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Others

Singapore To Spend $10 Million To Study Rise in Sea Level

19 July 2019

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Singapore

SINGAPORE — Singapore is working on putting up their defenses against climate change. In the next two years, the country is putting in $400 million dollars to maintain and upgrade the drainage systems. They are also investing $10 million to studies that look into the rising sea levels and their impact on the island country.

These two measures remain to be on top of a long list of guards against the brewing perfect storm that is brought about by climate change. The Republic sees that these steps are necessary to ensure that they don’t get engulfed by the rise in seawater levels. In turn, residents feel safer knowing that steps are being taken to address these concerns.

However, the government emphasized that saving the environment is not something they can do alone. It has to be an effort from every citizen of the country. “Each one plays a role to prevent the concept of ‘the end of life as usual’ concept of living,” said Masagos Zulkifli, the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources on Wednesday.

He is calling on the public to find a way they could live a greener lifestyle. The small green changes that everyone does can significantly change how life is lived in the country. He gave a particular example of how it can be done. He spoke of how households could make a switch from the usual fluorescent light bulb to LED lights. It brings about potential energy savings that could reach as high as 5.8 million kwh. Such savings would be what the government needs to power at least 1,000 four-room housing projets.

“Every effort to save the environment is counted. Though there is no single solution to climate change, a collective effort will have an impact,” he said.

He was invited as a speaker to the Forum on Partners for the Environment, an annual gathering of partners for the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources to explore various ideas and collaborate on projects that concern various environmental issues. In his speech, Mr. Masagos highlighted the aspect of “ultimate threat to human survival” as part of the implications of climate change at the community level.

He pointed out several extreme weather conditions affecting various parts of the world and the severity of their impacts. “These are no longer one of those off-events that is not likely to happen again. These are symptoms of problems that are only about to get worse,” he added.

The money that Singapore is to put in the efforts to understand further the severity of climate change will indeed be an investment. It will serve as a learning experience for other countries to do the same as well.

Others

How can Southeast Asia’s clean energy transition be sped up?

19 July 2019

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ASEAN

Despite plentiful sun, wind and tidal potential, Southeast Asia has been slow to shift from fossil fuels to clean energy to fuel its fast-growing economies. How can the region quicken the pace of its transition to renewable energy?

In Southeast Asia, a region with tremendously diverse economies, resource distribution and population densities, a one-size-fits-all approach will not suffice to accelerate the transition towards a clean energy future.

Energy experts at Temasek’s Ecosperity conference discussed ways to spur green energy production in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region, and challenges in bringing about much-needed change.

Southeast Asia’s economies are at very different stages of development, said former United States Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz at a session on lessons for Southeast Asia’s clean energy transition.

“To bring down emissions, the region must deploy a wide range of low-carbon technologies and solutions in the areas of electricity generation, storage and transfer, and each country must consider its own specific challenges and opportunities,” said Moniz, who’s currently the Chief Executive of the Energy Futures Initiative and Nuclear Threat Initiative.

Singapore — a small and densely populated city-state with limited natural resources and space — may be ill-suited for the deployment of large-scale solar and wind power. But it could generate electricity from nuclear fusion or use hydrogen as a zero-emissions fuel for vehicles and energy storage and transfer, he said.

The problem is that such breakthrough technologies, which are needed to help steer the world towards climate neutrality by 2050 if the Paris Agreement objective is to be met, are currently not available at an affordable price, Moniz said.

Nuclear fusion has enormous potential. It is free of emissions and uses little land, said Professor Ian Chapman, the Chief Executive of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, at a session called “Beyond Renewables: Technology Solutions Addressing the Decarbonisation Imperative”.

In addition, the radioactive waste nuclear fusion produces has a much shorter half-life than that of nuclear fission, which means it takes less time to decay.

But the process of forcing two atomic nuclei together to release energy requires unimaginable amounts of heat and pressure, and current nuclear fusion facilities are not energy efficient enough to produce electricity on a commercial scale, said Chapman.

The first facility to do so, which is currently being built in France by a collaboration of 35 nations, will start operating in 2025 and will have enough capacity to power a medium-sized city, according to Chapman.

The potential of hydrogen to power heavy industries or for transportation is similarly constrained because the gas must first be created using another energy source, and current capacities to do so with net zero emissions are not commercially ready to scale, said Pierre-Etienne Franc, Vice-President of the Hydrogen Energy World Business unit at industrial gas supplier Air Liquide.

