Comments on: Electric Refugees

By: indi.ca » The Hambantota Tax

indi.ca » The Hambantota Tax — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 11:06:46 +0000

[...] these Hambantota developments could have been quite happily moved to Trincomallee. Think about it. The Power Minister is saying the Norochcholai power plant would have been better built there as the harbour is deep enough to [...]

By: sack

sack — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 04:47:46 +0000

Buddhist monks and some organizations made a noise but they really did not have anything to worry about. They really don’t have much at stake here. Some made the claim that this could damage the Sri maha bodiya which is hundered of kilometers away from it. The real power was the bishop, environmentalists, fisherman and may be others who had something to do with the diesel power plants.

The residents in the area are Muslims or Catholics.
Out of these most affected were catholic fisherman so hence the church’s’ involvement.

Anyhow Dr.Siyabalapitiya estimates that the economic cost of the delay is somewhere between Rs.152 B(2004 fuel prices) and Rs.420 B (2011 fuel prices).
Considering the fat that oil was 40$ barrel in 2004, real cost would be on the higher side of the above estimate.

By: Dulan

Dulan — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 16:11:25 +0000

I remember reading about LED street lighting and solar power farms in Hambantota. Wonder whatever happened to them?

By: shammi

shammi — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 15:49:24 +0000

If I remember correctly, even Buddhist monks in the area joined the protests in support of the residents of the area, mainly fisherfolk who must have had some reasonable fears regarding the effect the power project would have on their lives. Most coastal fisherfolk are Catholics and they would’ve looked to the church for help.

However national neccessity must get priority, and the project went ahead as it rightly should. One hopes that the protests would have brought attention to issues that may otherwise have been ignored, and that it resulted in a cleaner project with minimal environmental impact.

Only, it looks like the true story is as Ranawaka said it, that proper standards were not maintained. Now that, is adding a lot of injury to the initial insult.

By: sack

sack — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 08:16:12 +0000

At that time it was financed by the Japanese.
here is a article written by Dr.Thilak Siyabalapitiya who was involved with the project.

http://sundaytimes.lk/110320/BusinessTimes/bt09.html

By: tastyjujubes

tastyjujubes — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 07:46:33 +0000

It would have been built much earlier if Bishop Marcus Fernando didn’t go off the deep end try to sabotage it along with his followers.

By: sack

sack — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 06:41:02 +0000

Problem with Trinco was the security issue. Now that issue has been solved.
But the Indian sampur plant is being delayed continuously (it was first planned in 2006). And Dr.Siyambalapitiya (not ranjith) has warned that this delay would lead to a power cut in 2016.

On the other hand i feel sorry for the current minister (ranavaka). Name he got from the environment minister as a efficient (comparatively) minister got ruined in the new job for (mostly) things out of his control.

The norochchole plant was built during the time of Jon Seneviratna (his sectary got caught in that drug/murder thing in kahavatta).

By: Mahasen Bandara

Mahasen Bandara — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 06:39:56 +0000

For your home office, you could use something like this: http://www.venceip.lk/index.php/venceip-productdetails/15 and keep working through the power cuts…