Kraftværket skal forsyne millioner af mennesker med elektricitet, men den miljømæssige pris er høj. Verdens største mangroveskov, et unikt økosystem, som bl.a. er hjem for den bengalske tiger, er truet af projektet. Det vækker bekymring i både befolkningen, blandt miljøaktivister og videnskabsfolk.
On October 22, Bangladeshi and Indian officials were supposed to hold a ceremony laying the foundation stone for the Rampal power plant, a massive new coal-fired project that will sit on the edge of the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest, writes Yale Environment 360.
Instead, the governments canceled the ceremony and announced that the project had already been inaugurated (indviet /påbegyndt) in early October by the two countries’ heads of state via a Skype call.
While the governments say the change was made because of busy schedules, activists contend the sudden scuttling (skotning) of the ceremony was more likely due to rising pressure against the coal plant, including a five-day march in September that attracted an estimated 20,000 people.
Irreversible imacts
Opponents say that the 1,320 megawatt project could devastate (ødelægge) the Sundarbans, Bangladesh’s largest forest and the nation’s last stronghold of the Bengal tiger.
They contend that water diversion to the plant, coupled with air and water pollution and heavy coal barge (pram) traffic, could leave the Sundarbans — a UNESCO World Heritage site — an increasingly degraded (nedslidt) ecosystem, potentially threatening the livelihoods of some of the half-million people who depend on the great mangrove forest.
“Most of the impacts of [the plant] are negative and irreversible (uigenkaldelige) which can’t be mitigated (afbødet) in any way,” concludes an independent Environmental Impact Assessment of the proposed plant by environmental scientist Abdullah Harun Chowdhury of Khulna University in Bangladesh.
Badly needed power
The government says that the plant will produce badly needed power for Bangladesh’s 150 million people, about half of whom lack electricity.
Officials also contend that Rampal will cause minimal environmental harm. “[The] Sundarbans is our safeguard [against natural disasters], and no power plant will be set up jeopardizing (bringe i fare) the Sundarbans,” declared Monowar Islam, the head of Bangladesh’s Power Division.
The construction of the Rampal plant is part of an ambitious government strategy to increase electricity generation to 20,000 megawatts by 2021 — a goal that relies heavily on coal.
The current administration of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is proposing a dozen new coal plants, with more likely to come. Until recently, less than five percent of Bangladesh’s electricity production came from coal. Instead the country produced most of its energy from natural gas and biomass.
>strong>Bangladesh is highly vulnerable to climate change
Critics of the Rampal plant and the country’s growing embrace of coal argue that it is a reckless (hensynsløs /ubesindig) strategy for a nation that is consistently rated as one of most vulnerable countries to global warming.
Few nations are as low-lying as Bangladesh, and the Sundarbans is one of the country’s most important bulwarks against rising seas and intensifying typhoons and other extreme weather events.
Based on sea level increase projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 17 percent of Bangladesh could be engulfed by the sea as waters rise, creating millions of climate refugees.
In 2010, Bangladesh’s Minister of the Environment and Forests, Hasan Mahmud, said that “in Bangladesh climate change is not a threat; climate change is the reality.”
“Bangladesh is already a global hotspot for tropical cyclones and other climatic events and is highly vulnerable to increased intensity of storms,” Mahmud said last year, adding:
“Two thirds of the country is less than five meters above sea level and vulnerable to coastal inundation (nedbrydning) and salinity intrusion (indtrængen af salt, som ødelægger jorden), which we are already experiencing.”
In 2009, Prime Minister Hasina told the UN climate summit in Copenhagen that “the refugees caused by climate change increase day by day.” Still, Hasina is a staunch defender of the Rampal coal plant, and her administration is the driving force behind Bangladesh’s sudden investment in coal.
Partnership with India
First conceived in 2010, the Rampal power plant is a partnership between the Bangladesh Power Development Board and India’s state-owned National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), which will share fifty-fifty ownership of the plant, as well as the electricity it produces.
Critics contend that despite being a joint project between India and Bangladesh, Bangladesh will face the environmental and human impacts.
“Coal is big business in India, and no doubt there are powerful interests at play,” says Ashish Fernandes, an expert on coal with Greenpeace India, addng:
“If Bangladesh is locked into being coal-dependent, companies like NTPC will make significant profits, at the cost of [Bangladesh’s] people and environment.”
Like the Rampal coal plant, the Sundarbans mangrove forest — an expanse of wooded tracts that rise out of sediment in the tidal zone — is shared between Bangladesh and India.
Around 80 percent of the forest lies within Bangladesh, while the rest is in the Indian state of Bengal. The Sundarbans, a UNESCO World Heritage site, covers 10,000 square kilometers and is vital to locals who have depended on its fisheries and other bounty for centuries.
“[The Sundarbans] plays a significant role in the national economy and it is the largest source of forest products in the country,” explains Abu Diyan a local environmentalist and guide.
A unique ecosystem
Roughly the size of Lebanon (eller som 1/4 af Danmark), the Sundarbans is home to at least 330 plant species (arter), 315 bird species, 210 fish species, 49 mammal species, and 59 species of reptiles.
Many of the species are endangered, including the Ganges river dolphin; the masked finfoot (svømmerikse), a water bird; and the Bengal tiger.
Globally, mangrove forests are among the world’s most important ecosystems — serving as fish nurseries, havens of biodiversity, and carbon storehouses — but they are increasingly disappearing in the face of coastal development and aquaculture.
Negative impact on people and environment
The human toll of the coal plant — built just 14 kilometers from the edge of the Sundarbans — has already been felt: several hundred families have been forcibly removed to make way for the project and hundreds more are expected to be relocated in the near future.
The land they inhabited, mostly shrimp farms and rice paddies, will soon be the scene of the power plant construction.
The government says the Rampal coal plant will suck up 9,150 cubic meters of water from the Passur River every hour and run it through a desalination plant.
Since mangroves depend on a brackish mix of fresh (ferskvand) and salt water, scientists not only fear that water levels in the Passur river will run low, but also that the blend of fresh-and-salt water could be disrupted, dooming swaths of the Sunderban’s mangroves.
Furthermore, water dumped back into Passur River will be up 20 to 25 degrees F warmer than the river water, threatening aquatic species.
“The water of the Sundarbans and surrounding areas will be affected by discharging cooling water, effluents from the ships, and leaching (udvaske) water of the coal from ships,” Chowdhury explained.
Experts say that the Rampal coal plant will require around 4.72 million tons of coal every year, which the government says will require a ship a day carrying coal through wildlife-rich waters.
Another major concern is the air pollution and toxics (giftstoffer) generated by the plant, including arsenic, mercury (kviksølv), lead (bly), nickel, and radium.
The government says the plant could discharge up to 52,000 tons of sulfur (svovl) a year, which, depending on the type of coal burned, could lead to acid rain in the Sundarbans and surrounding regions.
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