Not only must Southeast Asia address how it produces and stores energy, but also how the region consumes it, said Wong Kim Yin, Group Chief Executive of utilities company Singapore Power.

In Singapore, the issue of energy consumption is “particularly acute”, he said.

“We have to meet our Paris commitment, which is 36 per cent below 2005 [energy intensity] levels by 2030, so we must consider not only new energy sources but also how we can cut down on energy consumption while maintaining the same lifestyle,” he said.

One way is to use more efficient district cooling systems, which deliver chilled water from central facilities to buildings using 42 per cent less energy than conventional air-conditioning systems, he noted.

Playing catch up

With its large coastal population and agriculture dominating many of its economies, Southeast Asia is particularly vulnerable to climate change, and yet it is the furthest behind on climate action.

Despite falling costs of renewable technology, global energy-related carbon emissions rose by 1.7 per cent to an unprecedented high in 2018 and Southeast Asia was the only region in the world where the share of coal—the single biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions globally—to generate power actually increased.

The region is also lagging behind in the implementation of mandatory efficiency measures. This means that the potential to improve energy efficiency is huge. Ramping up efficiency requirements on appliances and improving efficiency in the transport sector, for instance, could significantly reduce electricity consumptions.

If the ASEAN region fails to divorce itself from coal, millions of people risk losing their homes to rising seas and livelihoods will be in peril as decreased water flows from Himalayan glaciers trigger unprecedented water shortages due to global warming from increasing accumulation of carbon emissions.

Achieving the scale of the transition that Southeast Asia needs to exit coal completely will require a whole variety of new energy assets.

Bianca Sylvester, Associate Director, Clean Energy Finance Corporation, Australia

To adopt renewables more quickly, Southeast Asia needs more innovation to reduce costs in the power, industrial and transportation sectors, said Moniz, adding that technology, business and policymakers must collaborate more closely.

Due to rapid economic growth, urbanisation, industrialisation, expanded access to energy and growing populations, Southeast Asia has seen an 80 per cent increase in energy demand between 2000 and 2017, according to a recent Ecosperity report, and demand is set to grow by nearly two-thirds until 2040.

“Economic growth in this region will continue to be dramatic and with that, there will be more substantial industrial development and many more vehicles,” Moniz said.

“One needs to take advantage of the opportunity of literally building an energy infrastructure that will enhance the quality of life as the economy is growing,” he said.

Getting investors on board

To get more renewables on stream, the region must attract investors, but the problem is that often green energy projects are not bankable and therefore unlikely to receive support from financial institutions, said Surya Bagchi, Global Head, Project and Export Finance at Standard Chartered Bank.

He was speaking at the World Bank Group’s Innovate4Climate summit, a partner event of Ecosperity Week, which was presented by investment firm Temasek.

The barriers are particularly pronounced in sparsely populated areas where the need to extend existing grids sharply drives up the cost and reduces commercial viability, said Bianca Sylvester, Associate Director at the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, an Australian government-owned green bank.

“Achieving the scale of the transition that Southeast Asia needs to exit coal completely will require a whole variety of new energy assets,” she said.

“In addition to the utilities for solar and wind, you need the storage and infrastructure to support that because the renewable resource might not be where the existing transmission infrastructure is located,” she said.

An innovative finance solution that could boost funding for renewable energy projects is blended finance, said Sylvester.

Blended finance combines public official development assistance with commercial loans. Through the deployment of concessional finance, the approach significantly reduces the risk involved for investors to come on board and can, therefore, mobilise additional commercial funding.

“The objective of blended finance is to address market failures. Using concessional finance to facilitate a transaction is often the easy way out and can help a project get off the ground,” Sylvester said.

Blended finance could facilitate the deployment of large-scale solar and wind farms, but particularly in the ASEAN region where a lack of energy access is still prevalent, it could also catalyse investment in small-scale solutions, noted Bagchi of Standard Chartered Bank.

In 2019, it is estimated that almost 60 million people in Southeast Asia still live in the dark, while 230 million people remain reliant on solid biomass as a cooking fuel.

Off-grid or mini-grid solutions can generate electricity locally, while rooftop solar systems and household batteries could save countries the cost and effort needed to extend existing grids, he said.

