International Rivers: August 2010

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Geothermal: Getting energy from the Earth

A good round-up of the potential and current status of geothermal
energy around the world.

http://www.grist.org/article/geothermal-getting-energy-from-the-earth

Geothermal: Getting energy from the Earth

by Lester Brown

31 Aug 2010 10:32 AM

Steam rising from a geothermal power plant in Iceland.Steam rising
from a geothermal power plant in Iceland.Photo: Wikipedia CommonsThe
heat in the upper six miles of the Earth's crust contains 50,000 times
as much energy as found in all the world's oil and gas reserves
combined. Despite this abundance, only 10,700 megawatts of geothermal
electricity generating capacity have been harnessed worldwide.

Partly because of the dominance of the oil, gas, and coal industries,
which have been providing cheap fuel by omitting the costs of climate
change and air pollution from fuel prices, relatively little has been
invested in developing the Earth's geothermal heat resources. Over the
last decade, geothermal energy has been growing at scarcely 3 percent
a year.

Roughly half the world's existing generating capacity is in the United
States and the Philippines. Indonesia, Mexico, Italy, and Japan
account for most of the remainder. Altogether some 24 countries now
convert geothermal energy into electricity. El Salvador, Iceland, and
the Philippines respectively get 26, 25, and 18 percent of their
electricity from geothermal power plants.

The potential of geothermal energy to provide electricity, to heat
homes, and to supply process heat for industry is vast. Among the
countries rich in geothermal energy are those bordering the Pacific in
the so-called "Ring of Fire," including Chile, Peru, Colombia, Mexico,
the United States, Canada, Russia, China, Japan, the Philippines,
Indonesia, and Australia. Other geothermally rich countries include
those along the Great Rift Valley of Africa, such as Kenya and
Ethiopia, and those around the Eastern Mediterranean.

Beyond geothermal electrical generation, an estimated 100,000 thermal
megawatts of geothermal energy are used directly -- without conversion
into electricity -- to heat homes and greenhouses and as process heat
in industry. This includes, for example, the energy used in hot baths
in Japan and to heat homes in Iceland and greenhouses in Russia.

An interdisciplinary team of 13 scientists and engineers assembled by
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2006 assessed U.S.
geothermal electrical generating potential. Drawing on the latest
technologies, including those used by oil and gas companies in
drilling and in enhanced oil recovery, the team estimated that
enhanced geothermal systems could be used to massively develop
geothermal energy. This technology involves drilling down to the hot
rock layer, fracturing the rock and pumping water into the cracked
rock, then extracting the superheated water to drive a steam turbine.
The MIT team notes that with this technology, the United States has
enough geothermal energy to meet its energy needs 2,000 times over.

Though it is still costly, this technology can be used almost anywhere
to convert geothermal heat into electricity. Australia is currently
the leader in developing pilot plants using this technology, followed
by Germany and France. To fully realize this potential for the United
States, the MIT team estimated that the government would need to
invest $1 billion in geothermal research and development in the years
immediately ahead, roughly the cost of one coal-fired power plant.

Even before this exciting new technology is widely deployed, investors
are moving ahead with existing technologies. For many years, U.S.
geothermal energy was confined largely to the Geysers project north of
San Francisco, easily the world's largest geothermal generating
complex, with 850 megawatts of generating capacity. Now the United
States, which has more than 3,000 megawatts of geothermal generation,
is experiencing a geothermal renaissance. Some 152 power plants under
development in 13 states are expected to nearly triple U.S. geothermal
generating capacity. With California, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, and Utah
leading the way, and with many new companies in the field, the stage
is set for massive U.S. geothermal development.

Indonesia, richly endowed with geothermal energy, stole the spotlight
in 2008 when it announced a plan to develop 6,900 megawatts of
geothermal generating capacity. The Philippines is also planning a
number of new projects.

Among the Great Rift countries in Africa -- including Tanzania, Kenya,
Uganda, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Djibouti -- Kenya is the early leader.
It now has over 100 megawatts of geothermal generating capacity and is
planning 1,200 more megawatts by 2015. This would nearly double its
current electrical generating capacity of 1,300 megawatts from all
sources.

Japan, which has a total of 535 megawatts of generating capacity, was
an early leader in this field. Now, following nearly two decades of
inactivity, this geothermally rich country -- long known for its
thousands of hot baths -- is again beginning to build geothermal power
plants.

In Europe, Germany has five small geothermal power plants in operation
and some 150 plants in the pipeline. Werner Bussmann, head of the
German Geothermal Association, says, "Geothermal sources could supply
Germany's electricity needs 600 times over."

Beyond geothermal power plants, geothermal (ground source) heat pumps
are now being widely used for both heating and cooling. These take
advantage of the remarkable stability of the Earth's temperature near
the surface and then use that as a source of heat in the winter when
the air temperature is low and a source of cooling in the summer when
the temperature is high. The great attraction of this technology is
that it can provide both heating and cooling and do so with 25-50
percent less electricity than would be needed with conventional
systems. In Germany, for example, there are now 178,000 geothermal
heat pumps operating in residential or commercial buildings. This base
is growing steadily, as at least 25,000 new pumps are installed each
year.

In the direct use of geothermal heat, Iceland and France are among the
leaders. Iceland's use of geothermal energy to heat almost 90 percent
of its homes has largely eliminated coal for this use. Geothermal
energy accounts for more than one third of Iceland's total energy use.
Following the two oil price hikes in the 1970s, some 70 geothermal
heating facilities were constructed in France, providing both heat and
hot water for an estimated 200,000 residences. Other countries that
have extensive geothermally based district-heating systems include
China, Japan, and Turkey.

Geothermal heat is ideal for greenhouses in northern countries.
Russia, Hungary, Iceland, and the United States are among the many
countries that use it to produce fresh vegetables in the winter. With
rising oil prices boosting fresh produce transport costs, this
practice will likely become far more common in the years ahead.

