The well-fed do as they want, the hungry do as they must . . . on energy

■"Damned If They Do . . . Energy-Starved Asia Revisits Hydroelectric Options Despite Pitfalls," by Patrick Barta, Wall Street Journal, 30 September 2004, p. A15.

What will Developing Asia do in order to meet its ballooning energy demands?

The real question is, What won't it do?

Lacking industry but blessed with rivers, poverty-stricken Laos once dreamed of becoming the Kuwait of hydroelectric power. In the early 1990s, developers rolled out a list of planned projects for the Southeast Asian nation, topped by the largest infrastructure investment in its history: A $1.2 billion dam called Nam Theun 2.

Opposition by environmentalists slowed its progress. Then, the Asian economic crisis of 1997 killed the project. But now, Asia is thirsty for power againóand Nam Theun 2 is back in play.

Its resurrection encapsulates an emerging debate in Asia: Power demand is soaring, but the region also has some of the world's foulest air. So, governments are turning back to hydro, a relatively clear alternative to coal or fuel plantsóbut one that has environmental consequences of its own due to its potential to damage rivers and displace communities.

Nonetheless, hydro projects are in the works across the region, especially in China and Myanmar, which itself has 51 dams in various stages of development, by one estimate. Laos has 18.

All that activity also has reopened a debate over what role, if any, big lenders like the World Bank should play in promoting dams.

Watching Asia struggle with this is like watching a slice of America early in the 20th century, when we were throwing up dams all over the place, in large part for very similar reasons (need the energy, to hell with the environment, and lotsa cheap labor lying around). Today, Asia's electricity demands are about 3/4 that of the U.S., but by 2025, it will be 1/4 more than the U.S.'s. That's a lot of energyóa rough tripling. So expect Asia to try everything within its power. What the World Bank needs to do is fund such projects and let the locals figure out the environmental consequences on their own schedule. Otherwise we end up being guilty of telling Asia to find some historical path toward development that we ourselves were unable to manage in our past.

And yeah, that is awfully hypocritical.