Australia’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation has a programme in partnership with local banks that offers a lower interest rate for local customers using small-scale renewable energy equipment, said Sylvester. It financed 8,600 projects in three years.

“Such solutions that pair public with commercial finance while harnessing existing customer relationships to achieve a lower emissions outcome could be replicated in Southeast Asia,” she said.

Oil & Gas

Association waits for free access to oil, gas data

19 July 2019

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Indonesia

The Indonesian Petroleum Association (IPA) welcomes the government’s plan to revise Energy and Mineral Resources Ministerial Decree No.27/2006 to allow investors to access Indonesia’s oil and gas data for free.

“We have waited for the open data policy for a long time. If it is executed, it can help investors to assess prospective areas for exploration,” IPA executive director Marjolijn “Meity” Wajong told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

Meity said she believed the new policy would help Indonesia’s oil and gas business become more attractive for investors as thorough study of the potential could reduce exploration risks.

“It will boost investor confidence to invest in exploration,” she said, adding that the IPA hoped the new regulation could make positive impacts on its ongoing campaign to push oil and gas exploration in the country.

“The open data policy will be very helpful for exploration, as oil and gas exploration is very dependent on the availability of technical data and its quality.”

Mamit Setiawan of Energy Watch Indonesia made a similar statement, saying that the new regulation would help Indonesia increase its long-term oil reserves.

He noted that currently most of the country’s oil reserves were located in deep water areas and, therefore, the regulation could encourage investors to find more new oil and gas reserves.

However, he added that oil and gas exploration was a high-risk investment and full of uncertainty. “The data provided by the government could give investors some sort of guidance for their exploration and exploitation plans,” he added.

In April, the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry announced that it planned to provide the country’s oil and gas field data freely through the internet, following the example of other countries like Mexico, Norway and Australia.

Initially, Energy and Mineral Resources deputy minister Arcandra Tahar said that the revision of Ministerial Decree No.27/2006 would be issued in May, but that has not yet happened.

Ministry spokesman Agung Pribadi said on Wednesday it was still discussing the open data policy with relevant parties, while the ministry’s data and information technology center head, Agus Cahyono Adi, said the draft was still being finalized.

Agus said according to the draft, the ministry would categorize the data into several types – raw and basic data, as well as processed data and interpreted data.

“Non-members would be able to access raw and basic data, while members would be given access to processed data and interpreted data,” he said. However, he did not say that investors were required to pay to become members.

Mamit suggested that the government should only provide access to serious investors who would be required to sign confidentiality agreements to avoid any misuse. (nal/bbn)

Others ,
Renewables

Idea to develop nuclear energy receives strong opposition in Indonesia

19 July 2019

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Indonesia

A lawmaker’s revival of an idea to build a nuclear power plant in Indonesia has triggered public debate over the pros and cons of the technology, particularly about its safety and efficiency.

The proposal came from Kurtubi, a member of House of Representatives Commission VII for energy affairs, among others, who demanded the government include that type of energy generation in the 2019 to 2038 National Electricity General Plan (RUKN).

He stressed that Indonesia needed to develop nuclear energy to meet the increasing demand for electricity because it made less of an impact on the environment compared to other energy sources.

“However, there is still hesitation to develop a nuclear power plant because of its high cost,” Kurtubi said during a hearing with Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Ignasius Jonan in Jakarta earlier this week.

In response, Jonan said the government would be very cautious when considering the idea, while there were still many other energy resources in the country that had lower development costs than a nuclear power plant. “The prices of electricity from nuclear energy is less competitive,” he added.

Meanwhile, state-owned electricity company PLN acting president director Djoko Abumanan said that nuclear energy had frequently been a topic of discussion, but the lack of legal basis had prevented the company from executing any nuclear power plant project.

“We often talked about nuclear energy in focus group discussions, but when we wanted to execute, we would face legal barriers,” Djoko said, adding that the company had also held comparative studies, including with the Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation in Russia.

Greenpeace Asia Tenggara’s climate change and energy head Tata Mustafa expressed his rejection of the idea, stressing that the country needed to focus on the development of other renewable energy resources.

“The potential of solar energy is 207 gigawatts (GW), while the potential of wind farm energy reached 66 GW,” he said as quoted by kontan.co.id, adding that he doubted the safety of nuclear energy, particularly because of the country’s position on the Ring of Fire that was frequently hit by earthquakes.

