Plastic waste reduction

A local sorts works in a plastic waste landfill in northern province of Lao Cai.

Delegates presented work between the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE), the Delegation of the European Union to Việt Nam and Expertise France on policy development as well as recommendations for four pilot projects in HCM City, Hà Nội and Phú Yên Province, which aim to reduce the amount of plastic that ends up untreated on land and in the oceans.

The initiatives included enhancing plastic packaging collection, sorting and recycling, encouraging fishermen to collect plastic waste caught while fishing, establishing an alliance of supermarkets to reduce the use of single-use plastic bags, and managing waste in ports.

“The Vietnamese Government and the MONRE have shown strong political commitments affirming that we have always given high priority to finding both short and long-term solutions to reduce plastic pollution and foster economic development,” said Director-General of the International Cooperation Department of the MONRE Phạm Phú Bình.

“The circular economy solution to marine plastic litter can be an important contribution to support the implementation of the National Action Plan and helps Việt Nam achieve its goals. Experience and lessons learned from the project and pilot activities will serve as a basis to expand to other localities and aim to inform policy development initiatives,” he said.

The circular economy means markets that give incentives to reusing products, rather than scrapping them and in such an economy, all forms of waste are returned to the economy or used more efficiently, according to the United Nations definition.

Talking about the circular economy, Rui Ludovino, First Counsellor, Climate Action, Environment, Employment and Social Policies at the Delegation of the European Union to Việt Nam, said: “We must move towards a circular economy for plastics, an economy in which resources are used and managed more efficiently and more sustainably. Through the Rethinking Plastics project, we work closely with Việt Nam to prevent marine plastic litter and share regional and European experiences,” he said.

The four pilot activities complement these efforts towards a circular economy with concrete actions and experiences from the local level, involving communities and households, local businesses and administrations, he added.

These activities are run within the ‘Rethinking Plastics – Circular Economy Solutions to Maritime Litter’ initiative,  which is implemented by Expertise France with the financial support of the European Union and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Việt Nam has been confirmed as the world’s fourth-largest marine plastic polluter after China, Indonesia and the Philippines. Each year, the country dumps an estimate of 300,000-700,000 tonnes of plastic waste into the ocean per year, accounting for 6 per cent of the world’s marine plastics.

The country has set the target to have zero disposable plastic waste by 2025.

It has adopted a development strategy to promote the maritime economy in parallel with protecting maritime environment and ecosystems, specifying “preventing, controlling and significantly mitigating marine environmental pollution; being a regional pioneer in reducing ocean plastic waste” among the country’s objectives for 2030. — VNS

GE’s latest 9HA.02 turbine is accelerating the shift to LNG

After a wave of investment in solar and wind power over the past two years, Vietnam is now witnessing strong interest in the field of electricity generated with the use of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

A report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) published in January stated that Vietnam has quickly become one of the most promising LNG import markets in Asia, and many domestic and international investors have expressed their desire to pursue projects in the country. They are encouraged by changes in government management that no longer sees coal-fired thermal power as the centre of the power system, as well as the rapid growth of renewable energy in the nation’s power structure.

As such, investors have actively portrayed LNG as a cleaner source to replace coal and argue that gas-fired power units will be one of the main power sources required to feed public demand and supplement unstable renewable sources.

The IEEFA report also stated, “Vietnam’s electricity industry has never seen a wave of investors expressing so much interest as they do now, that – with the accompanying diplomatic pressure – remains unprecedented in the country’s history.”

Interest in LNG power may also be related to Resolution No.55/NQ-BCT on the orientation of Vietnam’s National Power Development Plan (PDP8), which emphasises the rapid development of LNG thermal power plants. However, at the same time, experts advise that priority must be given to developing LNG import and distribution infrastructures.

According to the nation’s target until 2030, Vietnam must import 8 billion cubic metres of LNG per year, while the current rate is zero. The focus on LNG power generation is also attributed to its advantages, such as ensuring a stable power supply and minimising the impacts on the environment.

“The third draft of the PDP8 for the period 2021-2030, with a vision to 2045, is proposing to quadruple the current capacity of gas-fired thermal power by 2030 to 28GW, equivalent to 21 per cent of the total system capacity. Most of these plants are then expected to use imported LNG,” the IEEFA report states.

According to experts, LNG power generation is flexible and can be adjusted as needed. Besides this, the carbon emissions of LNG account for roughly half of coal power, which helps to reduce the energy sector’s impact on the environment. At the same time, LNG power is capable of reaching higher power output when needed, without interruptions and dependencies on nature such as wind or solar power.

