Stephen Then and Hilary Chiew, The Star 14 Jan 10;
MIRI: Environmental groups are up in arms over the move by the Sarawak government to classify the mining and exploitation of coal reserves in the state under the term renewable energy projects.
The Borneo Resources Institute criticised the move and challenged the state to explain how coal mining could be categorised as developing “renewable energy”.
The institute’s executive director Mark Bujang said the state government had included coal mining among the projects to be carried out under the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE) initiative.
“We object to the move to categorise such an environmentally hostile project as a renewable energy project because it is very misleading.
“Coal is a mineral that is exhaustible. It cannot be regenerated,” he said.
Renewable energy is defined as energy harvested from sunlight, wind, rain, tides and geothermal heat which can be naturally replenished at the same rate as they are used.
Bujang said coal mining was one of the most environmentally damaging and polluting activities in the world.
“Furthermore, the burning of coal in power-generating plants produces huge volumes of greenhouse gases,” he said.
On Monday, Sarawak secured a US$11bil (RM38.5bil) investment in the SCORE region, which is situated between Mukah district in central Sarawak and Similajau district in Bintulu Division.
It was reported that the State Grid Corporation of China, besides building three hydro-electric dams, would also look into mining 400 million tonnes of coal deposits in Merit Pila in the Kapit Division of central Sarawak.
Bujang said his organisation had found that the mining of 400 million tonnes of coal in Kapit was just the tip of the iceberg.
“Sarawak has more than a billion tonnes of coal and already, there are numerous mining projects being carried out, especially in the Mukah-Balingain region, which is part of the SCORE territory,” he said.
He said a coal plant in Mukah had already been constructed and was nearing completion.
“We have never heard of any environmental impact assessment or any social impact assessment being carried out,” he said.
Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) honorary secretary Meena Raman said SCORE would be a sham if coal mining, natural gas extraction and the building of big dams were its core businesses.
She urged the Federal and state governments to make public the nature of the investments, the justification for such projects, and if strategic environmental and social impact assessments would be conducted.
Centre for Environmental Technology and Development chairman Gurmit Singh said “there’s nothing renewable about SCORE”.
“Large dams have already been proven not to be a viable renewable energy source unless you are talking about mini dams,” he said.
