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The Malaysian Government has set a target of achieving 20% penetration of Renewable Energy (RE) in the energy mix spectrum by 2025. In order to get closer to the target, Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) aligned with solar PV, biogas and biomass energy sources must be evaluated and comprehended. Hybrid OTEC systems consisting of energy and water production are currently under research and validation. Therefore, for the construction of a commercial OTEC plant, 1 MW or 2.5 MW, the choice of a strategic location or potential site is vital. In this paper, oceanographic data such as seawater temperature, depth, salinity and dissolved oxygen obtained from the Japan Oceanographic Data Center (JODC) for Semporna, Tawau, Kudat, Pulau Layang-Layang and Pulau Kalumpang in Sabah, Malaysia, are reported. The RE available from the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) on the coast of Sabah was estimated based on the JODC data obtained. There were no remarkable differences in temperatures between the five sites, which were reported as approximately 27 °C at the surface and 7 °C at depths below 600 m. The surface salinities below 100 m at those sites were slightly lower than the deeper waters, where the salinity increased up to approximately 34.5 PSU. Dissolved oxygen data from the Pulau Kalumpang site showed a slight increment to approximately 4.7 mL/L at depth intervals below 50 m, before declining steadily to approximately 1.7 mL/L along with the depth. The temperature-salinity profiles of the Malaysian sites were congruent with those of Palau, Kumejima and Okinawa, but not with that of Fiji, where the salinity profile showed a distinct variation at the relative depth (below 200 m). Estimates of RE using two different methods were used to prove the potential of OTEC in Malaysia.

The pollinating weevil, Elaeidobius kamerunicus was introduced to Malaysia as an oil palm pollinator agent in 1981. After the introduction, the weevil has distributed widely in the oil palm plantation around Malaysia. This study aims to investigate the morphometric differences in Elaeidobius kamerunicus population within Malaysia, as well as from its originating country, Cameroon. A total of 540 weevils were collected from eight localities in Malaysia, and 60 from Cameroon, Africa. The five morphological measurements were taken ie. total body length (TL), elytra length (EL), pronotum length (PL), body width (BW) and the snout length (SL) using the Portable Capture Pro v2.1 Dinolite. The one-way ANOVA indicated significant differences amongst the five morphological characteristics between the weevil populations for both males and females from the eight localities (P < 0.05), respectively. For the male and female populations at different localities, the Principal Component Analysis explained 79.0% and 76.6%, respectively. Moreover, the Canonical Discriminant Function explained 95.5% and 90.2% of the variance for male and female population, respectively. Both the result of PCA and CDA conducted showed little variation between the eight localities for male and female weevil populations in Malaysia respectively. This study showed slight differences in morphometric characters for the weevil population in Malaysia.

Authors' Contribution DMN designed the study, conducted the survey, performed the labwork and prepare the manuscript. SS, LVL and ZM assisted the samplings and experiments. NRY supervised the work.