Feature story - 19 April, 2002
Greenpeace is urging the public to tell the Prime Minister of Thailand to refuse two new coal-fired power plants in central southern Thailand.
Coal-fired power generation.
The plants, built by foreign multinationals against the wishes
of local people, would pollute the air, sully the water and choke
the children of Thailand.
The Thai government's plans for these two large-scale,
polluting,
community-displacing, coal-fired power plants has met with
unprecedented opposition, both locally and nationally. It has
become one of Thailand's most controversial political issues. The
Prime Minister has said he will decide the issue at the end of
April.
The people of Bo Nok and Ban Krut in the Gulf of Thailand have
defied harsh repression for the last eight years to fight plans for
the power plants to be located in their communities. When the Prime
Minister of Thailand visited the Bo Nok site in January, 2002 he
was met by two thousand protesters.
Edison International is at the centre of a consortium pushing
this model of power generation on the Thai people. Villagers say
these plant developers are practising gross double standards at the
expense of the Thai people.
The technology at these plants would never meet the
environmental and
social protection standards in California, USA, homestate of the
Edison Corporation.
The future of the two plants is now hanging in the balance.
For more information:
Edison
Out: The Struggle to Stop Coal Fired Power Plants in Bo Nok and
Ban Krut, Thailand. (Greenpeace Report)