By MICHAEL CASEY
AP
BANGKOK, Thailand - Laos insisted Friday that its plans to build as many as nine new dams and expand its hydroelectric capacity 10-fold in the next eight years will not harm the environment.
The new dams will generate 7,000 megawatts of electricity, of which 5,000 megawatts will be sold to Thailand, with the rest going to Vietnam and Cambodia, Laotian Energy and Mines Minister Bosaykham Vongdara said at a hydro forum.
Laos is negotiating to supply Thailand with an additional 2,000 megawatts after 2015, Bosaykham said.
Landlocked Laos currently has 700 megawatts of hydroelectric generating capacity.
A majority of the new dams - including the World Bank-financed Nam Theun 2 project - will be built on tributaries of the Mekong River.
Viraphonh Viravong, the ministry's director general, said Laos will aim to strike a balance between providing electricity for parts of Southeast Asia and ensuring the projects follow strict environmental standards.
"They have to be developed according to the guidelines of the World Bank and the rules of the environment," Viraphonh said, boasting that Laos has the potential of generating as much as 20,000 megawatts of electricity from hydropower.
"If we have too much problems, a project will not fly," he said. "The first thing is the environment and then we can go to the economics and finance. All parties have to benefit from a project."
Ian Porter, the World Bank's Southeast Asia regional director, said expanding hydropower from Laos can help the impoverished country reach middle class status by 2020 while ensuring Thailand maintains its steady economic growth.
However, environmental groups such as International Rivers Network remain unconvinced that the hydropower boom will benefit Laos. They say the dam projects will destroy biologically rich river networks and displace scores of villages.
"The status quo indicates that the Lao hydro boom will be a major bust for hundreds of thousands of Lao farmers and fishers," Shannon Lawrence, Laos program director for International Rivers Network, said in a statement. "Thai dam builders, funders and electricity consumers should not support Lao projects that do not meet the highest environmental and social standards."
Thai Energy Minister Piyasvasti Amranand scoffed at the opposition to the dams, suggesting that environmentalists should "go and live in Laos for a week" to experience the impoverished conditions that villagers must endure.
"How could you raise the standard of living of the people of Laos to the standard you see in an industrialized country?" Piyasvasti asked.
"I think it would only be fair to achieve that goal of raising incomes of the Thai people and the Lao people to the standards you enjoy in the West," he said. "I can't see how you can do that without building hydroelectric dams."
The new dams will generate 7,000 megawatts of electricity, of which 5,000 megawatts will be sold to Thailand, with the rest going to Vietnam and Cambodia, Laotian Energy and Mines Minister Bosaykham Vongdara said at a hydro forum.
Laos is negotiating to supply Thailand with an additional 2,000 megawatts after 2015, Bosaykham said.
Landlocked Laos currently has 700 megawatts of hydroelectric generating capacity.
A majority of the new dams - including the World Bank-financed Nam Theun 2 project - will be built on tributaries of the Mekong River.
Viraphonh Viravong, the ministry's director general, said Laos will aim to strike a balance between providing electricity for parts of Southeast Asia and ensuring the projects follow strict environmental standards.
"They have to be developed according to the guidelines of the World Bank and the rules of the environment," Viraphonh said, boasting that Laos has the potential of generating as much as 20,000 megawatts of electricity from hydropower.
"If we have too much problems, a project will not fly," he said. "The first thing is the environment and then we can go to the economics and finance. All parties have to benefit from a project."
Ian Porter, the World Bank's Southeast Asia regional director, said expanding hydropower from Laos can help the impoverished country reach middle class status by 2020 while ensuring Thailand maintains its steady economic growth.
However, environmental groups such as International Rivers Network remain unconvinced that the hydropower boom will benefit Laos. They say the dam projects will destroy biologically rich river networks and displace scores of villages.
"The status quo indicates that the Lao hydro boom will be a major bust for hundreds of thousands of Lao farmers and fishers," Shannon Lawrence, Laos program director for International Rivers Network, said in a statement. "Thai dam builders, funders and electricity consumers should not support Lao projects that do not meet the highest environmental and social standards."
Thai Energy Minister Piyasvasti Amranand scoffed at the opposition to the dams, suggesting that environmentalists should "go and live in Laos for a week" to experience the impoverished conditions that villagers must endure.
"How could you raise the standard of living of the people of Laos to the standard you see in an industrialized country?" Piyasvasti asked.
"I think it would only be fair to achieve that goal of raising incomes of the Thai people and the Lao people to the standards you enjoy in the West," he said. "I can't see how you can do that without building hydroelectric dams."
