|
PR: With Inga Dams, Donors Set to Repeat Past Failures
|
18.5.2013 |
International Rivers News RSS Feed |
| Date:
Saturday, May 18, 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Berkeley/Pretoria: The Congolese government will today announce plans to move forward with the Grand Inga Dam at a conference in Paris. World Bank President Jim Kim is expected to support the return to mega-dams on his visit to the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda on May 21-24. The proposed dam on the Congo River, which would be the largest hydropower project ever undertaken, will figure prominently on the agenda of his trip. NGOs warn that with such projects, donors are about to repeat the grandiose failure of past mega-dams.
International financiers have invested billions of dollars in the Inga 1 and 2 dams and transmission lines on the Congo River over the past 40 years. The projects produce power primarily for the mining industry, while only 6-9% of the country’s population has access to electricity. The new dams proposed for the Congo River are again designed to serve the mining industry and export markets in South Africa, and would ... |
|
Also found in: [+]
[flenvcenter :: Access]
|
|
Malaysia: Authoritarian Leader Lures Investors With Promise of “Responsible” Dams
|
16.5.2013 |
International Rivers News RSS Feed |
| By:
Kirk Herbertson
Photo by: SAVE Rivers Network
The Malaysian state of Sarawak is the new star of the global hydropower industry. Located on the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia, Sarawak is largely unknown around the world. Five years ago, Sarawak’s ruler Mr. Abdul Taib Mahmud announced that he will “transform Sarawak into a developed state” by building 12 large dams in the state’s remote, tropical forests. He argues that the dams will produce an abundance of cheap electricity, which will attract heavy industry and create jobs. Reuters has called Taib’s scheme “staggeringly ambitious,” especially since the dams will produce 450% more electricity than Sarawak currently needs.
Mr. Taib’s scheme has caught the attention of the world’s leading hydropower companies. Next week, on May 20-25, Sarawak will host the industry’s world congress, which is organized every few years by the International Hydropower Association (IHA). The IHA’s mission is to demonstrate that large ... |
|
Also found in: [+]
[newstrust :: scandal]
[newstrust :: China]
[flenvcenter :: Policy]
|
|
Study Finds Loss of Rain Forests Can Deplete Hydropower
|
14.5.2013 |
NY Times: Science |
| Study Finds Loss of Rain Forests Can Deplete Hydropower |
|
Also found in: [+]
[flenvcenter :: Deforestation]
[sattva_1 :: flora]
[demo :: Hydel]
[newstrust :: Deforestation]
[irge304 :: All Forests]
[irge304 :: Amazon Rainforests]
|
|
Iran says nuclear sites safe from earthquakes and cyber threat
|
10.5.2013 |
World |
| By Tom Miles GENEVA (Reuters) - Iran's nuclear and hydropower facilities are well protected from cyber attacks and even the most powerful earthquakes, Iranian environmental protection chief Mohammad-Javad Mohammadizadeh said on Friday. Iran's only nuclear power reactor at Bushehr was unscathed when a strong earthquake that killed 37 people and injured 850 hit close to the site last month, Iranian officials and the Russian company that built it said. ... ... |
|
Also found in: [+]
[flenvcenter :: Wells]
|
|
World Bank Turns to Hydropower to Square Development with Climate Change
|
9.5.2013 |
International Rivers Sitewide RSS Feed |
| By:
Howard Schneider, The Washington Post
Date:
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim attends the Fragility Forum this month in Washington. The forum discussed ways for fragile nations to improve their economies, their infrastructure and the well-being of their citizens.
Michael Reynolds/European Photopress Agency
The World Bank is making a major push to develop large-scale hydropower projects around the globe, something it had all but abandoned a decade ago but now sees as crucial to resolving the tension between economic development and the drive to tame carbon use.
Major hydropower projects in the Congo, Zambia, Nepal and elsewhere — all of a scale dubbed “transformational” to the regions involved — are part of the bank’s fundraising drive among wealthy nations. Bank lending for hydropower has scaled up steadily in recent years, and officials expect the trend to continue amid a worldwide boom in water-fueled electricity.
