Word: coale
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...project, EVN spokesman Nguyen Duc Long says. Prices for natural gas, another fuel source for electrical generators, are up 15-20% over last year, and domestic gas reserves are too small to meet demand. Vietnam is planning nuclear power plants, but the first won't be ready until 2020. Coal, on the other hand, is readily available. The country's northern Red River delta has some 30 billion tons of coal reserves - enough to generate electricity for 100 years. "If we could have the same economic development and still ensure the environment - well, of course we'd all pick that...
...That's a conclusion other developing countries have reached. Between 2001 and 2006, the amount of coal used worldwide to generate electricity grew by 30%, with China and India accounting for more than three-quarters of the increase, according to the WWF, which monitors global warming. Thailand and Malaysia, which switched to gas-fired power plants in recent years, are now turning back to coal. There's no shortage of investors. Despite objections from environmental groups, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) last month agreed to fund the $1 billion, 2,200-megawatt Mong Duong coal plant in northern Vietnam. Greenpeace...
...Vietnamese officials say they are trying to ease the environmental impact of coal power by using clean-burning technology and by encouraging energy conservation. EVN has launched a rebate campaign promoting power-saving fluorescent lightbulbs; Vietnam recently passed a clean-air law that requires new coal plants to install filters for toxic sulfur dioxide and nitrogen. In Uong Bi, EVN installed filters on the new generator's smokestack - a measure that tea-shop owner Dang says has reduced the black smoke. But even the most advanced technologies can't cut CO2 emissions by much. Carbon sequestration - a proposed method...
...Poverty isn't, and EVN's Long says Vietnam's priority is economic development - and that requires abundant electricity for manufacturing and to meet the needs of an expanding middle class. "If we don't use coal power, then we'll have a beautiful environment but a lot of poverty," says Long. "We have to make a choice." Vietnam has decided to turn the lights on now, and deal with climate change later...
...isolation, might ultimately lead to economic reforms. And for foreign investors lured by what Devonshire-Ellis calls the "barren romance" of the place, North Korea holds obvious, if modest, attractions: a highly literate workforce with average daily wages that are about half what Chinese earn; abundant mineral resources, including coal, iron ore and gold; a cash-on-the-barrel economy; and virtually no competition. It's not hard to gain a first-mover advantage, after all, if everyone else is standing still...