Institute for Essential Services Reform executive director Fabby Tumiwa also opposed the plan. He said he was particularly concerned about the management of radioactive waste. “The life span of a nuclear power plant is only 50 years, but radioactive waste will exist for thousands of years. Who will be responsible?” he asked. (bbn)

Oil & Gas

PTT will open the first station in Myanmar this year

18 July 2019

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Myanmar

After signing various partnerships, the energy firm will roll out a network of 70 stations and build fuel depots in the country.

Thai energy company PTT Oil and Retail Business (PTTOR) has made official its entry into the Myanmar market by announcing the opening of stations and the construction of fuel depots.

PTTOR will open its first gas station in Myanmar by the end of year and will build tank depots for oil and LPG as well as other fuelling facilities, according to Attapol Rerkpiboom, Chairman of PTTOR.

The company recently signed agreements with the subsidiaries of Kanbawza KBZ Group of Companies Ltd, Brighter Energy Co Ltd and Brighter Energy Retail Co Ltd, to invest in the two projects, reports The Nation.

“The oil tank depot will have a total capacity of 1 million barrels of oil and 4,500 metric tonnes of LPG,” explained Rerkpiboom.

A second part of the project will be the roll out of PTT gas stations and Cafe Amazon outlets in Thailand. They plan to run a minimum of 70 gas stations in Myanmar by 2023.

Currently, the company has a total of 2,800 Cafe Amazon outlets in Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Philippines, Japan, Singapore, and Oman.

Others

Electrification of commercial vehicles 1st step to greater EV adoption

18 July 2019

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Malaysia

THE electrification of commercial vehicles could prove the building block to facilitate greater electric vehicle (EV) adoption in Malaysia, while providing massive upside potential for Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB).

Its chief strategy and regulatory officer Datuk Fazlur Rahman Zainuddin (picture) said the transportation sector makes up approximately 42% of total energy consumption in the country, but less than 1% of that energy is sourced from electricity.

He said there is “huge upside” in the transportation space for electrification. “When you start to look at the opportunities within each of the sectors, and look at the rate of the electrification and compare it to that of some developed nations, we can see that there is a huge opportunity for electrification (in terms of transportation),” he said at the World Economic Forum last week.

The forum, held in Kuala Lumpur, centred on the need for a sustainable and energy-efficient future for Malaysia and the world at large.

As Malaysia’s national and largest utility provider, TNB is tasked with aiding the transition into this new chapter for the country. But while EVs are an opportunity to facilitate this transition, there are significant hurdles facing the country.

“At this point, the population of EVs is not enough to really substantially address the energy transition,” Fazlur Rahman said.

He said the higher cost of EVs compared to vehicles using internal combustion engines, the availability of charging infrastructure and time required to charge an EV, are among the obstacles preventing EV take-up in Malaysia.

Under the National Electric Mobility Blueprint, Malaysia targets to ready 125,000 EV charging stations by 2030. This is against the approximately 400 stations available in September last year.

The electrification of commercial vehicles, covering public transportation and logistics, could prove the first step to greater EV adoption.

“When you talk about the cost of EV, rather than looking at it from the upfront cost or the first capital cost, we need to look at it from the total cost of ownership,” Fazlur Rahman said.

“EVs start to make sense when you start to talk about its operating cost compared to conventional vehicles,” he said, adding that the total cost of ownership of an EV is substantially lower than conventional vehicles due to lower funding, energy and maintenance expenses.

Taxis, buses and lorries, which operate round-the-clock, are among the beneficiaries of going electric. The older vehicles are also among the main contributor to pollution.

Achieving this transition, however, requires a concerted effort among all relevant industries and agencies as well as a cross-functional and cross-economic approach, he added.

For national oil and gas (O&G) company, Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas), the approach to new energy will be measured as it does not foresee fossil fuels being immensely displaced over the next 20 years.

“As a commercial entity today, we are still strong advocates for gas for the reason that nothing in the data that we see shows that gas, or fossil fuels for that matter, will be hugely displaced in at least a 20-year horizon,” its president and group CEO Tan Sri Wan Zulkiflee Wan Ariffin said at the same forum.

He said that the financial returns from an investment in renewable or new energy is typically lower than conventional O&G, and that “being ahead of the curve” in this space will compromise Petronas’ financial returns.

