NEWS RAEL Holds Press Conference in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysian BorneoJuly 14, 2015

Media cov­er­age  of the press con­fer­ence and actions by the Gov­ern­ment of Sarawak include:

The Bor­neo Post, August 11, 2015 — Ade­nan wants SEB to light up the rur­al areas

The Malaysian Insid­er, July 31, 2015 — Ade­nan puts Baram dam on hold, agrees to lis­ten to natives’ grouses

Radio Free Sarawak, July 15, 2015 — “Sjotveit should be out”, say Sarawakians

The Malaysian Insid­er, July 14, 2015 — Stop Baleh dam ten­der until envi­ron­men­tal study scru­ti­nised, says Sarawak PKR

Mongabay​.com, July 8, 2015 — Sarawak can meet ener­gy needs with­out mega-dams: report

BFM 89.9 — The Busi­ness Sta­tion (www​.bfm​.my), Radio and online inter­view, July 3, 2015, Clean ener­gy options in East Malaysia

The Nation­al Geo­graph­ic, July 1, 2015 —  Ama­zon’s Wildlife Threat­ened by Hydropow­er Dams, Study Finds

The Dai­ly Express — East Malaysia, June 30, 2015 — Sarawak Mega Dam Project Study

The Bor­neo Post, June 29, 2015 — Bor­neo May See the End of Mega-Dams

The Malaysian Insid­er, June 29, 2015 — Activists say Ade­nan rethink­ing mega dams pol­i­cy in Sarawak

Free Malaysia Today, June 29, 2015 — Ade­nan May Drop Mega Dam Projects

The May­lay Mail, June 29, 2015 — CM pulls the brakes on Baram dam until he goes through detailed stud­ies, group claims

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Peter Kallang, Gabriel Wynn, Dan Kam­men and See Chee How giv­ing press con­fer­ence on clean ener­gy option reports at the Telang Usan Hotel, Kuch­ing, Sarawak, East Malaysia.

Jour­nal­ists attend RAEL & Green Empow­er­ment Press con­fer­ence in Kuch­ing, Sarawak, Malaysian Bor­neo to dis­cuss find­ings of stud­ies of clean ener­gy options, and to hear reports from Green Empow­er­ment of the per­for­mance of mini-grids to meet com­mu­ni­ty ener­gy needs.

Text of the Bor­neo Post arti­cle:

KUCHING: Datuk Pat­ing­gi Tan Sri Ade­nan Satem may just scrap the state’s plan to build more mega hydro­elec­tric dams in the state after lis­ten­ing to experts on alter­na­tive ener­gy sources on Saturday.

A del­e­ga­tion com­pris­ing Renew­able and Appro­pri­ate Ener­gy Lab­o­ra­to­ry (RAEL) direc­tor Prof Dr Daniel M Kam­men, Green Empow­er­ment Bor­neo Pro­gramme man­ag­er Gabriel Wynn, Save Sarawak Rivers Net­work chair­man Peter Kallang and Batu Lin­tang assem­bly­man See Chee How briefed the chief min­is­ter at his res­i­dence here.

After the one-hour meet­ing, which includ­ed a pre­sen­ta­tion by Kam­men on the ben­e­fits of using renew­able ener­gy such as solar, wind, sus­tain­able bio­mass and micro-hydro in place of mega hydro-dams, the del­e­ga­tion had a feel­ing the Ade­nan admin­is­tra­tion would ‘seri­ous­ly rethink’ its pol­i­cy to build more mega dams.

See said the brief­ing had enabled Ade­nan to hear the ‘oth­er side of the sto­ry’, rather than just depend­ing on what Sarawak Ener­gy Bhd (SEB) had to say.

“We gave him (Ade­nan) the author­i­ty to recon­sid­er since he has heard from SEB with all their ener­gy projections.

“We gave him an alter­na­tive, with stud­ies show­ing him that the state does not need that kind of ener­gy. You have Bakun HEP (hydro­elec­tric­i­ty project) that is there for so long, but you’re only using half of its capacity.

“Of course, now with all these alter­na­tives, which come in with graph­ic pro­jec­tions indi­cat­ing what the state needs to meet demand for the next few decades, it is now clear we can actu­al­ly use alter­na­tive renew­able ener­gy sources to replace all these big dams,” he told a press con­fer­ence at a hotel here yesterday.

See added that the brief­ing on Sat­ur­day enabled Ade­nan to have a bet­ter pic­ture of the whole sit­u­a­tion, adding that the chief min­is­ter even asked Dr Kam­men and Green Empow­er­ment to sub­mit a pro­pos­al and options of renew­able ener­gy (sources) that were prac­ti­cal for the state.

“They (Kam­men and Green Empow­er­ment) will do it very soon because they have every­thing (all the infor­ma­tion) in the three reports that they have come out with based on stud­ies. They have most of the things there – it’s just a mat­ter of mod­i­fy­ing them and giv­ing the pro­pos­al to the chief minister.”

In his view as a non-Sarawakian, Kam­men said the meet­ing with Ade­nan was ‘most inter­est­ing’ because a ‘very friend­ly dis­cus­sion’ was held on the oppor­tu­ni­ties, ben­e­fits and costs of clean energy.

“In fact, we have been asked by the gov­ern­ment to pre­pare a pro­pos­al – maybe to start off with some pilot vil­lages or to vis­it some of the projects that are already in Sarawak or Sabah.

“I worked in East­ern Africa where last year, more peo­ple were con­nect­ed to the grid with mini grids and off-grid prod­ucts than by grid exten­sions,” said the pro­fes­sor, who is Class of 1935 ‘Dis­tin­guished Pro­fes­sor of Ener­gy’ at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia in Berkeley.

Mean­while, Kallang claimed Ade­nan told the del­e­ga­tion that the news­pa­pers had mis­quot­ed him for stat­ing he had giv­en the ‘go-ahead’ with regard to the con­struc­tion of Baram dam dur­ing a gath­er­ing of com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers in Miri recently.

“He (Ade­nan) was con­sult­ing the com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, but lots of peo­ple there were not even from Baram. The major­i­ty of mem­bers of the Fed­er­a­tion of Orang Ulu Malaysia (Forum) – the organ­is­er of the event – are from Bela­ga, Lim­bang and Bario, with very few from Baram.

“They had noth­ing to lose, (which was why) they stood up and gave their sup­port (for Baram Dam).”

Kallang also took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to sub­mit to Ade­nan the anti-Baram Dam peti­tion signed by more than 8,000 peo­ple who were affect­ed by the project, and Kallang claimed Ade­nan respond­ed ‘very positively’.

He said Ade­nan also gave his word to vis­it Baram after Hari Raya Aidilfitri.

“I asked him (Ade­nan) to vis­it the Baram peo­ple. Don’t just lis­ten to com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers because at the moment, the chief min­is­ter is only being fed with feed­back by the com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers. They are not rep­re­sent­ing all, they are only rep­re­sent­ing themselves.”

Kallang said Ade­nan was very recep­tive to the ideas raised dur­ing the Sat­ur­day pre­sen­ta­tion because he (Ade­nan) sym­pa­thised with the rur­al people.

“He (Ade­nan) told us: ‘I don’t care what but let there be light (in all the rur­al areas)’.”