“We are considering two or three projects for an amount of up to 100 million euros (US$133 million) and are still considering whether this will be debt or equity,” said Riccardo Puliti, EBRD managing director and head of energy and natural resources.

Kazakhstan, which has tripled oil production in the last decade on its way to becoming Central Asia’s largest economy, is seeking investment to develop wind, solar and hydroelectric projects to reduce a power deficit in parts of the country’s regions.

High speed wind locations are in the southeast mountain passes leading to China, in the Alytau mountain regions in the center of the republic, and in the southwest on the Caspian seaboard.

Renewable energy projects are relatively rare in Kazakhstan, which sits on 3 percent of the world’s recoverable oil reserves. Coal-fired power plants currently accounted for 75 percent of the electricity generated in Kazakhstan, while gas accounted for a further 12 percent and hydroelectric power 9 percent, according to the Industry Ministry data.

But Kazakhstan’s vast steppe has potential for generating wind power, particularly in southern regions of the country that depend largely on electricity imported from nearby Uzbekistan or the distant coal seams of northern Kazakhstan. It also has a plentiful supply of hydro, solar, biomass, and geothermal energy.

Industry Minister Aset Isekeshev said Kazakhstan aimed by 2014 to be generating 1 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, or slightly over 1 percent of total consumption, from renewable sources. This share should rise to 3 percent by 2020, he said.

Kazakhstan passed primary legislation in 2009 to stimulate investment in renewable energy sources and reduce the environmental impact of power generation.

Benefits of this law include priority land allocation for renewable energy sites and obligatory purchase by transmission companies of electricity generated from renewable sources.

The EBRD’s Puliti said the implementation of new wind farm projects would require the approval of secondary legislation that would define feed-in tariffs, the fee paid by the power distributor or transmission company to the wind farm.

This is likely to be higher than the average power tariff, in order to act as a stimulant for investment in wind power. “In the next six months, it should be approved,” he said.

Kazakhstan could have wind power generating capacity of 1,000 megawatts by 2014, said Andreas Thomas, senior vice-president for business development for Vestas Central Europe, a unit of the Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas Wind Systems.

“The pure wind potential in Kazakhstan is much, much higher because they have an enormous land mass,” Thomas told.

Since the beginning of its operations in Kazakhstan, the EBRD has invested over €2.8 billion in over 130 projects in various sectors of the Kazakh economy, mobilizing additional investments in excess of about €6 billion.

The Metsamor nuclear power plant is only 20 miles from Armenia’s capital and most populous Yerevan city. Its location in a seismic zone has drawn renewed attention since Japan’s nuclear crisis, NatGeo magazine said in its article “Is Armenia’s Nuclear Plant the World’s Most Dangerous?”

The power plant Metsamor was built in 1979 and closed in 1989 after an earthquake prompted officials to reconsider the safety of the location.

On December 10, 1988, a 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck, killing 25,000 people. Some 60 miles from the epicenter, Metsamor, then with two operating reactors, survived the earthquake without damage, according to Armenian officials and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

In 1996, one reactor resumed operations with Western financial assistance for upgrades. Then in 2003, Russia’s state-run power monopoly, Unified Energy System, took over operations in return for Moscow’s cancellation of a US$40 million debt.

Despite the upgrades to the plant, Antonia Wenisch of the Austrian Institute of Applied Ecology in Vienna said that “the overall safety has not improved sufficiently.”

Armenian officials remain confident that their antiquated nuclear power plant can ride out any Japanese-sized tremor. Of course, they have little choice but to believe in its infallibility, The Moscow Times speculates.

Metsamor provides Armenia with more than 40 percent of its energy consumption, and the country has very few alternative energy resources.

Seven years ago, the European Union’s envoy was quoted as calling the facility “a danger to the entire region,” but Armenia later turned down the EU’s offer of a US$289 million loan to finance Metsamor’s shutdown.

