built by Chinese firm Sinohydro, claiming they have yet to be compensated for their eventual displacement when the flood gates close in the next few ...

An environmental youth group has asked the National Assembly’s head of the Environment and Water Resource Commission, Pol Hom, to visit and investigate the pollution that will be caused by construction of Laos’ Don Sahong hydropower dam. ...

Environmental activists yesterday renewed their calls for Angkor Beer maker Cambrew to clarify its director’s relationship with the controversial Don Sahong dam currently under construction in southern Laos.   ...

Phnom Penh has welcomed a decision by China to continue releasing water into the Mekong from the Jinhong Dam – even though it is likely to do little to alleviate drought conditions.    ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday disputed the idea that water shortages along the Mekong River have been exacerbated by two massive hydropower dams being developed by Laos, saying the drought currently afflicting much of mainland Southeast Asia was caused only by “the sky.”   ...

As China opened one of its six dams on the upper Mekong River last month to help parched Southeast Asian countries down river cope with a record drought, it was hailed as benevolent water diplomacy. But to critics of hydroelectric dams built on the Mekong over ...

The U.N.’s human rights envoy to Cambodia on Sunday promised villagers in Stung Treng province who are set to be displaced by the construction of the Lower Sesan 2 hydropower dam that she would raise their plight with the government, a village representative said.    ...

The amount of water that will be released from a Chinese dam until 10 April could be too low to help alleviate drought-stricken South-East Asia. ...

Drought in Southeast Asia is raising concerns in the Cambodian and Vietnamese countryside where salinity levels are rising in the Mekong River and people are skeptical about fresh promises from Laos that it will respect the rights of downstream countries in dam construction. ...

More than 90 villagers in Stung Treng province on Tuesday rejected compensation packages for the land they will lose to the under-construction Lower Sesan 2 hydropower dam, a local official said. ...

Farmers and development organizations say they welcome the release of water from a hydropower dam on the Mekong River in China, but warn against negative effects if too much is discharged. ...

The head of Laos’ ruling party reportedly pledged to limit the downstream impacts of the controversial Don Sahong hydropower dam in his meeting with Prime Minister Hun Sen in Vientiane on Saturday. ...

Another 73 families in Stung Treng province have accepted the government’s offer of new land in exchange for the farms they will lose to the Lower Sesan II hydropower dam currently under construction, the second group to take the deal.​ ...

An attempt by about 100 Cambodian protesters to force the Angkor Beer company to divest its stake in the Don Sahong hydropower plant in Laos fell flat on Friday when company representatives said the brewer has no involvement in the project. ...

Chinese money accounts for the overwhelming majority of investment in Cambodia’s anaemic energy sector, but while the government has been happy to take Beijing’s loans for the construction of hydroelectric plants, a study published last month found that such investment came with both ecological and ...

Some 50 people gathered outside the headquarters of Angkor Beer in Phnom Penh on Friday afternoon to protest the construction of the controversial Don Sahong hydropower dam in Laos by a Malaysian company, arguing that an executive connected to both firms should intervene to halt ...