Such projects ... |
|
Also found in: [+]
[newstrust :: Campaign Contributions]
[newstrust :: Strategies]
[newstrust :: Climate change]
[newstrust :: Ecosystems]
|
|
NH governor raps Conn. hydropower energy measure
|
9.5.2013 |
Boston Globe: New Hampshire |
| NH governor raps Conn. hydropower energy measure |
|
Also found in: [+]
[subbutest :: Boston Globe]
[subbutest :: All Srcs]
[phantomvish :: All Srcs]
[phantomvish :: Boston Globe]
[newstrust :: Businesses]
[newstrust :: Green Power]
[demo :: Hydel]
[sattva_1 :: energy]
[flenvcenter :: General]
[irge304 :: Green Power]
|
|
World Bank turns to hydropower to square development with climate change
|
8.5.2013 |
Washington Post |
| The World Bank is making a major push to develop large-scale hydropower projects around the globe, something it had all but abandoned a decade ago but now sees as crucial to resolving the tension between economic development and the drive to tame carbon use. ... |
|
Also found in: [+]
[demo :: Climate change]
[newstrust :: Trade]
[demo :: Hydel]
[sattva_1 :: climate]
[newstrust :: Strategies]
[newstrust :: Climate change]
|
|
Plans to Harness Chinese River’s Power Threaten a Region
|
7.5.2013 |
International Rivers Sitewide RSS Feed |
| By:
Andrew Jacobs
Date:
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Ke Shouyi, 47, a farmer in the Lisu ethnic group, prodded his cow to plow the remote rural area near the Nu River in China’s Yunnan Province.
Photo by Sim Chi Yin for The New York Times
BINGZHONGLUO, China - From its crystalline beginnings as a rivulet seeping from a glacier on the Tibetan Himalayas to its broad, muddy amble through the jungles of Myanmar, the Nu River is one of Asia’s wildest waterways, its 1,700-mile course unimpeded as it rolls toward the Andaman Sea.
But the Nu's days as one of the region's last free-flowing rivers are dwindling. The Chinese government stunned environmentalists this year by reviving plans to build a series of hydropower dams on the upper reaches of the Nu, the heart of a Unesco World Heritage site in China’s southwest Yunnan Province that ranks among the world's most ecologically diverse and fragile places.
Critics say the project will force the relocation of tens of thousands of ... |
|
Debt-free B.C.?
|
6.5.2013 |
rabble.ca - News for the rest of us |
It is pretty clear that Premier Christy Clark's election-inspired promise of a debt-free B.C. is not to be taken seriously. There is no credible market analysis indicating that the royalties from B.C. liquified natural gas (LNG) exports would be sufficient to do that in 15 years, as the Premier would have it. The potential for increased gas supply from other sources and diminishing price spreads between North America and the Asian market are simply too great to place any weight on a promise of the multi-billion dollar windfall that would be needed to pay off B.C.'s debt.
read more |
|
Also found in: [+]
[flenvcenter :: Oil and Gas]
[flenvcenter :: Hydroelectric]
[flenvcenter :: Oil and Gas]
|
|
Dams in the Amazon: the Rights and Wrongs of Belo Monte
|
3.5.2013 |
International Rivers News RSS Feed |
| By:
The Economist
Date:
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Having spent heavily to make the world’s third-biggest hydroelectric project greener, Brazil risks getting a poor return on its $14 billion investment
THE biggest building site in Brazil is neither in the concrete jungle of São Paulo nor in beachside Rio de Janeiro, which is being revamped to host the 2016 Olympics. It lies 3,000km (1,900 miles) north in the state of Pará, deep in the Amazon basin. Some 20,000 labourers are working around the clock at Belo Monte on the Xingu river, the biggest hydropower plant under construction anywhere. When complete, its installed capacity, or theoretical maximum output, of 11,233MW will make it the world’s third-largest, behind China’s Three Gorges and Itaipu, on the border between Brazil and Paraguay.
