No abstract

Biomass, one of the renewable resources, is expected to play an important role in the world’s energy future. In Asia, rice straw is an abundant agricultural surplus because rice is one of the leading staple food crops in the region. Often, rice straw is burned directly in the field via uncontrolled combustion methods that emit large amounts of short-lived air pollutants, greenhouse gases, and other pollutants. In Vietnam, the energy and environment protection sectors are facing great challenges because of rapid urbanisation and industrialisation. A national strategic choice is to exploit renewable energy, including biomass-derived energy, to achieve energy security and CO2 emission reduction. This study investigates the potential of rice straw as an energy source for power plants at a local scale in Vietnam using data derived from satellite Sentinel-1 images. The results show that Vietnam can produce 2,565 MW from rice straw, for which 24 out of 63 provinces have a potential capacity higher than 30 MW, and the Kien Giang province has the highest capacity (245 MW). The study also analyses limitations and obstacles overcoming which can promote the biomass energy sector in the country.

Responsible mining is a new catchword of our times. However, in practice, there seem to be many barriers that hinder the successful implementation of the concept. This is especially true for countries with high urbanization speed, and it is even true for one-party states where its implementation could, in general, be taken for granted as soon as the central government has taken respective decisions and put appropriate stipulations and mechanisms formally in place. On this background, the article deals with barriers and possible solutions regarding responsible mining taking the case of Vietnam, and more especially the Province of Hoa Binh, neighboring Hanoi. Based on a literature review on responsible mining, a set of principles promoting this approach is developed. This is taken as a criteria set for the assessment of respective policies and their implementation on the different levels of authority in Vietnam. Finally, proposals are developed how to advance responsible mining in this case and in other comparable countries.

In fast growing economies, rapid urbanization generates high demand for construction aggregates in the rural hinterland of cities. Their extraction often causes negative repercussions on the environment. In Vietnam, the central government has made strong efforts to incorporate environmental objectives in the aggregate mining sector, and, in a one-party state, it has powerful means to implement its policies. Nevertheless, adverse environmental effects of aggregate mining are visible throughout the country. Against this background, the purpose of this paper is to identify barriers for environmental policy integration in a one-party state. The aggregates industry in Hoa Binh Province, located in the hinterland of the fast growing capital Hanoi, is taken as a case. Methods of the study, which was conducted between 2015 and 2019, include literature review, document and data analysis, interviews, group discussions for information collection and validation of results, and site visits. Six environmental policy integration barriers are derived from the literature. They form the conceptual basis for explaining difficulties of environmental policy implementation and integration in the concrete case. The study demonstrates that the following factors provide a viable concept for analyzing deficits of environmental policy integration in a fast modernizing one-party state: (a) the prevalence of top-down approaches with insufficient trigger-down effects, (b) the predominance of socioeconomic over environmental objectives, (c) weak incentives to improve environmental performance, (d) fragmented environmental planning and implementation, (e) weak institutional control mechanisms on lower levels of government, and (f) compliance oriented public participation and deficient compensation mechanisms. These are potential entry points for coping with environmental challenges of growth oriented sector policies.