Among the 22 countries using geothermal energy for aquaculture are
China, Israel, and the United States. In California, for example, 15
fish farms annually produce some 10 million pounds of tilapia, striped
bass, and catfish using warm water from underground.

Hot underground water is widely used for both bathing and swimming.
Japan has 2,800 spas, 5,500 public bathhouses, and 15,600 hotels and
inns that use geothermal hot water. Iceland uses geothermal energy to
heat 135 public swimming pools, most of them year-round open-air
pools. Hungary heats 1,200 swimming pools with geothermal energy.

If the four most populous countries located on the Pacific Ring of
Fire -- the United States, Japan, China, and Indonesia -- were to
seriously invest in developing their geothermal resources, they could
easily make this a leading world energy source. With a conservatively
estimated potential in the United States and Japan alone of 240,000
megawatts of generation, it is easy to envisage a world with thousands
of geothermal power plants generating some 200,000 megawatts of
electricity by 2020. For direct use of geothermal heat, the 2020 Plan
B goal is 500,000 thermal megawatts. All together, the geothermal
potential is enormous.

Adapted from Chapter 5, "Stabilizing Climate: Shifting to Renewable
Energy,ï¿½ in Lester R. Brown, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save
Civilization.
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China Takes Another Stab at Resettlement With $62 Billion Water Plan

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/08/100829-china-dam-resettlement-water/

By Eliza Barclay in Beijing

for National Geographic News

Published August 29, 2010

While the residents of Majestic Mansion, a new high-end real estate
development on the outskirts of Beijing, splash in their glittering blue
swimming pool, residents of lakeside Danjiangkou City, just 621 miles
(1,000 kilometers) away in neighboring Hubei Province, are packing up
their belongings. They are leaving because the Chinese government will
soon flood their village to expand the local reservoir. It turns out
these two communities are tied to each other by lopsided demands for
water, and by an ambitious solution to manage the coveted resource.

Exclusive oases like Majestic Mansion are putting new demands on
Beijingï¿½s dwindling water resources, and helping to justify the $62
billion South-North Water Transfer Project. The initiative will divert
water from an enlarged Danjiangkou reservoir through new canals to
Beijing and other northern cities, displacing hundreds of thousands of
people in the process.

Just this week, the first communities along the Middle Route of the
project began their resettlement from Danjiangkou to nearby Shayang
County. Itï¿½s expected that by 2014 about 180,000 people will be
relocated within Hubei Province and 150,000 to Henan Province.

The massive engineering project is the latest in a series intended to
tame and re purpose Chinaï¿½s abundant rivers. China has 20 percent of the
worldï¿½s population but only seven percent of the worldï¿½s freshwater
resources, according to the World Bank. The South-North project is
expected to supply 45 trillion gallons of water for hundreds of millions
of people by 2030.

The 787-mile-long (1,267 km) middle section of the route alone will move
11 trillion gallons of water from the Yangtze River in the south to the
Danjiangkou Reservoir on the Han River, a tributary of the Yangtze, in
the north.

The project also includes eastern and western sections, the first of
which is finished. Construction of the Western is slated to begin this
year but is hampered by the severe geographical, engineering, and
climatic obstacles of the Tibetan Plateau.

Resettlement

Though local news reports suggest the first group is relocating without
resistance, observers note that the Chinese government, which now has
considerable experience resettling communities in the name of water
infrastructure (1.3 million people were moved for the Three Gorges Dam),
is still struggling to manage the process fairly.

International Rivers, a non-profit organization based in Berkeley,
California, released a report this week indicating that while
resettlement compensation is improving, communities still have few
resettlement options. And once resettled, they may experience social
tensions. Local ecosystems might be stressed, as well, as more farmers
are forced onto limited arable land, according to the reportï¿½s authorï¿½a
Chinese citizen who had to remain anonymous to protect local contacts.

ï¿½The ecological cost impacts of the project are not really
[acknowledged] by the government,ï¿½ said Peter Bosshard, International
Riversï¿½ policy director. Specifically, he is concerned that the
government did not account for pollution in the Yangtze or around the
reservoir. A reduced flow may limit the riverï¿½s ability to flush out
pollutants, and squeeze higher concentrations of people and farms onto
the reservoirï¿½s banks, increasing the risk of erosion.

The Need for Speed in Beijing

The Middle Route has been delayed for years, but is growing increasingly
urgent as water demand in Beijing and other northern cities skyrockets.
Some 10 percent of Beijingï¿½s water usage is currently feeding luxury
gardens and swimming pools in new apartment buildings like Majestic
Mansion. These new demands add to the household, industrial, and
agricultural needs of the cityï¿½s 20 million residents who have already
reduced the cityï¿½s two reservoirs to less than 10 percent of their
original storage capacities.

Beijingï¿½s annual water demand will be 1.1 trillion gallonsï¿½enough to
fill 1.6 million Olympic-size swimming poolsï¿½by 2020, according to city
government estimates, and the city government has concluded that local
groundwater resources are woefully insufficient to meet the need.

Guo Geng, an environmental expert and director of an ecology center in
Beijing, says that the Beijing government is beginning to think more
about water conservation.

ï¿½But for now the city is in a water crisis, yet nobody in the government
is willing to admit that publicly,ï¿½ Geng said.

International Riversï¿½ Bosshard adds that large-scale infrastructure
projects like the South-North Transfer Project will not solve Chinaï¿½s
water woes.

ï¿½Water prices should be increased. Water-intensive crops and the growing
consumption of meat should be discouraged,ï¿½ he said. ï¿½And the most
water-intensive sectors of the economy should be moved to where the
water isï¿½in the country's Southï¿½rather than the other way round.ï¿½
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Nigeria May Give Brazil Access to Oil, Gas Deposits Under Hydropower Deal

(Brazil is also involved in Mozambique's Mphanda Nkuwa project.)