Since the EU failed to persuade Armenia to close the plant, it has focused on providing aid for improving its safety, spending more than US$85 million on such projects as well as for renewable energy, and regional energy cooperation efforts.

Armenia has made efforts to obtain other sources of fuel, such as a natural gas pipeline from its southern neighbor Iran, which opened in 2007. But the amount of fuel to be imported remains in question. The conduit poses potential competition to Russia, a country on which Armenia remains highly reliant, for everything from nuclear fuel to grain.

The 3 million people of landlocked Armenia are unique in their energy dependence on one aging nuclear power reactor.

Azerbaijan to the east and Turkey to the west closed their borders with Armenia, cutting off most routes for oil and natural gas.

Armenia has been forced to store spent fuel on-site for 22 years because of a blockade by its two neighbors.

Japan’s recent nuclear disaster is not seen to have a lasting impact on the global nuclear industry, he said.

“We don’t think it’s a big problem for the industry as a whole. It’s a little bit of set-back in time frame, but as a whole it will go on” Gombo said. “We want green development and nuclear is the number one choice.”

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mongolia with its proven uranium reserves of about 80,000 tons ranks 16th in the world in reserves of uranium resources and 6th in the Asian continent following Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, China, and India.

The country untested reserves may raise the estimate to 1.39 million tons, constituting the largest reserves in the world.

However, currently most of the energy in Mongolia is still generated from coal.

Coal provides 80 percent of its electricity (3 billion kWh in 2009), from less than 1 GWe capacity, and 13 percent of electricity is imported from Russia. Air pollution is a major problem in Ulaanbaatar, from domestic combustion, cars, and power generation.

“We have the ambition to build the capability of nuclear energy in Mongolia, and the ambition to supply nuclear power plants in Northeast Asia with nuclear fuel,” Gombo told reporters on the sidelines of a mining conference in Singapore.

He said the country is seeking investment from around the globe to develop its nuclear energy sector, adding that uranium reserves in the country could rise to above 1 million tons.

“Currently there is not much, but we expect there will be huge investment in Mongolia’s nuclear energy sector, because the super powers are interested,” said Gombo, adding that the United States, Russia and China are competing with each other to get into the country’s nuclear sector.

While Mongolian-Russian joint ventures are currently gaining much attention, sandwiched between China and Russian Mongolia is rightfully diversifying investment partners in its nuclear industry sector to avoid over reliance on any single party.

“The government is quite selective, and is opting to cooperate with the most developed countries in the industry, like the United States, Japan and France,” he said, while adding that it is not like Mongolia doesn’t want to deal with China and Russia, “but we want a balance of interest.”

Meanwhile, Atomredmetzoloto, the mining arm of Russian state-owned nuclear giant Rosatom, says that Russia spent the equivalent of US$600 million on uranium exploration and development in Mongolia to 1995.

In December 2011, Bayarbayasgalan, head of the Nuclear Materials department of the Mongolian Nuclear Energy Agency, told the government-run news agency Montsame that about 20 companies, most of which are international, are now exploring for uranium in Mongolian territory.

According to France’s Areva website, Mongolia and France’s governments signed an agreement to let the company to explore and mine uranium in Mongolia last October.

In September 2009 India also signed a uranium supply and nuclear cooperation agreement with Mongolia. Electricity demand in India is increasing rapidly, and the 830 billion kilowatt hours produced in 2008 was triple the 1990 output, though still represented only some 700 kWh per capita for the year. The country plans to increase its nuclear energy production from 3,667 Mwe to 20,000 Mwe by 2020 and 63,000 Mwe by 2032, which will comprise 25 percent of total electricity production.

The Mongolian government has played a leading role in all nuclear-related efforts. And experts’ considers this trend will continue in the near future.

The new Mongolian Nuclear Energy Law (d/d July 2009), gives government the right to take ownership without payment of not less than 51 percent stake in developments explored with state monies, and not less than 34 percent stake in independently explored sites.

