New energy for Vietnam: Producing power from rice husks
New energy for Vietnam: Producing power from rice husks
http://english.vietnamnet.vn/reports...-husks-937064/
VietNamNet Bridge – A top rice producer like Vietnam also produces lots of rice husks. In the Mekong Delta, entrepreneurs are learning how to turn this ‘waste’ into electricity.
http://english.vietnamnet.vn/dataima...s2028326_1.JPG
’Waste’ rice husks enroute to a brick kiln in the Mekong Delta province of Vinh Long.
In 2007, Vietnam produced nearly 36 million tons of rice, over half of it in the lush, sprawling Mekong Delta. It also ‘produced’ 7.5 million tons of rice husks.
About half the volume of rice husks is used to feed cattle or make fertilizer or plywood. Some of it fuels brick kilns. However, about half is just wasted.
The redundant rice husks are a headache for many rice millers because they have no place to put it. During the harvest seasons, some pay a lot of money to have the heaps of husks carried to rubbish dumps. Some just dump the rice husks into rivers (which is of course illegal).
Not surprisingly, it has occurred to entrepreneurs and renewable energy experts that rice husks can be used to generate electricity. The experts say that 1.6-2.2kg of rice husk is enough to create 1kWh of power.
Tran Quang Cu of the International Finance Corporation (IFC, an arm of the World Bank) advocates that Vietnam set up medium-sized power plants fueled by rice husks of 160-180 megawatts (MW) in capacity near rice growing areas. By burning 1.5 million tons of rice husks a year, Cu says, Vietnam can produce 1-1.2 terawatt hours of power.
In the Delta, a kilo of rice husks currently costs only 200-300 dong – that is, it’s practically free to anyone who will haul it away. Rice mills in the Mekong Delta are mainly located along rivers so it is convenient to transport rice husks to thermo-power plants.
In Southeast Asia, experimentation with rice husk power plant projects started in the mid 1990s. Two projects implemented in Thailand demonstrated their feasibility. Project developers in Southeast Asia gained confidence by visiting these projects. Today, many more such projects are in various stages of development and implementation.
From the technological perspective, in the last 10 years, most problems have been solved. Today the plants are fully automated and, for well designed plants, the efficiency of the boiler and the overall efficiency of the power plant are very good.
There has also been considerable reduction in the total investment cost, mainly due to the competition of a dozen boiler suppliers who have mastered the technology.
Most plants are much smaller than the power plants suggested by the IFC’s Cu. In Thailand, they range from 22 MW down to two MW. A 50 MW plant was studied, but due to the problem of fuel security, that project did not materialise. A 30 MW power plant was studied in Philippines and it also was abandoned due to fuel collection and transportation issues.
By contrast, an average-sized coal-fired power plant will produce about 600 MW of power.
With advancement in technology, some of the projects produce high quality silicate ash that’s valuable as fertilizer. It is exported to Europe, Japan, Korea and other countries for as much as $400/ton. Some projects focuses more on rice husk ash than power. This solves the ash disposal problem, as rice husk contains up to 20 percent ash.
Vietnam hops on the bandwagon
Nearly a dozen rice husk-fuelled power plants are underway in the Mekong Delta. They include two in An Giang province - one in the Hoa An industrial zone in Cho Moi district and the other in Thoai Son district.
The first plant is built on an 18 hectare lot with 10 MW capacity and total investment of over $10 million by Dong Thanh, a local company. The second plant also has 10 MW capacity and is built by a local firm, with a reported investment of $15 million. These two plants will consume around 240,000 tons of rice husks a year.
In Tien Giang province, the local authorities have approved a 10 MW rice-husk power plant worth $18.6 million.
In Dong Thap province, Duy Phat JS Company is licenced to build a 10 MW factory in Lap Vo district, at a cost of 296 billion dong ($16.4 million).
Kien Giang province is searching for a good place to build an 11 MW factory. By building this factory, the investor aims to earn emissions reductions offsets of over 27,000 tons of CO2 and CH4.
In Can Tho City the Dinh Hai Thermo-power JS Company has built a rice-husk power factory in Tra Noc industrial zone. This company is also cooperating with J-Power (Japan) to build another 10 MW plant in Thot Not district that will use around 80,000 tons of rice husk a year.
J-Power said that if this plant operates successfully, it will joint-venture 10-15 husk-fuelled plants in the Mekong Delta.