Nigeria May Give Brazil Access to Oil, Gas Deposits Under Hydropower
Deal
By Paul Okolo - Aug 31, 2010 5:05 AM PT Tue Aug 31 12:05:47 GMT 2010

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-31/nigeria-may-give-brazil-access-to-oil-gas-deposits-under-hydropower-deal.html

Nigeria, Africaï¿½s top oil producer, may grant Brazil access to its oil
and gas industry in return for the South American countryï¿½s
participation in two hydropower projects, the Nigerian vice president
said.

Brazil has expressed interest in completing the development of the
Zungeru hydropower plant and financing the Mambilla hydropower project
under a partnership that would allow the country to help develop
Nigeriaï¿½s power industry, Namadi Sambo said in a statement on the
presidencyï¿½s website.

The cooperation is a ï¿½welcome ideaï¿½ because Brazil has comparative
advantage in hydro-electric power generation, renewable energy and
deepwater exploration of crude, said the statement dated yesterday.

Nigeria, which with more than 140 million people is Africaï¿½s most
populous nation, failed to meet a December 2009 deadline to double
electricity output to 6,000 megawatts, a situation that leads to daily
power cuts in most parts of the country.

The Mambilla project in the countryï¿½s northeastern state of Taraba
will generate 2,600 megawatts when completed, Abuja-based Daily Trust
quoted Nuhu Wya, minister of state for power, as saying on June 30.
Zungeru, in north central Niger state, has capacity for 32 MW,
according to the newspaper.

President Goodluck Jonathan announced a plan on Aug. 26 to expand
power generation through private investment. The program includes
selling 11 distribution companies created out of Power Holding Co. of
Nigeria, the state-owned utility, and allowing private companies to
set up power plants using natural gas, hydro-electric dams and coal-
powered stations.

The government of the West African nation wants to boost generation to
14,019 MW by 2013, Barth Nnaji, the presidentï¿½s adviser on power, said
on Aug. 17.

To contact the reporter on this story: Paul Okolo in Abuja at pokolo@bloomberg.net
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NamPower plans hydropower scheme along Lower Orange river

HYDROPOWER
NamPower plans hydropower scheme along Lower Orange river

http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/nampower-plans-hydropower-scheme-along-lower-orange-river-2010-08-30

By: Chanel de Bruyn
30th August 2010

Namibian power utility NamPower has called for consultants to assist
it with aspects related to the proposed development of the 100 MW run-
of-river Lower Orange Hydroelectrical Power Scheme (LOHEPS).

The scheme would entail the development of up to nine small
hydroelectric power stations, ranging from 6 MW to 12 MW, along the
Lower Orange river, which had an estimated power generation potential
of between 80 MW and 120 MW.

The power utility noted that LOHEPS would be used to divert the flow
of the river through canals and tunnels into water turbines to produce
electricity.

Between 66 km and 72 km of tunnels and 5 km of canals would have to be
constructed, while about 300 km of access roads to reach the
hydroelectric plants would also have to be built, as part of the
proposed scheme.

Further, three additional substations closer to the new hydropower
stations would have to be built.

NamPower has invited submissions from companies or joint ventures to
provide consulting services for four work packages, the first of which
would entail aerial surveying, geotechnical surveying and consultancy
services for the tunnelling and canal works.

Further, the utility was also seeking consultancy services for the
electrical works, mechanical works and civil and building works
aspects of the project; as well as expertise with regard to financial
and commercial model auditing; and expertise with regard to
hydrological auditing.

Interested parties had until September 17 to submit their expressions
of interest to NamPower.

NamPower is also expanding its Ruacana hydropower station.

Earlier this month, it reported that a fourth, 80 MW, turbine would be
commissioned at the power station in March 2012. The first three units
of the power station, producing 420 MW, had already been commissioned
in 1978.

NamPower is investing billions in new power generation capacity and
transmission networks, driven by surging demand.

The countryï¿½s national average demand for electricity is exceeding 320
MW, and increases to 450 MW during peak periods.

Edited by: Mariaan Webb
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Monday, August 30, 2010

Biofuels For Europe Drive Land Grabbing In Africa

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1008/S00528/biofuels-for-europe-drive-land-grabbing-in-africa.htm

Tuesday, 31 August 2010, 11:38 am
Press Release: Akanimo Sampson

Biofuels For Europe Drive Land Grabbing In Africa

The amount of farmland being taken in Africa to meet Europeï¿½s
increasing demand for biofuels is underestimated and out of control,
new investigations by Friends of the Earth reveal today.

The research, which looked at 11 African countries, found at least
five million hectares of land ï¿½ an area the size of Denmark ï¿½ is being
acquired by foreign companies to produce biofuels mainly for the
European market.

The practice ï¿½ known as land grabbing ï¿½ is increasing and is dominated
by European companies. However with official public information
largely absent, current figures are likely to be only a snapshot and
gross underestimates.

The report, ï¿½Africa: Up For Grabsï¿½ reveals how local communities are
having their land taken and there are few safeguards for local
community land rights. Forests and natural vegetation are being
cleared, and biofuels are competing with food crops for farmland.

Even more land will be required for biofuels if the European Union is
to reach its target of 10% of transport fuels from renewable sources
by 2020, according to the research.

Adrian Bebb, food and agriculture campaigner for Friends of the Earth
Europe, said: ï¿½Our research shows that Europeï¿½s demand for biofuels is
a major driver of land grabbing in Africa. Local communities are
facing increasing hunger and food insecurity just so Europe can fuel
its cars. The EU must urgently scrap its biofuel policy. Europe must
invest instead in environmentally friendly agriculture and decrease
the energy we use for transport.ï¿½

A leaked World Bank report on wider land grabbing corroborates this
pattern, stating that ï¿½consultations with local communities were often
weak... Conflicts were common, usually over land rights.ï¿½ The World
Bank has so far refused to release these controversial findings
publicly.

In Tanzania , Madagascar and Ghana there have been protests following
land-grabs by foreign companies.

Mariann Bassey, African food and agriculture coordinator for
Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN)
said: ï¿½The expansion of biofuels on our continent is transforming
forests and natural vegetation into fuel crops, taking away food-
growing farmland from communities, and creating conflicts with local
people over land ownership. We want real investment in agriculture
that allows us to produce food and not fuel for foreign cars."

This is just one example of Europeï¿½s over use of the worldï¿½s
resources. Friends of the Earth Europe is calling on the EU to start
measuring and curbing its use of land, water, materials, and climate
emissions around the world.

ENDS
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Africa gen-set market growing--thanks to drought

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/east-african-genset-market-poised-for-high-growth-due-to-the-power-crisis-notes-frost--sullivan-101779623.html

East African Genset Market Poised for High Growth Due to the Power
Crisis, Notes Frost & Sullivan

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Aug. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- The East African
region is fraught with seasonal droughts and a consequent power
crisis. This crisis, coupled with an expected rise in economic growth
in the region, is the main driver for growth in the East African
genset market. The sectors that are experiencing significant growth
include, but are not limited to, telecommunications, manufacturing,
mining, commercial, and construction.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (http://www.energy.frost.com), The
East African Genset Market, finds that the market earned revenues of
$54.4 million in 2009 and estimates this to reach $212 million in
2014. The end-user sectors covered in this study include industrial
and commercial, mining and construction, telecommunications and
agricultural.

If you are interested in more information on this study, please send
an e-mail to Patrick Cairns, Corporate Communications, at patrick.cairns@frost.com
, with your full name, company name, title, telephone number, company
e-mail address, company website, city, state and country.

"The water levels in the major dams feeding the hydro power stations
in the region have drastically decreased, stepping-up the need for
gensets," says Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Salima Zyambo.
"Additionally, economic growth ranging between 4 and 8 per cent is
expected in the long-term as East Africa embarks on economic
development programmes, further creating a demand for gensets."

Infrastructure development, road construction and industrial
expansions have led to an increase in the use of gensets, both as a
source of prime power and stand-by power.

However, market growth is hampered by lack of quality control
regulations ï¿½ a major growth restraint in the genset market for
original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Furthermore, OEMs from Europe
and North America are facing stiff competition from their Asian
counterparts, who are able to supply gensets of increasingly good
quality at competitive prices.

"The market is flooded with gensets of varying quality and prices as a
direct result of the lack of quality control regulations in the
region," explains Zyambo. "With the demand for gensets expected to
rise as the region's economy grows, more equipment suppliers are
entering the market."

Product quality and efficient after-sales services are however fast
replacing product price as the key differentiating factors in the
genset market. Offering a wide variety of product brands to customers
is another critical success factor that will reduce the probability of
customers switching to other suppliers.

"Equipment suppliers who can ensure efficient service delivery,
product quality and cost competitiveness are in a better position to
capture and grow their market share," concludes Zyambo. "This can be
achieved by either opening more outlets or working in conjunction with
existing equipment stores."

The East African Genset Market is part of the Energy & Power Growth
Partnership Services programme, which also includes research in the
following markets: The Sub-Saharan Africa Large Diesel Generation
Markets and Power Rental in Key African Markets. All research services
included in subscriptions provide detailed market opportunities and
industry trends that have been evaluated following extensive
interviews with market participants.

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to
accelerate growth and achieve best-in-class positions in growth,
innovation and leadership. The company's Growth Partnership Service
provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined research
and best-practice models to drive the generation, evaluation, and
implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan
leverages over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000
companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from 40
offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please
visit http://www.frost.com.
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Friday, August 27, 2010

Gibe 3: AfDB, EIB out. Who's in?

Gibe 3: AfDB, EIB out. Who's in?
Fri, 08/27/2010 - 12:24pm
By: Terri Hathaway
http://www.internationalrivers.org/en/node/5772

Ethiopia's Gibe 3 Dam remains the most destructive dam being built
today. According to the official project website, Ethiopia plans to pay
$572 million (448m Euros) from their own pockets. But the rest of the
dam's $2 billion (1.55b Euros) price tag remains unfunded. Which banks
are being chased to fund this highly destructive dam? Here's the rundown:

Development Banks Out.

Earlier this month, the African Development Bank officially withdrew its
funding consideration, as did the European Investment Bank in July. Both
AfDB and EIB had been considering loans for a sub-contract to finance
the dam's turbines and electro-mechanical works. Why a sub-contract?
Because the project's lucrative, no-bid contract with Italian
construction giant, Salini, violates international procurement standards.

The World Bank has told NGOs that, at this time, they are not
considering any support for Gibe 3 Dam. Discussions are indefinitely
halted after a high-ranking Ethiopian official allegedly told the Bank
it could "go to hell" over its indigenous peoples safeguard policy. The
World Bank previously said that Gibe 3's no-bid contract to Salini
violates the Bank's procurement policy, so there's no chance of a
project loan, but the Bank could still give project guarantees. If
tempers calm down, could the Bank jump back in, undermining its
development goals and policies?

China and Italy In?

In May, the Ethiopian government gave the sub-contract to Chinese
company, Dongfang Electric Corporation, and is looking to China's
largest bank, ICBC, for roughly $425 million (85%) of the $500 million
sub-contract. Kenya's Friends of Lake Turkana, BankTrack and
International Rivers immediately called on ICBC to stay out of the
project. "Funding the Gibe 3 Project would seriously damage ICBC's
reputation as a diligent, environmentally responsible bank." No official
word yet whether ICBC has approved the loan, but many eyes are watching
this test case for China's role in Africa. We remain hopeful that ICBC
will follow JP MorganChase, which in 2008, reportedly considered, but
did not approve, a similar size loan.

In July 2009, Ethiopia awarded a sub-contract to Chinese company TBEA,
for the transmission line between the dam and the Wolaita substation.
Roughly $29 million (85%) of the $34 million contract was expected to be
financed by China Exim Bank, although there is no confirmation that
funding has since been approved.

The Government of Italy is still undecided on a project loan of 250
million Euros (roughly $318m). In June, Italian NGOs demonstrated
against Italian involvement in the destructive project. Maybe the
government should follow the lead of its export credit agency, SACE,
which in 2008, refused a request by the no-bid contractor, Salini, to
support the project.

Ethiopia can develop its power sector and meet its development goals
without Gibe 3.

ICBC, Italy and World Bank should focus their investments away from Gibe
3 to power development projects in Ethiopia that won't cause widespread
harm. But, even if these loans are approved, there's still a gap of at
least $600 million, not to mention cost overruns. What other banks is
the Ethiopian government going to chase?
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Amazon-killing Belo Monte Dam approved

http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/6416

Brazilï¿½s President signs ï¿½death sentenceï¿½ for Amazonian river 27 August

Brazilï¿½s President Lula has signed a contract allowing the
construction of the hugely controversial Belo Monte mega-dam on the
Amazonian Xingu River to go ahead.

Lula said, ï¿½I think this is a victory for Brazilï¿½s energy sectorï¿½.

Belo Monte, if built, will be the third largest dam in the world. It
will devastate the local environment and threaten the lives of the
thousands of indigenous people living in the area, whose land and food
sources will be seriously damaged.

Experts have warned that the project has serious design flaws. It was
described by Walter Coronado Antunes, former Environment Secretary of
Sï¿½o Paulo state, as ï¿½the worst engineering project in the history of
hydroelectric dams in Brazil, and perhaps of any engineering project
in the worldï¿½.

Indians, together with human rights and environmental organizations
have traveled to Brazilï¿½s capital, Brasï¿½lia, to protest against Lulaï¿½s
signing of the contract. They said, ï¿½The government has signed a death
warrant for the Xingu river and condemned thousands of residents to
expulsionï¿½.

Brazilian and international organizations have published a Declaration
against the Belo Monte dam, describing the signing of the contract as
a ï¿½death sentence for the Xingu Riverï¿½, and a ï¿½scandalous affront to
international human rights conventions, Brazilian law and the
Brazilian constitutionï¿½.

Marcos Apurinï¿½ of the Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organizations of
the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB), said, ï¿½Our government is presenting
itself as an example to the world. But here in Brazil, at least for
indigenous peoples, it is not exemplary at all!ï¿½.

The Indians have warned that if the dam is constructed, a ï¿½warï¿½ could
start and the Xingu could become a ï¿½river of bloodï¿½.

They have organized several protests against the project. Hundreds of
Indians are currently participating in a protest, alongside experts,
human rights and environmental organizations, and Brazilï¿½s Public
Ministry, against the Belo Monte dam, as well as the dams on the
Madeira, Teles Pires and Tapajï¿½s rivers.

Survival International recently published a report highlighting the
devastating impacts that dams are bringing to tribal peoples worldwide.
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Excellent editorial on clean energy for SA

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-08-27-getting-our-greenhouse-in-order

Getting our greenhouse in order
DAVID LE PAGE: CLIMATE CHANGE | JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - Aug 27
2010 16:11

In December 2011 the world will again be watching South Africa,
focused on an event that might be remembered far longer than the World
Cup ï¿½ the 17th meeting of the parties to the United Nation's climate
convention.

The hope of many is that the world may finally reach a just, legally
binding and ambitious agreement on cutting carbon emissions ï¿½ the
agreement that Copenhagen failed to deliver.

Putting aside whether that's likely, this means that an awful lot of
attention is going to be focused on South Africa and raises the
question ï¿½ what example are we, as the hosts, going to be setting?
Assuming we don't want to be shuffling about trying to avoid the
question, there are many exciting possibilities.

The most urgent step is a real commitment to energy efficiency. It is
the first and easiest way to cut carbon emissions, one that often pays
for itself, one that Eskom admits neglecting (Mail & Guardian, July
11), and for which researchers suspect there is immense potential.
Used to having some of the world's cheapest electricity, we have
become immensely wasteful.

We could make it illegal to build RDP houses that do not meet the
basic standards for energy efficiency much less human health. Women
living in basic "eco-houses" do not celebrate cutting their carbon
emissions ï¿½ they celebrate having children who are not constantly ill.

New revenue model
We could find a revenue model for our cities that does not depend on
the perverse incentives of keeping up water and electricity sales.

We can abandon the fantasy of the pathetic Copenhagen Accord, which
"sets a global goal of keeping temperature increase below 2ï¿½C above
pre-industrial levels, without jeopardising economic growth".

Because South Africa is prone to greater warming than the global
average, two degrees of global warming will probably prove extremely
expensive for us.

It will be impossible to turn back the clock on carbon emissions
without abandoning our obsession with GDP, which Nicholas Sarkozy, the
French president, has warned is "destroying more than it [is]
creating". In South Africa our current growth model is working far
harder for the rich than for the poor ï¿½ people living in Constantia in
Cape Town consume 14 times their fair share of planetary resources.

CONTINUES BELOW

As the acid mine drainage crisis threatening Gauteng amply
demonstrates, growth as we know it is creating enormous problems even
before we take climate change into account.

Of course, we still need certain kinds of growth still. But it's time
to disaggregate it, to ask finally, as did Simon Kuznets, the man who
formulated the GDP measure, what kind of growth do we want and for whom?

Green GDP
China, that supposed evil behemoth of the eastern hemisphere, has
experimented with dropping GDP in some provinces in favour of a green
GDP measure ï¿½ and has seen pollution growth slow down.

We could reduce speed limits, cutting fuel use, making our roads safer
and quieter and reducing the need for over-heavy vehicles weighed down
with safety features. We could build on our new love for the Gautrain
and restore our moribund national rail network.

Perhaps our politicians could lead by example and start adopting low-
impact lifestyles. Cycling, cold showers, veggie patches ï¿½ the body
politic could only profit.

We had the courage to abandon the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor, so
surely we can find the courage to abandon the Kusile power station?
Our current energy strategy has far more to do with the needs of big
industry than of healthy growth.

A deadly mix of financial and technocratic inertia and special
interests drives us ever more relentlessly towards disaster. A massive
roll-out of solar water heaters would save all the energy Kusile is
intended to supply and cost far less.

Renewable energy-based grid
Sadly, although Eskom knows how to build and manage big power
stations, it doesn't know how to manage the sprawling, messy, human
complexity of an energy-efficiency programme. It can't surrender its
totemic big power stations. It doesn't trust the notion of a
sprawling, decentralised, renewable energy-based grid.

It continues to generate misleading propaganda about the need for
baseload power, which is in fact a property of overall grid management
and not of individual power stations. Until the start of the current
electricity planning process, it had apparently never encountered the
ample research showing that renewable energy creates far more jobs
than coal and nuclear.

The way ahead is reducing energy use, using what we have more
efficiently and generating it from renewable resources. Our current
choices will only become ever more ruinously expensive.

"The world in 2008 invested more in renewable power than in fossil-
fuelled power. Why? Because renewables are cheaper, faster, vaster,
equally or more carbon-free and more attractive to investors," points
out Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountains Institute, which researches
resource efficiency.

We could even look afresh at our manic determination to go nuclear.
Building nuclear plants, as noted by the environmental freaks at
Citigroup Global Markets in November 2009, carries construction risks,
power price risks and operational risks "so large and variable that
individually they could each bring even the largest utility to its
knees".

If we really had guts and vision, we could pledge, like several other
countries, to become carbon-neutral. Those that have already done so
are smaller than we are, with far less carbon-intensive economies.

But why should we limit our world-leading ambitions to hosting sports
events?
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Thursday, August 26, 2010

Government decides to scrap NTPC hydel project on Bhagirathi river

GoM decides to scrap NTPC hydel project on Bhagirathi river
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/energy/power/GoM-decides-to-scrap-NTPC-hydel-project-on-Bhagirathi-river/articleshow/6383763.cms

NEW DELHI: Keeping religious sentiments and environmental concerns in
view, a Group of Ministers (GoM) on Friday scrapped the NTPC's
controversial 600 MW Loharinag Pala hydel project on Bhagirathi river in
Uttarakhand.

Headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, the GoM in a meeting made a
detailed re-examination of the project and recommended that the
hydro-power dam, the work on which had been under suspension for
sometime, should be scrapped.

"A technical panel would be set up to recommend specific safeguard
measures to be undertaken to protect the environment and to maintain the
fragile eco-geological balance in the area," said Union Power Minister
Sushilkumar Shinde, who is one of the members of the GoM.

The fate of the project had been hanging in balance for the last few
years with the government doing a flip-flop -- first deciding to suspend
the work and then partially resuming construction citing huge financial
cost given that it had already incurred Rs 700 crore on the project.

Two projects on Bhagirathi -- 480 MW Pala Maneri and 381 MW Bhairon
Ghati hydel projects proposed by the state government have already been
scrapped by the GoM.

Shinde said that in view of environmental concerns and after Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh asked the GoM to revisit the issue, it decided
to do away with the project on Bhagirathi river, a key tributary of the
Ganga.

Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said, "earlier decision (to resume
work) was taken reluctantly and after the GoM revisited the decision, it
finally decided to scrap the proposed dam on the river to ensure its
free flow."

A large number of religious leaders had also been protesting against the
proposed dam, claiming that it will threaten the existence of the river
and block free flow of Ganga, which is considered holy by the Hindus.
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China becomes hydro superpower, but aims for greater capacity [Xinhua 25.8.10]

China becomes hydro superpower, but aims for greater capacity

1:06, August 25, 2010

As all generating units began running Wednesday at Xiaowan Hydropower Station in the southwestern Yunnan Province, China's hydropower capacity became the world's largest.

The new 700,000 kilowatt-unit at Xiaowan sent China's installed hydropower capacity just above 200 million kilowatts and marked the completion of the 4.2 million-kilowatt Xiaowan Hydropower Station project, China's second largest hydropower project after the Three Gorges.

With a total investment of 40 billion yuan (5.86 billion U.S. dollars), Xiaowan can produce 19 billion kWh of electricity every year.

At a ceremony at the station, Liu Qi, deputy director of the National Energy Administration (NEA), hailed it as "a great leap forward" for China's hydropower industry after a century of development.

China's first hydropower station, Shilongba Power Station, was built near Kunming, provincial capital of Yunnan, 100 years ago.

"The rapid development of the hydropower industry is of great significance to optimizing China's energy structure and reducing carbon emissions," Sun Yucai, executive vice chairman of the China Electricity Council, said at the ceremony.

The government promised at the Copenhagen Conference on global climate change last year that China would cut its carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 40 to 45 percent by 2020.

China also undertook a commitment to generate 15 percent of its power from non-fossil sources by 2020, up from the current 7.8 percent.

As the most competitive non-fossil energy, hydropower was key for China to realize its emissions reduction goal, Sun said.

China has long relied on coal to fuel its economic growth with about 83 percent of its electricity produced by coal-fired stations, according to the NEA.

To match the installed hydropower capacity of 200 million kilowatts, thermal power plants would have to burn 288 million tonnes of coal equivalent, emit 855 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and 5.4 million tonnes of carbon sulfur dioxide every year, according to China Electricity Council estimates.

Zhang Guobao, director of the NEA, told Xinhua Wednesday that hydro projects with another 70 million kilowatts capacity were under construction, and another 100 million kilowatts of capacity was needed.

"If all the planned hydropower projects begin construction in the next three years, it is still possible to expand the current installed hydropower capacity to 380 million kilowatts by 2020," Zhang said.

"We need careful and detailed planning and imperative approval procedures," he said.

In a separate interview with web portal Sina.com Wednesday, Zhang said China would expand its installed hydropower capacity to 300 million kilowatts by 2015 in an effort to cut carbon emissions.

Source:Xinhua

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China's dam spree continues

China's dam spree continues
Brady Yauch
Probe International
Tuesday, August 24, 2010

China's dams have been plagued by environmental catastrophes, civil unrest
and billions of dollars in cost overruns, causing officials to slow down
their break-neck dam construction plans, for a time.

But now, according to reports from state media, with public relations
targets for renewable energy projects to meet, China is gearing up to
expedite approvals for hydro projects in the second half of this year. Two
of the country's big five power companies, Huaneng and Huadian—parents of
Huaneng Power International and Huadian Power—were recently granted
environmental clearances for dams that they were previously forced to put
on ice.

According to state media, the dams— Jin'anqiao in Yunnan and Zangmushui in
Tibet—were the first approvals in more than two years.

"It seems the central government's attitude towards hydropower has warmed
again. It's expected to speed up approvals," said an official with China
Society for Hydropower Engineering.

Whether or not the government's slowdown on approvals led to a slowdown in
construction is debatable. A number of reports suggest that construction
on dams has continued for years, despite not receiving approvals from the
central government.

The Jin'anqiao dam—one of eight dams planned for the middle Jinsha—began
construction in 2004 without approval from the central government. Only
after media outlets began reporting on its unauthorized construction did
government officials begin an investigation.

In April of 2009, Liu Jianxiang, a leading Chinese environmentalist and
journalist, and a group of citizens, including NGOs, journalists, local
entrepreneurs and farmers, organized a tour to investigate the middle
Jinsha, where the Jin'anqiao dam is located.

"We discovered several hydropower stations being constructed illegally,"
he said. "At the Liyuan dam site we found waste produced by construction
activities discharging into the river without treatment, and the river
water seriously polluted.

Construction on other dams, including the Ludila and Longkaikou—also both
on the Jinsha River—has also proceeded, without receiving the necessary
approval from central government officials and undergoing proper
environmental assessments. Last year, after China's environment ministry
called for construction on the dams to be halted until proper
environmental studies were conducted, citizens groups issued photos
showing that construction was continuing.

Meanwhile, China's enthusiasm for hydro dams abroad has only accelerated
to the point where China is today the world's largest funder of
dams—surpassing even the World Bank. And, like its domestic projects, many
of the dams China is pursuing overseas are highly contentious—often
involving the destruction of sensitive habitats and the displacement of
thousands of people.

According to a report from Survival International, China's Three Gorges
Project Corporation, builder of the controversial Three Gorges is
contracted to build a dam on the land of the Penan tribe in Sarawak, while
China's biggest state bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China,
is considering funding Gibe III in Ethiopia, which is expected to be
Africa's tallest dam and will destroy the livelihood of at least eight
tribes.

And according to International Rivers, Chinese banks and companies are
involved in the construction of 216 large dams in 49 different
countries—with their strongest foothold in Africa and Southeast Asia.

China's ambitions for hydro development at home have also been spurred on
by the United Nation's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a supposed
market-based tool that issues carbon credits to hydro project developers
in the developing world for eschewing carbon based electricity generation.
According to one report, China has proposed at least 763 hydro projects
that are currently being considered for approval by the UN CDM office. By
2012, the report says, these projects will generate more than 300 million
certified emission reductions (CER) which are currently worth as much as
$4-billion.

According to Probe International's carbon credit database, China has
already received around 10.5 million carbon credits for more than 80
hydrodam projects. In total, these credits are worth at least
$130-million.
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Tuesday, August 24, 2010

New Report Finds Progress and Challenges in Chinese Resettlement Project

New Report Finds Progress and Challenges in Chinese Resettlement Project
International Rivers, August 25, 2010

The $62 billion South-North Water Transfer Project is the biggest
engineering scheme in Chinese history. About 330,000 people are currently
being relocated for the expansion of the Danjiangkou reservoir, which
marks the beginning of the transfer project's Middle Route. On August 25,
International Rivers published an eyewitness report on China's biggest
ongoing resettlement project. The report finds that the Chinese government
has learned lessons from the experience with the Three Gorges Dam, but
that serious problems remain.

The report was prepared by a Chinese development expert who knows the
Dangjiangkou region well, but needs to remain anonymous. It finds that the
Chinese government has learned important lessons from the problems of the
Three Gorges Project. The levels of compensation and post-resettlement
support have been significantly increased, and resettlement policies are
more detailed than in the past. Resettlers are no longer moved out of
their home provinces. The authorities have so far relied on persuasion
rather than force to implement the relocation project. They have also
instituted a certain degree of participation in project implementation
through the involvement of elected resettlement committees.

At the same time, major problems and risks remain. Affected people were
not involved in preparing the resettlement policies, which has created
unnecessary problems. Affected people have no freedom to choose among
different resettlement options. The resettlement budget is relatively low,
which may cause problems particularly in the post-resettlement phase.
Resettlement within the reservoir area will increase population density,
fuel social tensions, and add pressure on ecosystems which are already
under stress.

At the launch of the report, the researcher recommended that the
participation of affected people in the project be improved, and that
government support particularly for the period after resettlement be
strengthened. The researcher also urged the Chinese authorities to take
the ecological limits of the region into account as they implement the
water transfer project.