Wan Zulkiflee said the five million EVs in the global market today displaced 50,000 barrels of crude oil production compared to the total production of approximately 100 million barrels of oil per day worldwide.

While Fazlur Rahman agrees that the EV market is currently not at a desirable scale, the transition into efficient and sustainable energy usage will be a catalyst for Malaysia to move towards a higher-technology, -skill and -value economy.

He said EVs convert about 60% of the energy consumed into power at the wheels compared to only 20% for internal combustion engines.

Of the RM117.4 million spent by TNB on research and development activities last year, 16% went towards renewable energy and environment.

Others

Major cities grapple with garbage problem

18 July 2019

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Vietnam

It is now the time of the year when Ho Chi Minh City has high humidity and the southwest monsoon.

It also means the time when people living in its southern districts like 7 and Nha Be are hit hardest by the terrible stink from Da Phuoc, the city’s major landfill in Binh Chanh District.

This has been their lot since 2016.

In the Phu My Hung urban area in District 7, residents say they have to keep their windows shut and air conditioners on all the time, but the solution “isn’t working anymore.”

A local named Nguyen Son said: “We have to smell it [the odor] all day and every day. Sometimes it’s strong and sometimes it’s weak, but it never goes away.”

A bird’s eye view of the Da Phuoc landfill in Binh Chanh District, Ho Chi Minh City’s main garbage dump, in June 2018. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran.

People in Phu My Hung and in its vicinity have even set up Facebook groups where they share stories on how they live with the foul smell and discuss possible solutions.

Thomas Clarke, an expat from the U.K., wrote in one of those groups on Sunday: “I have had extremely unpleasant smells coming into our flat from a southerly wind for quite some time. The smell is always so bad that I run to close the doors and windows. For example, today at 4 p.m. the smell flooded our flat before I could close the windows. I am also aware of this smell around our complex.”

Operated by Vietnam Waste Solutions (VWS), the Da Phuoc Integrated Waste Management Facility receives 5,700 tons of domestic waste, or more than two thirds of the city’s total, daily.

So far VWS has been dealing with a majority of garbage simply by burying it, and this has been blamed for the pervasive stink.

HCMC, Vietnam’s biggest city, seeks to become the pioneer in sorting trash at homeand rolled out a plan for it last year. All households have to separate organic and inorganic waste after 2020 or pay a fine.

Since last November local authorities have been guiding households and businesses on sorting their daily waste into organic, recycled and other trash by putting labels on bins.

Until 2020 districts and communes can try various methods to achieve the optimal sorting process.

Nguyen Thi Kim Men, a solid waste treatment expert at the city environment department, said the purpose of the sorting is to reduce the amount of trash going straight into landfills.

If the garbage is classified properly, organic waste could be used to make compost, inorganic waste could be recycled and the rest could either be burned to produce electricity or buried, she told the media.

But the city is only encouraging people now to sort their waste, with only District 1 in the downtown actually enforcing the regulation, she said.

Bui Trong Hieu, chairman of the HCMC Urban Environment Company Limited, said of the 8,700 tons of trash discarded daily, plastic accounts for 1,800 tons but a mere 200 tons, or 11 percent, are collected for recycling.

At a meeting in May Nguyen Toan Thang, director of the environment department, said the city also generates 1,500-2,000 tons of industrial waste, 1,200-1,600 tons of construction debris, 22 tons of medical waste, and more than 2,000 tons of sludge daily.

He sounded a dire warning: If it continues to bury its garbage and does not find other ways to treat it, it would run out of space for landfills by next year.

HCMC is not alone in grappling with this problem. It has Hanoi and Da Nang for company.

Da Nang protest

During the first weekend of July garbage was piling up on Da Nang’s streets as people living near Khanh Son, the only landfill in the central city, blocked entry to it after failing to persuade authorities not to turn it into a solid waste treatment complex.

A man covers his nose as he drives past piles of trash on a street of Da Nang during the protest in early July, 2019 that saw locals blocked roads to the citys sole landfill. Photo by VnExpress/Nguyen Dong

A man drives past piles of trash on a Da Nang street during a protest in early July that saw locals block roads to the city’s only landfill. Photo by VnExpress/Nguyen Dong.