The shares of construction company with total value of US$1.37 billion were issued on January 6, 2010. US$3.2 billion is required for the project achievement.

Construction on the Rogun Dam began back in 1976, and continued in starts and stops for the past 30 years. In 2004, the Tajik government formed a partnership with Russia’s Rusal to complete the project. Despite Rusal’s US$2 billion commitment to the project, Tajikistan authorities had canceled their contract in 2007.

Both sides disagreed on multiple regional considerations, notably the appropriate height of the dam. Russia had argued that the dam should be shorter than originally planned, due to seismic activity in the region, but Tajikistan insisted that the dam should reach a height of 1.099 feet (335 meters). Since the cancellation of the contract, Tajikistan had struggling to find investors to complete financing for the US$3.2 billion project.

At the beginning of December 2009, the government ordered that every family in the country would be required to pay US$690 to finance the completion of Rogun dam, while the average Tajik salary is only US$60 per month.

Earlier, the experts indicated the voluntary-compulsory nature of stocks promotion. The mass media reported the unofficial competition between the regional authorities on higher sales of the Rogun stocks. Some sources reported that even the students were forced to buy stocks in order pass the exams.

The purchase of the Rogun hydropower plant shares by the population became the reason of undermined food security in Tajikistan, monitoring report of UN World Food Program for Tajikistan, based on data, supplied by Rapid evaluation and coordination group under the Emergency Control Ministry said late April.

The deterioration of the food security in Tajikistan has been observed in the last three months and, in the opinion of authors of report, one of the reasons of such situation, especially in the rural area, is the purchase of the Rogun hydroelectric power plant stocks by the population. The report also indicates that over one third of Tajikistan’s population is affected by the downturn of the food security.

Tajikistan has some of the greatest hydroelectric power potential, largely untapped. The country has tapped only three percent of its hydroelectric capacity, which is estimated to be 527 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) annually.

Tajikistan currently generates approximately 16.5 billion kWh of electricity per year. Most of that is generated by the huge Nurek Dam, which was constructed from 1961-1980. It contains nine generating units each with a capacity of 300MW for a total capacity of 2.700MW. The reservoir behind the dam covers a surface area of 98 square kilometers.

“Censorship should not be in any way accepted by any company from anywhere,” Clinton said yesterday in Washington. “American companies need to make a principled stand. This needs to be part of our national brand. I’m confident that consumers worldwide will reward companies that follow those principles.”

“Some countries have erected electronic barriers that prevent their people from accessing portions of the world’s networks,” she said in words that clearly ring true in China. “They have expunged words, names, and phrases from search engine results. They have violated the privacy of citizens who engage in nonviolent political speech.”

Chinese officials in Beijing rejected Mrs. Clinton’s call to remove Internet restrictions in their country, adding that such actions were harmful to bilateral relations.

“We urge the U.S. side to respect facts and stop using the so-called freedom of the Internet to make unjustified accusations against China,” read a statement posted on the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s website today.

You can read the entirety of Secretary Clinton’s speech here, or watch the video here.

James Fallows, as always, also does a great job discussing and analyzing the implications of the speech on his blog.

Meanwhile, Google Inc. is currently amid talks with Beijing officials as they continue to follow Chinese laws, meaning the censoring of search results.

“We’ve made a strong statement that we wish to remain in China,” Google CEO Eric Schmidt said yesterday, while also adding that in “a reasonably short time from now we will be making some changes there.”

Google China’s exiting statement has sparked worldwide attention to ties between China and the United States this week.

Discussions included China’s web environment, the China-U.S. trade relationship, and others. But it’s inappropriate to play up the issue, or turn it into a political one.

Google’s corporate development and chief legal officer, David Drummond, posted a statement Tuesday on the company’s official blog, saying it was “reviewing the feasibility of our business operations in China.”

According to the statement, the disputes with the Chinese government on Internet regulation and major cyber attacks on his company allegedly orginated from China have forced Google to consider exiting.

