Abstract
The Federal Government of Brazil has ambitious plans to build a system of 58 additional hydroelectric dams in the Brazilian Amazon, with Hundreds of additional dams planned for other countries in the watershed. Although hydropower is often billed as clean energy, we argue that the environmental impacts of this project are likely to be large, and will result in substantial loss of biodiversity, as well as changes in the flows of ecological services. Moreover, the projects will generate significant greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and decay of organic matter in the reservoirs. These emissions are equivalent to the five years of emissions that would be generated by gas powered plants of equivalent capacity. In addition, we examine the economic benefits of the hydropower in comparison to new alternatives, such as photovoltaic energy and wind power. We find that current costs of hydropower exceed alternatives, and the costs of costs of these alternatives are likely to fall substantially below those of hydropower, while the environmental damages from the dams will be extensive and irreversible.
Highlights
Perspectives and paradigms of thought change slowly
Brazil would have to reduce its emissions from fossil fuels by 10% for a period of 15 years just to offset the carbon released by the inundation of these forests by the reservoirs
Given the existing sources of stress to the Amazonian ecosystem, the scale of the Brazilian hydroelectric plans, and the planned hydroelectric activities in other Amazonian countries, it is not an overstatement to say that the entire ecosystem is at risk
Summary
Perspectives and paradigms of thought change slowly. In the United States, both citizens and politicians cling to the view that cheap fossil fuels are necessary for economic growth. As Brazil looks to its future, it continues to follow this hydroelectric path, looking for a source of energy that can cover an equivalent proportion of future electric energy needs As a consequence, it has planned an extensive series of 58 projects (in addition to 11 in place (more than 12,000 MW) and six under construction (more than 19,000 MW)). The plans call for an increase in hydroelectric power capacity of more than 35,000 MW, principally by damming rivers in Amazonia, an area of questionable economic and environmental appropriateness for hydropower development. This does not include all the dams under construction or proposed by other.
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