This chapter has traced a circuit connecting the electricity powering new shopping malls in Bangkok and hydropower dams being built in Laos. While certainly much of the electricity from these dams ends up being used in other locations in Thailand, and much of the electricity consumed in Bangkok’s shopping malls is generated from other sources than hydropower in Laos, nonetheless a circuit of various actors, both human and nonhuman, exists and connects these disparate entities. At the city level of Bangkok, ever-growing electricity consumption is tied to the city’s uneven form of development and everyday
consumption practices by its residents, meaning that the key actors at this scale are middle- and upper-class consumers and residents, who can enjoy cheap electricity without having to suffer any negative externalities caused by its production; shopping mall developers, who have no incentives to limit electricity usage; and the MEA and PEA, which do not promote energy efficiency. Since the electricity system in Thailand is centralized, EGAT also plays a large role at the national level—as do a number of large Thai companies, including construction companies and banks that profit from building dams in Laos. NGOs have been able to mostly stop or delay these actors from building further dams and other large power projects in Thailand, pushing them to look to neighboring countries. In Laos, members of the Laos Community Party, particularly the Politboro, are key actors, but also so are companies connected to the Party, such as the Phonesack Group. The dams, the ecosystems they affect including the wildlife that lives there, and the local communities and fishers affected by these changes to the ecosystems are the final actors within this circuit.