False Shades of Green: The Case of Brazilian Amazonian Hydropower

Energies

James Randall Kahn¹  Carlos Edwar Freitas² 

[1] Environmental Studies Program/Economics Department, Washington and Lee University, Holekamp Hall 206, Lexington, VA 24450, USA;Department of Fishery Science, Universidade Federal do Amazonas, Av. Rodrigo Otávio 3000, Manaus, AM 69077-000, Brazil; E-Mail:

关键词: Amazonian dams;    biodiversity;    fishery dynamics;    extinction;    environmental policy;    energy policy;   

DOI  :  10.3390/en7096063

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

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.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.