Everything about Belo Monte is outsized, from the budget (28.9 billion reais, or $14.4 billion), to the earthworks—a Panama Canal-worth of soil and rock is being excavated—to the ... |
|
Also found in: [+]
[flenvcenter :: Oil and Gas]
[flenvcenter :: Wind]
[flenvcenter :: Policy]
[flenvcenter :: Reservoirs]
[flenvcenter :: EJ Projects]
|
|
Hydropower Bills Enjoy Bipartisan Support in Congress
|
23.4.2013 |
Yahoo: Politics |
| With a pair of bills on hydropower, lawmakers are reviving two pieces of conventional wisdom long forgotten in gridlocked Washington: Energy issues tend to be more geographical than ideological, and Republicans can (and do) support renewable energy. |
|
Also found in: [+]
[flenvcenter :: Republican]
[flenvcenter :: General]
|
|
New York approves 1,000-MW Quebec-New York City power line
|
19.4.2013 |
Yahoo: US National |
| By Scott DiSavino (Reuters) - The New York Public Service Commission on Thursday approved a plan to build the Champlain Hudson transmission line, which would be capable of moving 1,000 megawatts of hydropower from Quebec to New York City. Privately held Transmission Developers Inc, a unit of Blackstone Group LP, said on its website that it would take about 3-1/2 years to build the power line at an estimated cost of $2.2 billion. ... |
|
Also found in: [+]
[flenvcenter :: Policy]
|
|
A Dam Too Far in Laos
|
13.4.2013 |
International Rivers News RSS Feed |
| By:
By Melinda Boh
Date:
Friday, April 12, 2013
VIENTIANE - It was once referred to by US magazine Newsweek as a "kinder, gentler" type of dam. Since the Nam Theun 2 hydropower dam commenced commercial operations in 2010, the World Bank and other proponents of the multi-billion dollar power project have trumpeted it as an economic and social development success story for host country Laos.
But with the negative publicity and diplomatic tussles now focused on the proposed US$3.5 billion Xayaboury dam , which if built promises to hurt downstream communities and the environment in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, Nam Theun 2's emerging failures have largely escaped critical scrutiny.
In particular, there are rising indications that Nam Theun 2 and its massive 450 square kilometer reservoir are responsible for massive amounts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions , amounting to as much as one million tons of methane and carbon dioxide per year, according to recent independent ... |
|
Also found in: [+]
[flenvcenter :: Ecological Economics]
[flenvcenter :: Policy]
[flenvcenter :: Forestry]
[flenvcenter :: Education]
[flenvcenter :: Reservoirs]
[flenvcenter :: Wells]
[flenvcenter :: Biomass]
[flenvcenter :: Campus]
[flenvcenter :: Impacts]
|
|
China's Superbank
|
11.4.2013 |
International Rivers News RSS Feed |
| By:
Peter Bosshard
China Development Bank has funded all major Chinese hydropower projects
nipic.com
Li Liguan lives at the outskirts of Loudi city in Hunan province. A former farmer, he was uprooted from his land to make way for a stadium. Now he tries to benefit from the construction boom by hauling bricks and renting out a room. His fate is typical for the hopes and injustices of China’s development model.
The engine that transforms the lives of millions of Chinese citizens like Li Liguan is China Development Bank (CDB). The bank channels capital to key sectors and projects in the world's fastest growing economy - an essential role in any development state. “Understand CDB and you understand the core of China’s state capitalism,” Henry Sanderson and Michael Forsythe , two financial journalists, assert. With their new book, China’s Superbank , they shed light on the inner workings of China’s rise as a global power.
