The 12 dams on paper if the Serawak government has its way

The ever contoversial state government of Serawak is once more in the news. This time the storey has broke concerning a previously secret state energy masterplan that would see the eventuality of 12 dams being built in the state.

The story was caught on by environmentalist when they came across presentation slides, of which the above picture is part of, placed online at a Chinese website. The presentation by the Serawak state government energy arm, Serawak Energy Berhad, details plans for the eventual building of 12 hydroelectric dams beginning from 2008 until 2020.

Already the controversial Bakun hydroelectric dam project that is well underway has seen the flooding of forest areas ammounting to the size of Singapore. The environment impact from this project has seen the destruction of acres and acres of natural forests, the displacement of native tribes, and the loss of uncountable flora and fauna as their habitats were destroyed.

And not being content with that, it would now seem that the state government is eying to further build 12 more dams. Their justification is that the energy generated will be used for local consumption – in light of budding industrial economies in the state – while the surplus energy will be sold to the peninsular states. And if things go as they want it to, by 2020 Serawak will see the energy generation quota of 600% from what is required today.

The flaw in the case is that that the Bakun dam is already earmarked for energy generation for the state whilst the majority of energy generated will be for the peninsular states. This also does not cater to the fact that as of currently Malaysia energy provider TNB is already sitting on an energy surplus of 40% of the requirement and paying handsome for the mentioned surplus.

So one begs to ask, why the need for more power via more dams with the trade off that vast tracts of century old rainforest will be destroyed?

This then leads one to question who exactly will benefit from such a massive scale project as the building of the 12 dams?

I am quite sure that it’s not for the country, the economy nor the people that this project is catering to. Certainly it will be the personages and cronies of the current state government that will see huge sums of cash inflow – all at the expense of mother nature and the Malaysian taxpayers.

Once the stone is cast, there can be no going back! Don’t let this …

Natural Rainforest

end up becoming this …

The effect of Bakun Dam on nature

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(Pics courtesy of jimgoldstein)

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