For overseas businesses, including Google, they should respect laws and regulations as well as relevant policies of their host countries, which is a standard international practice for multinational companies.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said Thursday at a regular press conference that “China welcomes international Internet companies to conduct business within the country according to law.”

The world Internet giant has been blamed by the Chinese government for showing too many links to pornographic contents in its search results and thus breaking the Chinese law.

Currently, Google is also handling a case with Chinese writers over online books copyright disputes.

According to a list provided by Google at the end of 2009, its on-line library involves some 80,000 categories of Chinese books, 10 percent of which were works of 2,600 members of the Chinese Writers Association.

On the other hand, cyber attacks are a commonplace issue across the globe even if countries have been making every effort to combat hackers.

“China’s law prohibits cyber crimes including hacker attacks,” Jiang said.

On Tuesday, China’s largest Internet search engine Baidu, which is also Google’s major rival in the Chinese market, suffered an hacker attack that paralyzed its website for more than three hours.

Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer has said that “There are attacks every day …We’re attacked every day from all parts of the world and I think everybody else is too. We didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.”

So it’s far-fetched to blame China as a scapegoat for cyber attacks just because Google said something about that.

In addition, it’s quite natural for a multinational company to shift its market strategy or even pull out business from a certain area.

Since Google.cn was launched in January 2006, it has seen a continuous rise in its market share in China. But it is still unlikely for Google to rock Baidu’s status quo as a superpower in the Chinese search market.

Baidu and Google took 63.9 percent and 31.1 percent of shares,respectively, of China’s Internet search market in the third quarter last year, according to data from Analysys International, a leading advisor on technology, media and telecom industry in China.

While Google’s global share is over 90 percent, according to web analytics company StatCounter.

Till now, Google’s real intentions to quit China are still not clear.

There is no sense blowing things out of proportion and turning a business issue into a political or diplomatic dispute.

Above all, Google’s decision is no bigger than a corporate action, no matter where the company comes from or how powerful it is.

Although blocked in China, here is the link to Google’s official statement issued yesterday for our readers abroad.

Here is also the CNBC interview with David Drummond, chief legal officer at Google, who discusses the Internet giant’s reaction.

Google has disclosed that its computer systems experienced sophisticated cyber attacks last month that it suspects originated in China and that targeted Gmail user accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

Taking into consideration the technology, brains, and power behind the Google machine, as well as the severity of the implications, it is pretty safe to say that this isn’t a baseless claim.

Google’s decision to stand up to the Chinese government has earned them praise around the world from human rights advocates, but has undoubtedly irked the powers that be in the Chinese government and has received mixed reactions within China.

China’s largely government influenced media outlets have been trying to downplay the news online and during television broadcasts.
Xinhua: China seeks clarity on Google’s intentions

China Daily: Google pullout threat ‘a pressure tactic’

Shanghai Daily: Mixed bag of reaction to Google quit threat

Since its entrance into the Chinese market in 2006, Google has come under criticism from human rights activists for agreeing to censor a portion of their search results, resulting in some calling Google.cn the ‘neutered Google’ or ‘communist Google’.

Google, however, has defended its decision to enter the Chinese market with a modified version, claiming that it is still a more open option for Chinese Internet users than domestic search engines like Baidu, which controls approximately 61 percent of the market (to Google’s approx. 31 percent) and maintains a close relationship with the government.

While this is largely true, entering sensitive words like ‘freedom,’ ‘freedom of speech,’ ‘freedom of religion,’ and ‘dalai lama’ into Google search within China will not only lead you to a blocked page, but will shut down the Google search function on your computer for 90 seconds, even today.
Regardless of whether or not Google indeed leaves China, the fallout from this will be very interesting to watch.

Here are some more interesting articles on the subject:
Google Gets on the Right Side of History

Google is not alone in calling China’s bluff

Clash on the Great Firewall

What do Chinese people think about all this? China Geeks has compiled and translated excerpts from all over the web. To find out what Chinese people have to say on the topic, click here!