The landfill in Lien Chieu District receives 1,100 tons of garbage daily from 1.2 million Da Nang residents, hospitals and industries, has become overloaded and poses a threat of pollution. In use for nearly three decades, it has so far taken in 3.2 million tons and can only remain in operation for an estimated 200 more days.

For years people living near it have been demanding that authorities should move it away from the residential area, and the latter had promised it would be done this year. But in May the city did a U-turn and sought a piece of military land next to the dump to upgrade the landfill into a waste-treatment complex where garbage will be incinerated.

To Van Hung, director of the city environment department, said moving the landfill is not a rational solution.

“If we choose to move it, what will happen to the existing 3.2 million tons of trash?

“Upgrading the landfill into a waste treatment complex using advanced technology will help solve the pollution problem and also treat all the trash.”

But the protestors are not buying it.

Nguyen Thi Thanh told authorities at a meeting on July 6: “If the city can make sure the new technology would not cause pollution, it means the waste complex can be put up anywhere in the city and not necessarily in Khanh Son. We’ve had more than enough for over 30 years.”

Ho Thi Hiep, another Da Nang resident, was skeptical about the waste-to-energy plan.

“We the public only ask for clean air for our children and grandchildren. It doesn’t make sense if our generation suffers the odor from the landfill and later generations suffer polluted air [from burning the trash],” said Hiep, who was under treatment but asked to be discharged temporarily from hospital just to attend the meeting.

Another local named Nha said many people in her neighborhood have thought of moving away but property prices in other parts of the city are too high and no one wants to buy houses near Khanh Son.

Despite their voices, the authorities stick to the plan to expand the landfill, and within two days got the police to clear the blockade and let garbage trucks into the landfill.

Hanoi too

In early July the capital, Hanoi, too saw protestors blocking roads leading to its Nam Son landfill.

These were people living near the landfill for two decades protesting against the failure to relocate them last year as promised and to announce compensation rates for their agricultural lands. Some were also protesting the fact they were to be moved just more than a kilometer from the landfill, and wanted to be relocated further away.

They set up barriers and tents around the waste complex, preventing garbage trucks from entering, causing rubbish to remain uncollected and pile up in many parts of the city.

Piles of garbage on a Hanoi street during a protest in early July when people blocked garbage trucks from entering Nam Son, the city’s biggest landfill. Photo by VnExpress/Ngoc Thanh.

Six days later the city agreed to pay higher rates of compensation, and the protestors dispersed.

The plan to move 1,100 families living within 500 meters of Nam Son was announced last January at a cost of VND3.4 trillion ($147 million). It followed a similar blockade last year when protestors complained that the authorities had been slow to compensate and move out people suffering from the complex’s harmful environmental.

The Nam Son landfill, built in 1999, spreads over 157 hectares (390 acres) but more than half of it has been filled up with trash. It receives almost 5,000 tons of garbage a day, and will be able to take no more after December 2020, according to the Hanoi Urban Environment Company.

Hanoi generates 6,500 tons of solid domestic waste daily and 89 percent of it is buried, according to official data.

Late year, at a meeting with the construction department, Hoang Trung Hai, the city’s party chief, said he had become “impatient” with the delays in building waste treatment plants and the city “has no way back.”

A national headache

Urban areas around Vietnam, home to a third of its population, discard 38,000 tons of domestic waste every day, more than half of the country’s total.

Nguyen Thuong Hien, head of the Vietnam Environment Administration’s waste management department, said: “70 percent of the trash is buried but many of the landfills do not meet environmental requirements, upsetting people living nearby.”

There is no solid waste treatment model in the country that meets all technical, economic, social, and environmental requirements, he said.

Burying a majority of the waste not only pollutes the environment but also means the country is unable to recycle garbage, he said.

Dang Hung Vo, a scientist and former deputy environment minister, said the fact that Vietnam buries 70 percent of its garbage poses a threat to its groundwater and wasteland.

He said the government should bring this rate down to below 20 percent.

According to a 2017 report titled Waste Management in ASEAN Countries by the United Nations Environment Program, Vietnam is in the same position as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Laos, and Brunei, which sort less than half their municipal solid waste, while Myanmar classifies half its garbage, the Philippines manages 50-70 percent and Singapore more than 70 percent.

While Vietnam buries a majority of its trash and turns some into compost, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar burn their garbage to generate electricity.