Young, bold and confident — Indonesia, Vietnam are Asia's new economic stars
Young, bold and confident — Indonesia, Vietnam are Asia's new economic stars
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/commenta...Young-bold.htm
The scene: a coffee shop in a modern shopping center in Jakarta. Nineteen-year-old Shiela and her friends are nursing their 30,000 rupiah (about US$3.35) cups of iced milk tea while keeping their eyes glued to their Blackberry smartphones as they rapidly pound out what may be their thousandth message of the day.
Shiela represents the consumer segment now being targeted by big multinational brands, such as Nokia, Swatch and Coca-Cola. This group of consumers in the 15-20 age bracket tend not to save or display personal independence, preferring instead to support brands favored by their friends. One Indonesian marketing expert describes these young spenders as “ABG,” or “anak baru gede,” meaning “kids who've just grown up,” and it is they who form the backbone of the emerging middle class that will drive Indonesia's economic growth in the coming decade.
Another scene, this time along Dong Khoi, the premier shopping street in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City. Thirty-one year-old single mother Nguyen Phi Nhu and her friends brave a downpour to exercise their passion for shopping. Nguyen is a mid-level manager for the Ho Chi Minh City branch of multinational pharmaceutical Abbott S.A., and she also owns her own public relations firm.
These well-educated, high-income women employed by foreign companies pattern themselves after the main characters of the U.S. TV series Sex and the City, yearning for the same economic independence, freedom to consume and enjoyment of life exhibited by Carrie Bradshaw and her friends.
For Indonesia and Vietnam, the times, indeed, are changing.
The archipelago of 10,000 islands endured a decade of suffering in the 1990s, dragged down by the dictatorship of then president Suharto, fierce ethnic clashes and the Asian Financial Crisis. But it has since rebounded, receiving kudos this year from the New York Times: “After years of inefficiency, Indonesia emerges as an economic model.”
Torn asunder in the past by uninterrupted military conflict and now under the autocratic control of the Communist Party, Vietnam gained prominence in the eyes of global investors even earlier than Indonesia as a land of new opportunities. In December 2005, investment bank Goldman Sachs named Vietnam as one of the “Next Eleven” economies expected to “be the next BRICS” of the 21st century, and in a research report in April 2008, the bank called Vietnam “the next Asian Tiger in the making.” The Southeast Asian country was also included among the Economist Intelligence Unit's “CIVETS” (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa), considered as emerging markets to watch over the next 10 years.
The 320 million people living in Indonesia and Vietnam have seen their lives change dramatically from the turmoil of the past to the robust economic growth of the present, a transition that has left them more confident than ever, despite the recent global financial crisis.
Of the four BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China), only China and India experienced strong economic growth in turbulent 2009. Growth rates of 4.5 percent in Indonesia and 5.3 percent in Vietnam far outpaced the negative growth seen in Brazil and Russia.
With both countries expected to grow by over 6 percent in 2010, multinational corporations and investment banks are pouring in, sending foreign direct investment (FDI) soaring again. Indonesia's stock market has risen 40 percent this year, the highest in Asia. Two major factors have enabled these two stars to shine brightly in the night: China's economic restructuring and the rise of a new Asian Way.
“When China raises its wages, we see manufacturers start to relocate. We benefit a lot from the relocation,” admits Mari E. Pangestu, Indonesia's trade minister, in a recent interview with CommonWealth Magazine. But to take full advantage of the opportunity, Indonesia must adjust its own policies as China restructures and open its arms to welcome foreign manufacturers, she says, confident her country will meet the challenge.
“But it's not like that kind of foot-loose relocation. They don't move just because later on labor will get cheaper somewhere else — in Africa, Latin America. The pattern is changing. They are diversifying their production in different areas, and for different specializations. I think it [Indonesia] has become more specialized and the best place for them in the global value chain,” says Pangestu in fluent English. Indonesia's stable supply of labor, growing domestic demand, and continuing political reforms all have factored into foreign companies' decision to develop a presence there.
In its report “Asia Macro Views” released this September, Citigroup argued that with wages in China rising 15-20 percent, Beijing would imitate the roads taken by Taiwan and South Korea in the 1980s to upgrade their economies, and that would leave Indonesia and Vietnam among the winners in the resulting shake-up of Asia's manufacturing chain.
As Indonesia and Vietnam boast minimum wages merely a third of what Foxconn Technology Group (aka Hon Hai) pays its employees in China, they will be the countries that absorb the manufacturers leaving the Middle Kingdom.
Taiwanese companies, which have been active around the world, have long been Vietnam's biggest “real” source of FDI.