Given the fact that global CO ₂ emissions are still increasing, the power sector takes on a mandate and a multidimensional approach to take important steps to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and solving the problem of climate change on a large scale.

“Despite the massive deployment of renewables such as wind and solar power, the energy sector has not improved significantly to meet the goals set out in the Paris Agreement on carbon neutralisation. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said that to achieve improvements in power efficiency, instead of spending time building new renewable power sources, it is possible to convert from coal to gas to reduce emissions faster,” said Vic Abate, General Electric’s (GE) senior vice president and chief technology officer and former CEO of both GE’s Gas Power and Renewables businesses.

According to the current draft of the PDP8, there are about 24 LNG projects proposed with a total potential of 23GW by 2025 and 84GW by 2035, with a demand for imported LNG of about 60 million tonnes per year.

Challenging negotiations

According to experts, about half of the proposed gas power projects are complexes for LNG import ports, storage tanks, recycling systems, and gas pipelines and power plants, with the remainder being pure power plants running on LNG.

However, no LNG power project has started its construction yet because contracts related to their operation have not been completed, most notably because of the missing power purchase agreements (PPA).

Even though the Bac Lieu LNG project was licensed in early 2020, the project owners are still negotiating a PPA without seeing the finish line anywhere close.

Talking about the progress of LNG project implementation, experts from the energy sector, as well as several project brokers and financial advisors, also said that the biggest challenge will be to negotiate the PPA.

“PPA negotiations must comply with the regulations of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, whereby the approved project documents must be available before the negotiation. Based on investment costs, cash flow in and out, profits, and discount rates, the purchase price of electricity that investors want to sell will be set. Except for those cases that do not exceed 7 US cent per kWh, for which Electricity of Vietnam will sign a PPA immediately, other prices will take computation and consideration,” said energy consultant Nguyen Binh.

Other investors also said that since the government reaffirmed that there are no guarantees, the decision to invest in an independent power plant requires investors to make great efforts.

“Spending a few billion US dollars on projects without a foreign currency conversion guarantee will make it difficult for investors to keep cash flows in hand when unexpected situations occur,” said Binh.

Track 4A power plant in Malaysia running on GE’s latest generation of HA turbines

Scale is king

According to Petrovietnam, the 24 planned LNG power projects recorded in the draft PDP8 will lead to a situation where the coastline of Vietnam will be covered by the configuration of “one power plant plus one LNG import and gas refinery warehouse”.

Meanwhile, other countries around the world are developing power plant clusters using large receiving ports to optimise the cost of gas infrastructure between the port and the power plants.

This means that these power centres choose a place with favourable conditions for convenient infrastructure with low cost, located near a suitable load centre and built according to environmental criteria. For instance, port warehouses must have a capacity of at least 6 million tonnes of LNG per year to be considered cost-efficient.

In parallel with the recommendations on the size of LNG terminals, experts also said that using new and innovative technologies will bring higher efficiency to an LNG power plant.

In the technology race, GE’s two world records for operating power plants with the highest efficiency have sparked the interest of LNG project operators in Vietnam as they offer significant cost savings compared to other technologies in the industry.

“The newest generation of turbines offers the lowest cost of capital and fuel conversion with a long engine life, thus reducing the total cost of ownership. As such, a generation H turbine combined with cycle plant for 1,000MW occupies an area of ​​about 0.05 square kilometres, far less than the 20sq.km needed for onshore wind or solar power plants of the same scale,” said Christophe DuFault, general manager (Project Execution) of GE Gas Power Asia, adding that GE’s HA turbines are currently the largest and most efficient gas turbines in the world and have received more than 120 orders from more than 48 customers in 20 countries and regions.

With its strong development potential, the IEA expects the Asia-Pacific to be a region with many “breakthroughs in the development of LNG power plants in the next decade”.

GE has more than 80 years of experience in the supply and construction of combined cycle power plants, and it has been 29 years since the first H turbine generation. GE’s H-generation turbines currently supply 21.5GW at 24 locations worldwide and are monitored daily at its centre in Kuala Lumpur.

In addition to delivering outstanding energy efficiency and cost savings, GE’s newest H-generation turbines also cut emissions – a key factor in securing the future of the energy industry in Asia-Pacific.

However, experts also say that although LNG can be a superior solution to other fossil fuels in terms of efficiency and emissions, both these advantages depend heavily on related technology.

“Our new power plant operating in Malaysia demonstrates that low-carbon or non-carbon gas power technologies, such as our HA technology, can help accelerate CO ₂ reductions in power production. At GE, the combination of gas and renewable electricity will be part of the solution for the present and the future,” said DuFault.

LNG is now expected to lead the way in Vietnam’s energy structure, meeting a large portion of its capacity by 2030.

