The 100 million people who don’t have electricity are not going to benefit from a coal power station, for the simple reason that they are not connected to the national grid. Which is why solar power for individual users might be a better solution for these people.

I disagree that you can simply kick people off their land and destroy their livelihoods for the benefit of others – particularly when those others won’t be benefiting in any case, because they aren’t connected to the national grid.

I appreciate your comments about the amount of money people earn in Bangladesh and that people in Bangladesh have just as much right to “development” as anyone else. I would also say that the same argument applies to people living in Phulbari.

I’m opposed to nuclear power, since you ask, because the industry is linked to the production of nuclear weapons, because there is still no safe way of storing nuclear waste, because of the impacts of mining uranium and because nuclear power stations are extremely risky (8,000 gallons of uranium contaminated water recently spilled from the Tricastin nuclear site at Bollene in the south of France, for example).

-While that’s true, some 30 Million people (half of UK Population) just in North Bangladesh doesn’t have access to electricity; their kids can not study at night even for tests since kerosene is becoming increasingly expansive. Not to mention some 100 Million people doesn’t have electricity in the entire country and this is suppose to be the 21th century. Also it’s not like a big portion of the country’s fertile land is being diverted to coal mining. In fact Phulbari is just .000004% of the total fertile land and the food produced from this area is negligible when compared to the total national food output. That small amount to food can be imported from elsewhere. The benefit to provide electricity to the 30 million North Bangladesh outweighs any hindrance that may arise from coal mining.

-And as for solar panel, even if you kick out the entire population of Bangladesh (150 Million) and blanket cover the entire country with solar panel it still would not provide the require electricity for current use; not to mention the future electricity requirement. And yeah same disappointing results with wind power too.

-We as a nation don’t want to earn $550 per YEAR per person (equivalent to what people in the UK makes in a week). We also want to live like an average human being, have electricity and make reasonable amount of money per year and the only way to do that is by industrialization, Farming by no mean can provide jobs to some extra 50 million people by 2025. I sincerely hope you can understand what a difficult position we are in; You cant just look at a situation one-sided or in the shot-term, you must look at the bigger picture.

-And on the side note I am curious what your NGO and others alike are going to do when Bangladesh goes for nuclear power (which is slated to go online by 2015).

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-12/25/content_7309462.htm

You ask me whether I know “how to produce enough electricity to feed 150 MILLION people”. Your question is interesting. Land is needed to produce food – not electricity. A few years ago, I spoke to villagers living in northeast Cambodia, downstream of the Yali Falls dam, in Vietnam. The dam destroyed fisheries downstream and caused flash floods which killed several people and drowned their animals. The villagers pointed out that they didn’t need electricity, they needed food, which would involve restoring the river to its previous condition. In the Phulbari area both rivers and land would be affected by the proposed coal mine.

Why isn’t solar power an option in Bangladesh? This seems like a particularly good option considering that only 30 per cent of the population in Bangladesh has access to the national electricity grid.