All sorts of trash endup at a temporary landfill in Hanoi following a protest by people living near the Nam Son landfill in early July 2019. Photo by VnExpress/Ngoc Thanh.

Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Dang Huy Dong said the key to handling garbage is technology.

Burying trash is only an option for large countries with a low population density, whereas Vietnam has 96 million people and high population density, especially in urban areas.

Meanwhile, burning trash, either to get rid of it or generate electricity is akin to using coal, a method the world is trying to eliminate because of its serious health impacts, he said.

“We are unable to sort solid waste at source, and so burning trash will create dioxin, and only the most advanced technologies can prevent that from happening.”

Dioxin is highly toxic and can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage the immune system, interfere with hormones, and even cause cancer. Besides, the current burning methods cannot guarantee safety, he said.

He suggested Vietnam should choose gasification to deal with its trash since this technique generates carbon from which charcoal can be produced to fertilize farmlands.

One of the reasons for the failure to develop waste-treatment techniques in Vietnam is the absence of a transparent and competitive environment that attracts investment in research, he said.

Hien of the Vietnam Environment Administration said sophisticated waste treatment complexes cost a lot of money and most cities and provinces cannot afford them.

Hanoi and HCMC spend VND1.2-1.5 trillion ($52-65 million) a year, or around 3.5 percent of their budget, on collecting and treating waste.

But attracting private investment in waste treatment has proved very difficult due to the complicated procedures involved.

This is due a great deal to the fact that a single agency is not responsible for this, he said.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has responsibility for technical guidelines and management procedures in classifying, processing and getting electricity from garbage, but it is the Ministry of Construction that oversees investment in waste treatment facilities, cost management and valuation of waste treatment services.

Coal

Egat moves coal plant along

17 July 2019

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Thailand

The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) is speeding up the process for a long-delayed coal-fired power plant in Chachoengsao province as newly appointed Energy Minister Sontirat Sontijirawong takes the ministry’s helm.

National Power Supply was granted an operating licence as an independent power producer (IPP) for a 540-megawatt coal-fired power plant 12 years ago, but the project was opposed by local communities.

NPS is wholly owned by a large pulp and paper maker, Advance Agro (AA).

AA won an auction in 2007. But after the licence was granted, a new constitution was approved in 2007 with a law mandating environmental and health impact assessments (EHIAs) before operations could begin.

Approvals of EHIAs by the Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning (Onep) have sometimes taken more than a decade, and there is still no clarity on when AA will receive approval.

Patana Sangsriroujana, Egat’s deputy governor for policy and planning, said Egat is planning to resume and sign a power purchase agreement (PPA) with NPS.

Having received their IPP licences in the same period, other winning peers Gulf Energy Development and Glow Energy have been operating for several years.

NPS also asked the Energy Ministry to consider the possibility of shifting the fuel for power generation from coal to natural gas.

In May, the Energy Policy Administrative Committee (Epac) approved NPS’s request with power generation remaining at the same capacity. The Energy Regulatory Commission was assigned to negotiate a power price for purchase by Egat before the PPA signing date.

SET-listed Ratch Group has announced progress for the 1,400MW Hin Kong power plant project and has entered into a 25-year PPA with Egat.

Egat owns a 45% stake in Ratch.

Two power generators with 700MW capacity each are fired by natural gas and located in Hin Kong subdistrict, Ratchaburi province.

The first block of the power project will start operating in 2024 and the second block will begin the following year, said Kijja Sripatthangkura, Ratch’s chief executive.

“The development will be done under the new wholly owned subsidiary Hin Kong,” he said.

Mr Kijja said the Hin Kong power plant will be built at the site of the Tri Energy power plant, which will be retired in 2020.

Tri Energy, also a Ratch subsidiary, has a 700MW licence, with an additional capacity of 700MW awarded by Epac.

Ratch offers an average power rate lower than those of other private power producers, and Epac agreed that the rate was fair for Egat and end-users.

As a result, Hin Kong will design the first 700MW unit to be repowered, while another 700MW will be installed with a new power generator.

Ratch is conducting a feasibility study and awaiting approval from Onep.

News Clipping

Despite plentiful sun, wind and tidal potential, Southeast Asia has been slow to shift from fossil fuels to clean energy to fuel its fast-growing economies. How can the region quicken the pace of its transition to renewable energy?

Playing catch up

Getting investors on board

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