By Thanh Huong

By Hoang Bac – Translated by Anh Quan

The preliminary assessment round of the Press Awards officially began in Hanoi on April 8.

The jury council for the preliminary judgment consisted of 69 members who were divided into groups of prizes with 11 categories.

The entries must highlight the country’s achievements and discover outstanding examples who have made great contributions to national renewal and development; as well as feature the difficulties and limitations of social life and the spirit of fighting against corruption and waste.

The winners are expected to be announced at an awards ceremony on the occasion of Vietnam’s Revolutionary Press Day (June 21).

This was the message in a speech given by Mr. Hung at a youth event of the Viettel Group, when he was still Viettel’s General Director. VietNamNet would like to introduce the speech:

Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung.

Today, we are immersed in the atmosphere of Viettel youth, which is an atmosphere of creativity, daring to commit, being unafraid of difficulties, and full of aspirations.

Each of us has only one life to live on and each life has only one passage called youth. Youth is also the time when people have the most opportunities to try their best. Youth in general and Viettel’s young people in particular have in hand the most valuable asset which is time. And many young people in Viettel do not let time pass by meaninglessly. They are brave to engage in things that even they do not think they can do.

Today’s world has changed a lot. The power and the way people use their powers have also been changing day by day and hour by hour. Artificial intelligence, Internet of things, social networks … can make us stronger but can also engulf us at any moment. In the age of Internet, we can easily connect with millions of people but we are losing connection with ourselves, living without purpose, living under popular trends, not knowing what is valuable to us, not knowing what is our true strength. Today’s young generation has a lot of strength but also faces many challenges. That means your generation has a lot of things to do.

Our generation gave birth to Viettel, but the day when we leave Viettel will come. The responsibility today is all with you, with the younger generation Viettel. The wisdom of your generation is the wisdom of Viettel. No one else but you are the future of Viettel, a new Viettel born by you. The future of Viettel depends largely on the younger generation of Viettel today. So I want to talk a little bit about your responsibility.

That responsibility begins with always thinking differently, being more creative, out of old patterns, not dwelling in the experiences that have created today’s success. It is often said that youth is impotent, because youth is the age when one is not shy at all, always doubts everything – except his own ability. But immaturity is a special kind of energy unique to young people. Experienced people are actually living in a box with 6 panels. The bottom panel is all the data they have, the top panel is their belief, the front is what they’ve ever seen, the experience creates the behind panel, the left is all they suppose, and the right panel is all of their knowledge.

All the good people, the experienced people, the older people live in those 6 partitions. The better they are, the harder the partitions can become. The more years there are, the more difficult to break the partitions. But young people don’t have those partitions, they don’t live in that six-sided box. Without a box, without any barriers to hinder you, you will see the universe. When a young person makes an effort towards a goal, it is the strongest, most beautiful posture. In the world, nothing more beautiful can be found than the arduous struggle of youth. Because of that, smart people always wish they could be younger.

That responsibility is also to always have a sense of learning. It is not only about learning specialized knowledge, and not stopping at cultivating foreign language skills in order to be able to integrate into the world. It also doesn’t stop at the fact that we have to forge the habit of reading to absorb new human knowledge. It also means that you have to constantly try, be determined and patient to overcome difficulties.

You will not avoid difficult things or hesitate to try things you have never done, and you will constantly commit to discovering yourself. Today we can work in the engineering industry, tomorrow we can try business. Today we can work at home, tomorrow we go out to foreign markets. Today we have experiences in the field of telecommunications, tomorrow we will immerse ourselves in the field of manufacturing research. New experience is never redundant. Discover new passions, learn new skills, use precious adolescence to prepare yourself and hone the skills needed to pursue a career that you aspire to. And that is why, when we are young, we need to try a lot and rise a lot to explore our very different abilities. Today’s world is a world that offers opportunities for those who are multidisciplinary, multi-knowledgeable and multi-skilled.

That responsibility also means that you stay engaged, take risks and not be afraid of hard work. Do not be disappointed if you are not immediately good at something. For all of us, no one can be good at everything right away. Take each failure as a necessary lesson for success. Only by making commitment and be brave can you do great things in your life.

The menu or the diners? It is the name of a book about the history of Singapore. Deciding to be a dish for the world’s powers to determine your own destiny or to become an equal with them, discussing important issues with them. They have the right to choose. And they chose themselves as diners, and after only 25 years separated from Malaysia, Singapore, from an island nation, became a prosperous country. This question should also be posed by young people. Do we decide whether we will become victims or the cause of all of our problems? Because if we are the victim, we will just cry, but if we understand that we are the cause, we will find a solution to fix it. Do we decide to be employees or do we become an employer? As employees, we will work under the direction of others. As an employer, we know what we want and what we need to do.

