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Hydropower is a phase-out model. Wind and solar – environmentally, socially as well as economically much sounder – are the energy sources of the present and future. Why is then, that the World Bank seems to ignore the global shift in the renewable energy sector and instead continues to advocate for multi-billion dollar dam projects...
Good news: the hydroelectric dam on the Tapajós river in the Amazon now officially does not get the environmental licence because of social and environmental concerns!
The dam would have flooded 376 sq km of Amazon rainforest and displaced some 12,000 Munduruku Indians. Major Amazon dam opposed by tribes fails to get environmental license
Another article, this time by the Circle of Blue, indicates the end of the hydro era. “[…] A lengthening list of nations around the world […] are reassessing big hydropower dams in an era when wind and solar power are less expensive, much easier to build, less damaging, and far less vulnerable to droughts and floods,” the article states.
The trend is your friend: in 2015, for the first time more solar and wind capacities were created than all coal, oil, hydro and nuclear power plants collectively! Read this article with the newest energy data from Peter Bosshard, International Rivers!
What a neat project! In the documentary “The Raftmakers”, the film crew explores rivers worldwide on self-made rafts in an attempt to document how the global warming directly affects rivers, their wildlife and local populations. The aim is to reveal the conditions of some of the most fascinating waterways in the world from an extremely close point of view. Often they are polluted, but sometimes they offer beautiful examples of the cohabitation between humans and nature.
++ Day 33 of the Balkan Rivers Tour: protest action of kayakers, politicians, residents and nature conservationists against projected dams on the Vjosa in Albania ++ Government wants to have large dams constructed ++ River conservationists demand Vjosa National Park ++ “Vjosa – No Dams!” An extraordinary alliance directed this appeal – written in letters seven meters high – to Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama today.
The free-flowing days of the beautiful Tua River in Portugal are numbered: very soon, hundreds of hectares of farmland, one of Europe’s finest rivers for mountain and white water sports and one of the continent’s oldest railway lines will be flooded for the Foz Tua dam, a dam that nobody wants but everybody will have to pay for.
Effective immediately, the Dutch development bank FMO is suspending all activities in Honduras, after yet another anti-dam-activist, Nelson García, was shot dead. Read the bank’s press release
Europe’s biggest hydropower corporation – the Austrian Verbund AG, is complaining about too much electricity on the European market. Particularly wind power and the expansion of solar power results in an oversupply of energy on the market leading to declining prices for producer.
In a petition, International Rivers calls upon the financiers and builders (FMO, Finnfund, CABEI and Voith-Siemens) of the Agua Zarca Dam in Honduras to pull out of the project. On March 2, Berta Cáceres was brutally murdered for her opposition against the dam project. Sign the petition!
