Hornbill Unleashed

SARAWAK ELECTION MONITORING 2006

New doubts over Malaysia's Bakun Dam

By Anil Netto

Asia Times Online

2007-07-10 | PENANG, Malaysia - Recent reports of environmental degradation have cast a shadow over the viability of Malaysia's US$2 billion Bakun Dam project and a related multibillion-dollar submarine cable system, which, if completed as proposed, would be the longest such electrical connection in the world.

Environmental group Friends of the Earth recently revealed that between 1999 and 2002, three large tree-plantation projects covering more than 300,000 hectares within the dam's proposed

catchment area were approved by the Sarawak state government. The government had indicated in 1996 that it would gazette a total catchment area of about 1.5 million hectares.

Feasibility calculations for dams are usually based on a life span of 50 years - though better-managed dams can last longer. But the accumulation of sediment in a dam's reservoir can affect operations and severely shorten a hydroelectric facility's life span. Where forest cover is depleted, the rate of surface runoff and sedimentation rises dramatically as the network of roots is lost and the soil is exposed to the elements.

Rivers in Sarawak generally already have a problem with sedimentation, experts say.

"If you look at the rivers of Sarawak from the air, you will see they are mostly brown and muddy, indicating a heavy sedimentation load, in contrast to the situation about 20-25 years ago, when the water-catchment areas were relatively undisturbed," said environmentalist and researcher Leong Yueh Kwong, a member of the Malaysian Nature Society.

"Sedimentation may not affect the viability of the dam, but it will probably affect the useful life span of the dam. If you have very serious sedimentation, it will reduce the volume of water and capacity of the dam," said Leong.

Meanwhile, Friends of the Earth pointed out in a recent statement that the Bakun Environmental Impact Assessment reports indicate that the annual sediment load in the Bakun catchment area jumped from 11 million to 29 million tonnes between 1983 and 1993 alone. This, it said, could "largely be attributed to the advent of timber-harvesting activities in the area".

"Thus the establishment of tree plantations in the upstream reaches of Bakun will surely spell a disaster for the dam since such plantations will entail clear-cutting and periodic harvesting and an increase in erosion and siltation rates," the group said.

How that will affect the long-term performance of the 2,400-megawatt Bakun Dam remains to be seen. Its electricity-generating turbines are expected to start churning toward the end of 2009, with the dam fully operational by 2011 - long past the original time frame of the much-delayed, problem-ridden project. The national electricity corporation, Tenaga Nasional, is expected to take 1,600MW of Bakun's power for use in the Malay Peninsula.

At present, Malaysia has 40% excess electricity, and that is expected to drop to 30% by 2010 - still higher than the 20% reserve capacity required - just before Bakun comes online. If Bakun is not further delayed, Tenaga will likely not need any new power-generation capacity until about 2015.

But that hasn't stopped the government talking of even more hydropower projects, proposing to tap the upper reaches of the Rejang River in Sarawak. Planners are eyeing a total of 20,000MW in potential power generation, which they hope can be transmitted to the peninsula via submarine cables.

World's longest line

The cost of the cables alone raises hard economic questions. The government has invited Sumitomo Corp of Japan to study the possibility of helping to lay the undersea cables across 700 kilometers of the South China Sea. Energy Minister Lim Keng Yaik said Sumitomo could, if it wanted to, link up with Prysmian Cables and Systems, listed on the Milan Stock Exchange, and deal with Malaysian conglomerate Sime Darby, the Bakun project manager.

The Bakun submarine cables would conceivably reach Tanjung Lemang in Johor state, in the south of the peninsula, before being transported a further 200km overland to central Pahang state for connection to the national grid - well over 1,000km from the Bakun dam site.

Minister Lim said it would take a year to lay each 250km section of the proposed undersea cable system, adding that each 700km link from Sarawak to Johor would cost $1.5 billion. The system could entail anywhere between two and six cables, and Malaysia has reportedly asked Japan for a 350 billion yen ($3 billion) loan to finance the cable cost.

It is a massive project by any standards - significantly longer than the current longest global link, the 580km NorNed undersea cable connection, linking the electricity grids of Norway and the Netherlands, due to become operational next year.

Much of the Malaysian cable project hinges on the viability of Bakun and, not surprisingly, questions are being raised as to whether the integrity of that investment is being adequately safeguarded.

"Given the estimate of the expenditure involved, how come we don't seem concerned about protecting the investment? Especially since now it is public funds, whereas the plantation is for private gain - even jobs will largely go to foreign workers," said a researcher familiar with Sarawak's interior.

"Now they want to spend some more billions for a cable to the peninsula," he said. "Does peninsular Malaysia want to depend upon a resource that is of uncertain status? Can the minister assure industry and consumers that there will be sufficient power coming from Bakun, and at a reasonable price?"

Business reports have suggested that 17 sen (5 US cents) per kilowatt-hour of electricity - the rate previously offered to Tenaga in 1995 - could be the going rate. But whether Tenaga would be comfortable with that pay scale is another matter. It currently obtains electricity from independent power producers at rates ranging from 12-16 sen. Moreover, Tenaga's chief executive officer was recently quoted as saying that its own plant in Port Dickson is "the most efficient plant in the system".

Sarawak is also rushing to set up energy-intensive industries, such as aluminum smelter plants, to soak up excess power from Bakun. But whether the price of electricity from Bakun and other hydro projects - given the seeming potential for higher operational costs - will be low enough to attract aluminum multinationals is another matter. Two foreign firms have been short-listed for the construction of at least two smelters.

About 200,000 hectares near Bakun are believed to be licensed for conversion to plantation and are under various stages of conversion. Asia Times Online has seen photographs of a plantation in the Seping area, which drains into the Belepeh, and thence into the Murum, the river that flows into the Balui River, along which the Bakun Dam is being constructed. One of the photographs reveals logged-over forest, in an area that was mainly primary forest 20 years ago, while the other shows hill-slopes that have been cleared of tree cover.

As for logging, satellite pictures show the area upstream of the Balui and further inland to be criss-crossed by logging access roads.

"Hell, the whole catchment is under logging," said the researcher, who estimated that up to half the catchment was badly degraded. "[That], of course, doesn't mean that every hectare is being logged, as some areas are too steep or too high."

The potential for sediment at the dam's 70,000-hectare reservoir and its head is thus likely to be higher than initially estimated, he contended. "What assessments have been made as to what this will do to the hydrological regime and to the rate of siltation? What happened to promises of gazetting the catchment?"

For now, those questions remain unanswered.

Anil Netto is a freelance writer based in Penang, Malaysia.

Reference Links