Yesterday, I had a talk with Truong Thanh Thuy – who is known as Vietnam’s startup queen – who has stage 4 lung cancer. One year ago, Thuy was full of energy with many plans and ambitions. Thuy and Viettel have coordinated to bring the Hour of code program to Vietnam, so that Vietnamese people can understand that programming is not difficult, that programming language will make our life smarter and more convenient. At the same time, cancer fell on Thuy’s life. Yesterday, I met Thuy. She was thinner, bluer, and her facial skin was ravaged by drugs aimed at controlling painful tumors that are metastasizing to her bones. But her energy is still intact. Thuy said that since the day she has been living with cancer, her life has been more meaningful.

Thuy founded a non-profit organization to help cancer patients in Vietnam. Thuy is striving to create a cancer faculty at an university. Thuy is building software to support the lives of cancer patients. Thuy did not let adversity knock her down. Thuy did not turn herself into a victim of cancer. On the contrary, Thuy considers cancer a second chance of life. And Thuy has found the meaning of her life and the value that she can bring. What could be happier than living your life and seeing yourself worthwhile? And that just needs a little change in your mind, so don’t turn yourself in to a victim to anyone, of anything but yourself. Always be the employer in all your work. Take control of your own life. Don’t entrust it to anyone, but yourself.

To tell this story, I want to tell Viettel young people that adversity is a wonderful thing this life gives us. And as the General Director of the Group, I am working hard to create challenges for Viettel’s youth. Challenges, great goals, and divine aspirations are also adversities for us to explore our abilities.

We can completely see these things from the OCS project, the project to research and manufacture telecommunications network infrastructure, the project to protect customers in cyberspace. We, the young people of Viettel, did it. To reach success, many times you have to face failure and deadlock. But it is the strength of Viettel youth that I mentioned above, that is creativity, daring to venture, not being afraid of difficulties and always being full of aspirations that make impossible projects, at least for Vietnamese people, become a reality.

I love the fable about the butterfly very much. Before becoming a butterfly, a silk moth needs to be strong enough to break out of its cramped cocoon. Someone, because he wanted to help the silk moth, uses his hands to split the cocoon. As a result, he has a handicapped butterfly because its wings are so weak. It turns out that the cocoon is stiff for a reason – it creates an environment for the young butterfly to constantly move, constantly strive so that its wings are sturdy and large enough to be able to fly in the sky when it escapes from the cocoon.

At Viettel, we have determination, aspiration and we even consider it a responsibility to young people to ensure that the silk moth be born healthy. We create challenges, we set high goals, we are picky about our products so that each person can grow up faster, manifest his abilities more clearly. Because I myself and the group leaders always believe that 90% of capacity in each person is still sleeping, which needs something to wake it up. Like the silk moth, without a cocoon thick enough, its wings will not be stiff enough. If the cocoon is not a harsh environment, the silk moth will forever stay in the peaceful nest and never dare to leave. Therefore, Viettel is always proud of having created a harsh enough environment for anyone passing through this organization; when looking back, they will see that they are much more mature. Viettel is contributing to allowing people the opportunity to find their own capabilities, find the purpose of their life.

Because everyone has youth at some point. Therefore, when we have health, have time, have passion, have recklessness, do not let time pass by meaninglessly. Because anything can be regained, but youth cannot be regained. The most valuable asset of youth is time. The greatest fear of youth is wasting time without learning anything valuable. Let’s be brave, be engaged, go ahead, do what you never thought you could do. The magic of youth is not being able to do everything, but always hoping to make everything. The property and money that we have can be lost. Human reputation can also dissipate in an instant. Friends and relatives have to leave us sometimes. Only wisdom will be never lost. It will follow us all our life. It will even last forever if one day we are not in this world anymore.

If you want to change something, tighten the laces and move on. If you’re frustrated with what you have currently, take action now. Express yourself, stick to your goals. You can win sometimes, but sometimes you have to lose. But always remember that what’s worthwhile never comes easy. And failure is also a kind of experience. More than that, it is a good experience. Because it is failure that helps us to be stronger and more mature. A rich youth is a youth with many experiences.

Young people are energetic, have a lot of aspirations, are not afraid of failure, so let’s take difficult jobs, challenges, go ahead, get involved, fight evil, create startups, raise new ideas, give birth to your own baby and if you fall, you can get up. Viettel has dreams, divine aspirations, and the mission of Viettel’s youth is to give birth to a new Viettel, your Viettel, to fulfill those dreams and aspirations.

Nguyen Manh Hung