CDB is not only the house bank of China’s powerful ... |
|
Also found in: [+]
[flenvcenter :: General]
|
|
Tiptons bill to boost hydro clears House
(Cached)
|
11.4.2013 |
Durango Herald |
| WASHINGTON The House of Representatives passed U.S. Rep. Scott Tiptons Hydropower and Rural Jobs Act by a 416-7 vote on Wednesday, streamlining the regulatory process for small hydropower development projects on existing Bureau of Reclamation conduits. |
|
Also found in: [+]
[flenvcenter :: Colorado]
[flenvcenter :: National]
[flenvcenter :: Policy]
[flenvcenter :: General]
[irge304 :: Green Power]
[newstrust :: Green Power]
[flenvcenter :: Environment]
[flenvcenter :: Four Corners Region]
[demo :: Hydel]
|
|
J Henry Fair: The Gas Bubble
|
6.4.2013 |
Green on HuffingtonPost.com |
| To understand the hydro-fracking bubble, there are some things one must know: each well only produces a little gas, reserves were significantly overstated at the beginning of the game, and most important: Wall Street is very invested and wants its money out. |
|
Also found in: [+]
[flenvcenter :: Art and Literature]
[flenvcenter :: Oil and Gas]
[flenvcenter :: Hydroelectric]
[flenvcenter :: Wells]
[flenvcenter :: Oil and Gas]
[flenvcenter :: Art and Literature]
[flenvcenter :: Wells]
|
|
Primed for Success: The Remarkable Potential for -and Barriers to- Chile's Renewable Energy Sector
|
4.4.2013 |
Switchboard, from NRDC |
| Amanda Maxwell, Latin America Advocate, Washington, DC:
Chile’s Renewable Energy Center (CER) released its annual report about the country’s non-conventional renewable energy* sector this week, showing that 2012 was a record-breaking year for the industry. 165 megawatts of renewables connected to the grid last year, bringing the... |
|
Also found in: [+]
[flenvcenter :: Geothermal]
[flenvcenter :: General]
|
|
Environmentalists struggle to stop Chinese dam project
|
1.4.2013 |
MinnPost |
| HONG KONG , China — Nearly a decade after Chinese environmentalists achieved one of their greatest successes by stalling plans to build 13 dams on the Nujiang, one of China’s two remaining free-flowing rivers, the “angry river” is under threat again.
Earlier this year, the government announced it would help power the country’s densely populated, industry-heavy eastern seaboard by re-instating a project to build five new mega-dams along the Nujiang and several other waterways in China’s biologically rich southwest.
Flowing nearly 1,800 miles from the Tibetan plateau through southwestern Yunnan Province into Thailand and Myanmar — where it’s known as the Salween — the Nujiang supports an estimated 25 percent of China’s plant and animal species, many of which are found nowhere else in the world.
Near the Burmese border, the Nujiang slices a 13,000 foot-deep gorge through some of the world’s most dramatic mountain landscapes.
American University professor Judith Shapiro, author of China's ... |
|
Also found in: [+]
[demo :: Hydel]
[demo :: Wind]
[demo :: Coal]
[demo :: Solar]
[sattva_1 :: energy]
[phantomvish :: All]
[phantomvish :: All Srcs]
[subbutest :: All Srcs]
[subbutest :: All]
|
|
New England renewable energy a hard sell in region
|
31.3.2013 |
Seattle Times: Nation & World |
| Establishing a New England market to buy renewable energy seemed a laudable goal when governors committed last year to bulk purchases of wind and solar power to knock down the price while reducing the region's reliance on fossil fuels. |
|
Also found in: [+]
[irge304 :: Green Power]
[flenvcenter :: General]
[demo :: Hydel]
[demo :: Wind]
[demo :: Solar]
[demo :: Biomass]
[flenvcenter :: Solar]
[flenvcenter :: Wind]
[flenvcenter :: Biomass]
[flenvcenter :: General]
[phantomvish :: All Srcs]
[sattva_1 :: energy]
[subbutest :: All Srcs]
|
|
New England plan to buy renewable power as a region is held up by patchy rules
|
31.3.2013 |
Star Tribune: Nation |
| |
|
Also found in: [+]
[newstrust :: Green Power]
[irge304 :: Green Power]
[demo :: Hydel]
[demo :: Wind]
[demo :: Solar]
[demo :: Biomass]
[flenvcenter :: Oil and Gas]
[flenvcenter :: Solar]
[flenvcenter :: Wind]
[flenvcenter :: Biomass]
[flenvcenter :: General]
[phantomvish :: All Srcs]
[sattva_1 :: energy]
[subbutest :: All Srcs]
|
