It’s going to be hard for Google to lead a freedom movement without power.
Reuters reports,
Myanmar’s government has decided to stop the construction of a 4,000 megawatt coal-fired power plant at the Dawei Special Industrial Zone, a project of Thailand’s Italian-Thai Development Pcl, due to concerns about the environment, a minister said.
“We made the decision to halt this project after reading the concerns about the environmental impact of this plant in local media reports,” Khin Maung Soe, one of Myanmar’s energy ministers, told reporters at a briefing in Yangon on Monday…
Last September Myanmar’s government gave in to public anger and shelved a $3.6 billion Chinese-led dam project, a concession that would have been unthinkable under the previous military government.
Myanmar ranks 106 in global electrification — between Yemen and Panama.
The only ‘environment’ threatened by the project is the political environment. There is nothing a shaky autocracy fears more than public empowerment, and nothing empowers people like electricity (pun intended). Myanmar’s petty Czars can only thrive by maintaining the status quo – any change is a personal threat to them.