The Hidden Cost of Hydroelectric Power

Hydroelectric Power (Dams & Pumped Storage)

Date posted: 11/20/15

Dr. Conca reports that developing countries are planning to dramatically expand hydroelectric power generation in their desperate need for electricity and irrigation. It is also a strategic decision to use their own resources. Second only to nuclear power in providing low-carbon, long-term reliable base load generation, hydroelectric is an excellent way to increase energy production without mortgaging your country's future to fossil fuel supplies. Over six hundred hydroelectric dams are presently under construction and over 3,000 are planned for the near-future. Most of these sites are in Asia and Latin America. This would double the amount of hydropower in the world. This amount of hydro will require about $3 trillion in investment and produce about 60 trillion kWhs of electricity by mid-century. It would provide irrigation water and sufficient power to raise almost a billion people up out of abject poverty. And this much hydropower would avoid 50 billion tons of carbon emissions from entering the atmosphere. It is easy to imagine the difficulty in designing a hydroelectric dam in these ecosystems that can preserve the correct seasonal wet and dry conditions and operate while allowing free movement among the different habitats. Therefore, it is essential that we in the developed world help educate those governments that want to build hydroelectric dams and provide new fish-friendly designs that, if adopted, would come with economic incentives from the World Bank and the United Nations. If the world is to double its hydro production, we better make it safe. And we can. Otherwise, the costs to the planet and its inhabitants may be bigger than we can afford.