जल विद्युत को कुरा। खोला र सुरक्षा बाहेक केही नदिने गर्नु सर्वोत्तम होला। पैसा त १००% तिमी हाल भन्ने विदेशी लाई। हामी सुरक्षा को भने गारंटी लिन्छौं भन्ने। हाम्रो सशस्त्र लाई त बामे ले shoot at sight order दिएर राखेको छ। भन्ने।
Bhutan hoping for happiness with hydropower
त्यो चाहिँ नभन्ने। विदेशी भागाभाग हुन्छ। विदेशी मधेसी होइन सशस्त्र को कैंप घेरदिने।
खोला र सुरक्षा मात्र दिने गर्दा एउटा १००० मेगावाट को बन्यो ह रे। अनि नेपाल ले कति पाउने? ५०% त होइन होला। २५% हो कि? १५% हो कि? २०% घटि त के होला र? तिम्रो कंक्रीट र टरबाइन ले बिजुली आएको होइन पानी ले हो बिजुली आएको भन्ने। Hard bargaining गर्ने।
पहिलो वर्ष २०% पाउने, १० वर्ष पछि त्यो २५% हुने, १५ वर्ष पछि ५०% हुने, अनि २५ वर्ष पछि १००% नेपाल को हुने। त्यस्तै केही होला। त्यो बिजुली आफुले खपत गर्ने जति गर्ने बाँकी केपी बाजे को युपी बिहार लाई बेचने। सउदी अरब ले पनि भारत लाई टैंकर का टैंकर तेल बेचेको छ।
By the middle of 2014, the stately yellow, black and white Great Hornbills that live in the forest along the Dagachhu – a river in Bhutan’s Himalayan foothills – should get some peace after four years of drilling, blasting and construction around their rural haunts. ...... Some countries have oil and gas. Others have fertile plains on which to grow wheat or rice.
Bhutan has mountains and rivers – lots of them – and has staked its future on hydroelectricity.
....... Dagachhu, a 126MW plant partly financed by the Asian Development Bank, is only the latest of a series of projects that are turning this previously isolated Buddhist kingdom into a modern hydropower nation. ....... Bhutan is famous for its philosophy of emphasising “gross national happiness” (GNH) over gross domestic product (GDP). The $240m project has some peculiar features suited to the country’s attempts to open its economy while seeking to preserve a largely pristine mountain environment........It is the first Bhutanese hydro project in which the private sector – in this case India’s Tata Power, with 26 per cent of the equity – has a direct stake.......... it is the world’s first example of cross-border use of the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism: although the power plant is in clean and green Bhutan, it is permitted to earn carbon credits because the electricity is exported to India and will reduce emissions there by some 500,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year....... Dagachhu, however, is part of a much broader drive by the Bhutanese royal family and the two governments elected since the introduction of full democracy in 2008 to accelerate economic growth and reduce poverty........Bhutanese ministers admit the target will slip, butthe country’s declared aim is to increase hydropower capacity to 10,000MW by 2020, most of it for export to its electricity-hungry neighbour India.
...... So far only 1,500MW, about 6 per cent of the country’s total potential, has been completed, and in winter when rivers are low Bhutan is still an electricity importer. Even at this low level, hydropower is Bhutan’s biggest export and accounts for one-fifth of GDP.......“Hydropower is the backbone of Bhutan,” says Tinley Dorji, Dagachhu chief executive.
.....Tshering Tobgay, the prime minister, is determined to make the most of Bhutan’s growing output of clean electricity. In the capital Thimphu, for example, he wants to use cheap hydropower to create an electric vehicle “hotspot” that would be an example to the rest of the world and attract investments in green vehicle technologies...... Yet relying on hydropower is not without risks, including environmental ones. Lam Dorji, finance secretary, says that climate change and reduced winter snowfall is already affecting the flow of Bhutan’s glacier-fed rivers (rain-fed Dagachhu is not one of them). “These are really hard facts that we are beginning to realise – that there’s a possibility that some day in the future it [the water flow] would be reduced to an extent that we may not be able to make use of it.” ....... Bhutan’s “run of the river” hydro projects are less invasive than the alternative of big dams and reservoirs. .....perhaps the biggest risk for Bhutan is a “resource curse” of the type that affects countries dependent on the export of a single commodity and stunts other parts of their economies....... Bhutan plans to diversify farm production from its staples of rice, potatoes, corn and apples into hazelnuts, coffee and organic vegetables – but will certainly rely heavily on hydroelectricity exports to a single market, India, for decades to come. It is now struggling to pay for the imports of labour and equipment for the ambitious projects backed by India, some of them 10 times as large as Dagachhu. ...... Mr Tobgay, who has set his sights on maintaining annual economic growth of 10 per cent a year ...... “Hydropower is a gift, a boon. It’s not a curse,” he says in an interview. “Right now our economy is so weak and so small that all I can say is
‘Thank heavens for hydropower’.”
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