Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) is shocked by Tenaga Nasional Berhad's revelation on Dec 11 that the company is planning to build a RM 3 billion hydroelectric dam in Pahang to generate electricity at 1,000 MW.

At a time when policymakers around the world are beginning to integrate environmental and sustainable development concerns in their decision making process, it is quite obvious that Malaysia is going the opposite way. We would like to reiterate that it is wrong to regard hydroelectric energy as green energy - hydroelectric is neither renewable nor clean.

SAM strongly believes that for any local or national energy development plan to be sustainable, a country's decision-making process on its energy resource development has a responsibility to better assess development needs and their full range of development options, as proposed by the report of the World Commission on Dams (WCD).

In short, alternatives to building dams must be fully explored before a decision to build a dam is made. Equally important, such a process must also include the assessment on current and future consumption patterns and steps must be taken to curb wasting and unsustainable consumption modes.

Bearing these sound principles in mind and the current scenario in the country's energy industry, we are indeed surprised to discover that TNB has plans to construct a large hydroelectric dam.

Contrary to popular belief that Malaysia is in constant need of more electricity, after the 1997 economic crisis, the government has embarked on an aggressive planting up programme that resulted in TNB and other Independent Power Producers (IPP) ending up with over 3,900 MW and 3,700 MW of new capacity, respectively, by 2005.

Table 11.6 of the Eighth Malaysian Plan 2001-2005 has clearly shown to us that by 2005, TNB will have an accumulated installed capacity of 20,819 MW with a peak demand of 15,380 MW and a reserve margin of 35.4 percent.

However some analysts have contended that the planned capacity indeed looks set to outstrip our demand growth. While capacity will grow at an average rate of 11 percent per annum up to 2007, power demand is expected to grow by only 8 to 10 percent in the same period. In fact, in reality, our demand has registered an even slower growth - between 6 and 7 percent only.

Thus, in all probability, Peninsula's reserve margins may well exceed 50 percent from 2003 and beyond. Coupled with the possibility of a global economic slowdown progressing in the next few years, it is highly unlikely that Peninsular Malaysia will need a new RM 3 billion dam in the future.

Secondly, we are not only confounded by our policymakers' fixation on new energy plants and their lack of prudent consideration on the reality of our energy demands; we also find it perplexing that they are still in favour of hydroelectric energy when other less socially disruptive, more reliable, much cheaper and in fact more sustainable options are already available.

The WCD report has indeed revealed that large hydropower projects often incur cost overruns and schedule delays, indicating that they are not in reality cost-effective and efficient power producers. A fifth of the projects in the report's sample actually achieve less than 75 percent of the planned power targets and over half of the projects fall short of their power production targets.

Certainly, the zeal to construct more and more energy plants - without proper financial evaluation, needs assessment process and accurate projections on energy demand will indeed be disastrous to the energy industry itself, not to say on the environment and the nation's economy.

Thirdly, SAM is also concerned on the possible dislocation of affected communities caused by the dam. Resettlement exercises in this country have been nothing less than disastrous - experiences in the Bakun Resettlement Scheme in Sungai Asap to the Selangor Dam have all been well documented.

Thirdly, the fact that an EIA will be done does not mean that environmental impacts will be minimised. So far, the experience in many instances has been that the EIA process is merely used as a rubber stamp for project approval.

The Pahang State Government owes a responsibility to the people of Pahang to explain the need for this project - which will utilize RM3 billion of taxpayers' money. The WCD report has comprehensively documented numerous problems that accompany the development of large dam - from horrendous environmental impacts from upstream zones way down to the coastal and delta areas that affect the river's historical, spiritual, cultural, social, and economic components to the social disintegration of the adversely affected riverine communities.

With the wealth of evidence that exists against dams, it is untenable for the Pahang State Government to assume that this project will benefit anyone except the companies involved in constructing the dam.

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S.M Mohamed Idris
President
Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM)