Campaign against coal-fired plants gathers steam

Barisan Nasional’s ex-component Sabah Progressive Party (Sapp) is stepping up its pressure on the Sabah government to abandon plans of building coal-fired power plants in the state.

Sapp secretary-general Richard Yong is applying on behalf of the party for a police permit to carry out a peaceful protest at the road leading to Wisma Innoprise at Likas in Kota Kinabalu, where the chief minister’s department is located.

The protest will be on Wednesday morning, when the state cabinet is scheduled to meet, to reiterate its objection to coal-fired power plants because of its potential hazards to the environment.

Chief Minister Musa Aman was quoted as saying the cabinet meeting will discuss and identify the best way to generate enough power supply for the east coast of Sabah.

“We urge the state cabinet to cancel the proposed coal-fired plant in Sandakan as was done in the case of Lahad Datu last April,” Yong said in a statement to Malaysiakini today.

“We are echoing the concerns of the people in the east coast of Sabah, particularly those in Lahad Datu and Sandakan, regarding the construction of a coal-fired power plant in the state.

“We are not letting up on this issue, which we consider an issue of immense public interest,” he said, adding that the party feel it can no longer count on the words of our leaders.

Tenaga undertaking project

"One good example is the fact that while the state government told us that the Seguntor plan has not been approved, we saw earthworks taking place on site," Yong said.

Sapp president Yong Teck Lee, a former chief minister, appeared in a peaceful protest at Seguntor in Sandakan last Friday against a planned coal-fired power plant in the area.

Tenaga Nasional Berhad, the national power company, is undertaking the project that will have a capacity of 300 megawatts.

Visiting Lahad Datu last Saturday, Chief Minister Musa Aman said there was an urgent need to build new power plants to satisfy increasing power demands on the east coast of Sabah.

Lahad Datu was the original site for the proposed coal-burning power plant. The state government bowed to public pressure and moved the project to Seguntor. The proposed plant is said to use technology from China and burn coal imported from Kalimantan, Indonesia.

Musa did not mention what feedstock the new east coast power plants will use, but Sapp had suggested that the state government should use natural gas of which Sabah has abundant supply, and is cleaner and cheaper as a fuel than coal.

Sapp took exception to the fact that the national petroleum company, Petronas, has decided to build a 500-km long pipeline costing RM3 billion to convey Sabah natural gas to Bintulu in neighbouring Sarawak instead of considering downstream uses of the gas at the proposed petrochemical complex in Kimanis.

The party also queried why Sabah people are made to pay for more expensive and polluting coal and diesel for power generation instead of natural gas which is cheaper and cleaner. Consumers in Sabah are made to pay for higher cost of electricity supply and suffer air pollution.