Tomado de:
A struggle for power
Published
online 9 November 2011 | Nature 479, 160-161 (2011) | doi:10.1038/479160a
Brazil is developing the last great untapped reserve of
hydroelectricity, the Amazon basin.
Jeff Tollefson
When a few hundred demonstrators, mostly from indigenous
communities, temporarily occupied the construction site of the Belo Monte dam
on Brazil's Xingu River early on 27 October, workers laid down their tools. But
the Brazilian government did not back down from its stance that this
hydroelectric project on a tributary of the Amazon - expected to be among the
world's largest, with a capacity of 11,000 megawatts, when completed in 2015 -
is essential to meeting the energy needs of a booming economy. Under
a court order, the demonstrators vacated the site later the same day, but the
dam remains the subject of fierce litigation.
The episode
briefly drew the world's attention to a controversial mega-project, but this is
only part of a larger picture. Led by Brazil, governments in the region are increasingly looking to tap
into the Amazon system to slake a growing thirst for energy. If
current plans are realized, a wave of dam construction will bring staggering
change and development to the rainforest in the coming decades.
In a global
context the Amazon stands out as an area of untapped potential, with the
world's greatest river system and a paucity of hydroelectric stations, says
Mark Mulligan, a geographer at King's College London, who has led the
development of an interactive database of more than 36,000 dams around the
world. One of his former
students, Leonardo Sáenz, has moved on to Conservation International in
Arlington, Virginia, where he is improving the database and incorporating dams
that are planned and under construction in the Amazon (see 'A beckoning
prize'). The goal is to understand how those investments affect
the broader landscape, both physically and economically.
According to
the conservation group WWF, less than 10% of Brazil's electrical power comes
from dams in the Amazon region at present. The Belo Monte dam would boost this figure, and many more
projects are on the drawing board, including 18 dams proposed for the Tapajós
tributary system alone over the coming decade. Brazil has
also signed an agreement to develop hydroelectric dams in the Peruvian Amazon
in exchange for a share of the power.
Although the
dams promise carbon-free electricity, they also lead to more road construction
and deforestation as well as invasions of migrant workers and massive methane
emissions when large swathes of forest are drowned. And, increasingly, experts
fear that changing patterns of rainfall brought about by deforestation and
climate change could reduce the energy return from dams, rendering many
investments obsolete.
"It's
really easy to get your infrastructure wrong, and that poses serious investment
risks in the long run," says John Matthews, a freshwater expert at
Conservation International. "From this perspective climate change presents
the ultimate risk in the Amazon." Matthews fears that Brazil could become
perilously reliant on an uncertain energy source, even as the government builds
more dams.
"They
are opening a new hydropower frontier, the last hydropower frontier in South
America," says Pedro Bara, who works for the WWF in Brasilia. "In 30 years, if all of the
plans were implemented, half of Brazil's energy would come from the Amazon."
>>>
Claudio Maretti 10/11/2011 21:43 >>>
Check our
strategy
inhttp://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/amazon/vision_amazon/living_amazon_initiative222/free_flowing_rivers_and_forest_friendly_roads/
And see our 4
minutes animation
Many thanks,
and congratulations, Pedro, Sandra, Bart, Monica, Brendan, Ligia and all
involved!!
claudioCM
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - -
Cláudio C. Maretti
Iniciativa Amazonia Viva de la Red WWF, líder /
WWF Network
Living Amazon Initiative, Leader
>>> "Echeverria, Monica"
10/11/2011 20:56 >>>
Dear all:
A second, and
good piece in Nature Magazine about Hydropower / Dams projects in the Amazon.
Many thanks
to Bart Wickel and Pedro Bara who invested lots of time to get the right messages, and coordinated with partners to make this happen.
Article:
A Struggle
for Power: Brazil is developing the last great untapped reserve of
hydroelectricity, the Amazon basin:
Map:
Thanks also
to Brendan, who initiated the contact with the reporter, and to Ligia for her
help.
Monica
Echeverria
Deputy
Director, Media Relations
World
Wildlife Fund
1250 24th
Street, NW
Washington,
DC 20037-1193
Phone: (202)
495 4626
Mobile: (202)
378 3396
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