According to Vietnam's statistics bureau, South Korea and Japan rank ahead of Taiwan as FDI sources.
“But that's because when Taiwanese companies first started investing in Vietnam, they invested through Hong Kong or offshore companies or even Vietnamese companies,” Ho Quoc Phi, deputy representative of Vietnam Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei, explains in fluent Chinese.
“Taiwanese businesses have invested more than US$20 billion in Vietnam. There is no doubt that Taiwan is one of our most important partners,” he says.
Many Taiwanese businessmen operating abroad are now paying even more attention to Indonesia.
When Taiwan's economics minister Shih Yen-shiang took a rare session off from reporting to the Legislature at the beginning of October, it was to lead a trade and investment delegation of more than 100 people to Indonesia, the biggest delegation Taiwan had sent there in recent memory. Joining the group were the chairman of the Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers' Association, Arthur Chiao, and Teco Group chairman Theodore Huang. In June this year, Nissan Motor Company, Japan's third-largest carmaker, announced it would invest US$20 million to double its annual car production in Indonesia to 100,000 vehicles in three years and increase sales there from 20,000 units in 2009 to 90,000 units. Global shoe giant Reebok also plans to expand capacity in the country. The Taiwan-based Pou Chen Group, which already ranks as the biggest foreign enterprise in Indonesia, is expecting to increase its work force to 120,000 employees, from 70,000 at present.
The second factor helping Vietnam and Indonesia gain attention is the rise of a new Asian Way, dictated by the need to overhaul Asia's export-oriented growth model to cope with an anticipated prolonged period of economic sluggishness in Europe and the United States.
The latest report from the Asian Development Bank asserted that Asia's manufacturing network must phase out its export-oriented model and focus on domestic demand. The new Asian Way will no longer concentrate on vertical integration to serve the European and American markets, but will instead emphasize horizontal integration among Asian countries to serve the region's own end-markets.
The Youngest Domestic Demand Markets
Indonesia and Vietnam, with populations of 230 million and 86 million people, are among Asia's most dynamic countries, bursting with vitality. That's why foreign enterprises consider the two countries, along with China, to be “future markets” that cannot be ignored. Over 45 percent of their population falls in the 15-29 age bracket, amounting to nearly 100 million people, and many are avid consumers.
Nowhere is that enthusiasm for spending money more evident than at Jakarta's upscale shopping centers, including the Pacific Place Mall, where Taiwan-based DinTaiFung restaurant has an outlet that has built a loyal following among members of this emerging middle class. R. Survander, a 28-year-old wedding planner, and his friends, for instance, visit the restaurant twice a week, spending over 200,000 rupiah (US$22) each time.
In both Indonesia and Vietnam, there are a growing number of young people such as Survander who have no inhibitions about consuming.
The middle class will soon grow rapidly, predicts Robby Susatyo, the managing director of the Indonesian branch of global market research firm Synovate. Half of Indonesia's population spends between 1 million and 2 million rupiah (US$112 to US$224) a month, often going through their wages soon after collecting them.
Confident in the Future, Eager to Spend
Even though young people in Vietnam and Indonesia have average incomes far lower than in Europe and the United States, they are seemingly unafraid to consume. According to Chris Von Selle, CEO of advertising agency JWT Vietnam, who has also lived in Malaysia, the Philippines and Dubai, this is because they have never experienced the conflict of war, and they were also not really affected by the first Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. “Most of them only know one direction-and that is 'up,'” he asserts.
A common trait among these emerging middle class consumers is their passion for high-tech gadgets and international brands. Though it may be hard to believe, BlackBerry's fastest growing market in the world is Indonesia, with the number of units sold growing four-fold in 2009 and doubling this year. In this archipelago with the world's fourth biggest population, BlackBerry has defeated the king of smartphone brands, the iPhone. According to a CNN report, small mobile phone retailers in Jakarta sell only one iPhone a day, compared to five BlackBerry smartphones that, for a fee of US$20 a month, allow users to surf the Internet and chat.
Private consumption accounts for 60 percent of Indonesia's economy and 40 percent of Vietnam's economy, and unlike in Taiwan, it is a key engine of growth in both countries.
As urbanization accelerates, a middle class consisting of more than 100 million people with annual per capita income exceeding US$5,000 is being born. In this post-financial crisis era, Asia's newest economic stars are poised to take off. Translated from CommonWealth magazine by Luke Sabatier. Additional reading selections can be found at http://english.cw.com.tw.