The Dirty face of Hydro Power

Water is one of the main natural resources used for electricity production around the world. Humans have been using water as a source of energy for more than 2000 years, and today hydro power represent 15 % of the total electricity generated in the globe.

Energy is vital for our societies because it is behind every economic and productive activity. Our current civilization is totally dependent on energy, for transportation, electricity (households, industries, health, etc.) and agriculture. Furthermore, if any country wants to grow its economy and increase its gross domestic product (GDP), they must consume more energy, as well as increase its energy efficiency (in both the generation and the demand side).

In the current global context where Climate Change is such a relevant issue when talking about Sustainable Development, Renewable Energies are gaining relevance, as they are considered to be clean, renewable, and have no emissions of green house gases (GHG). Renewables are a very interesting option to contribute to Climate Change mitigation, especially considering the increasing demand of energy from developing countries.

But… Is Hydro power really a “clean” and environmentally friendly option??

According to many nonprofit organizations around the world, such as AIDA (Environmental Laws for the Americas), International Rivers, or the Hydropower Reform Coalition (HRC) which includes 150 groups concerned about the impact of dams, “Large Dams are not clean energy”.

Dams have a highly negative impact on the environment, destroying natural habitats, ecosystems and biodiversity, “from their headwaters in the mountains, to their mouths at the ocean and beyond”. Dams are responsible for 37% of the decline of fresh water species, which in the case of tropical areas, increases up to 70%[1].

Paradoxically, it has also been proven that among other negative effects (land use, degraded water quality, and even human rights) dams causes the accumulation of organic materials, that end up decomposing and emitting green houses gases, not only CO2 but especially Methane, which is 28 times stronger that CO2. Methane emissions from Dams contribute to 4% of global GHG emissions, which equivalents to all global emissions of aviation.[2]

Many articles about these issues can be found in prestigious magazines such as Harvard Review, Scientific American or National Geographic. Personally I think that it is very hard to categorize any type of energy as “good or bad”; they all have pros and cons. However, policy makers must have all the information on the table and consider the mentioned issues when designing their national energy plans and deciding in what source of energy they will invest to meet their future demand.

Imagen 1

Image extracted from Scientific American (www.scientificamerica.com)

Imagen 2

Image extracted from AIDA (www.aida-americas.org)

 

 

 

[1] Information published by International Rivers and AIDA on Info graph which was distributed in the 2014 Lima COP20 meeting.

[2] IDEM


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