Peter Bosshard, Policy Director of International Rivers, commented: "We
commend the Chinese authorities for the improvements which they have
adopted in their resettlement policies, and salute the courage of China's
dam-affected people who have helped to bring this progress about. We urge
the government to carry out the measures recommended in the new report to
avoid a deterioration of the situation. At the same time, the social and
environmental problems of the water transfer project show that the
solution of China's water crisis will not lie in grand engineering
schemes, but in efficiency improvements and conservation measures which
can reduce the country's water demand."

The new report, Resettlement in Action, is available at
www.internationalrivers.org/en/node/5729

A Chinese language version will soon be available at
http://irn.blog.hexun.com/
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Monday, August 23, 2010

Global Lessons from the Pakistan Flood Catastrophe

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-mccully/global-lessons-from-the-p_b_691928.html

Global Lessons from the Pakistan Flood Catastrophe

Patrick McCully

23 August 2010

There are three vital global lessons to learn from the ongoing flood catastrophe in Pakistan. First, the rise in the planetary temperature has reached a tipping point. We are now in a scary new era of extreme weather. Extremes are the new normal. And there's no going back, at least not in our lifetime, and very likely not in that of our children.

We should be doing everything we can and more to cut our greenhouse gas pollution. We can slow the rise in heat and limit the maximum temperature level (provided we avoid triggering irreversible feedbacks like a surge of methane from melting permafrost or the drying and burning of the Amazon forests). But we can't stop more warming, and we can't stop more weather disasters (which, climate denying evil wingnuts take note, will include more snowmaggedons).

Second, we urgently need to step up efforts to protect ourselves from this new normal. We need to do all we can to stop weather disasters becoming catastrophes. This means, in the jargon of disaster management, increasing the resilience of our infrastructure, economies and communities. In Pakistan greater resilience would include better emergency warning and evacuation systems, better flood protection for key infrastructure (cities, and schools and other community buildings that can serve as flood shelters), and plans to help communities recover once the waters recede.

Third, the way we have (mis)managed the Indus -- and countless other rivers around the world -- for the past century has provided various short-term benefits, but at a major long-term cost that we are now having to pay.

We have ended small- and medium-scale flooding on many rivers through building dams and embankments. But in doing so we have greatly increased the scale of, and our vulnerability to, very big floods. This is a really bad idea in an era when megafloods are becoming ever less "extreme" and ever more "normal." Increasing resilience to floods in Pakistan, the US, and just about everywhere else is going to require reversing our river management mistakes through restoring rivers and floodplains, including by taking out embankments and dams.

In Pakistan, two of the world's biggest dams, and a vast associated system of barrages and diversion canals, have greatly reduced the amount of water and sediments carried by the Indus in most years. The most obvious consequence of this has been the destruction of the farmlands, fisheries and mangrove forests of the Indus Delta, one of the 20th century's great environmental disasters.

But another consequence is that the river normally lacks sufficient flows to carry away the riverine sediments that are not trapped behind dams. And sediments that once would have been deposited onto the floodplain in "normal floods" are trapped within thousands of miles of embankments. These sediments build up on the riverbed, steadily reducing its capacity to handle large flows.

Then, inevitably, a major flood comes, the shrunken river channel, straight-jacketed within its embankments, can no longer hold the flow, and the Indus surges out over the densely populated floodplain.

National Geographic takes up the story:

The major river engineering is basically a Faustian bargain," says Daanish Mustafa of King's College London, recalling the fable in which a man sells his soul to the devil in exchange for a life of luxury. Mustafa is a geographer who has studied the history of Pakistan's river management.
Until a few decades ago, there were typically mild floods each summer--the time when the monsoon rainfall hits, and the melt from the snowpack in the Himalaya and Karakoram Mountains is at its peak.
But now, because humans have sculpted the river and the surrounding natural floodplain and wetlands for farming and other needs, there are fewer floods, but when they hit, they are far worse, said Mustafa.
There's not very much space [in the river channel] to absorb all the rainfall," says Asad Sarwar Qureshi, a water resources expert at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) branch in Lahore, Pakistan. "We need to get it back into shape, so that it can carry its original capacity."
Wetlands along the river's course used to take up some floodwaters, and the government also used to divert excess water into "no man's land" during the monsoon season, he says. But those areas have been converted to farmland, he says . . .
Allowing the river to flood more regularly, and naturally, could help temper the floods and make them more tolerable, say Mustafa and other experts . . .
Managing Pakistan's floods is a delicate balance between giving the river more room, and building barriers to protect people and their land.

As Daanish Mustafa explains in this BBC interview, the unusual monsoon pattern behind the current catastrophe has been seen in a weaker form already several times in the past decade. The hydrological past is no longer a reliable guide to the hydrological future and we need to rethink our management of rivers to take account of this.

To help relief efforts in Pakistan, International Rivers recommends that people in the US donate to Action Aid, whose local staff do excellent work with poor communities impacted by river mismanagement.

To read more about the failure of flood control and how we can reduce flood risks, click here.

Patrick McCully
Executive Director
International Rivers
Berkeley, California, USA
internationalrivers.org/en/blog/patrick-mccully

Assistant:
Jamie Greenblatt
510 848 1155 x 329
jamie@internationalrivers.org

Position available: Policy Program Coordinator

Position available - please post and disseminate:
Policy Program Coordinator

International Rivers fights destructive dams in Latin America, Africa and
Asia and promotes better methods of meeting energy and water needs. One of
our core strategies is to promote stronger social and environmental
standards for international dam builders and financiers.

International Rivers is looking for an experienced, skilled, dynamic
person to coordinate our efforts to reform social and environmental
policies and practices of governments, financiers and companies. The
Policy Program Coordinator will work with our partner organizations and
satellite offices around the world, as well as with colleagues in our
Berkeley headquarters.

This is a full-time position (40 hours/week). It is located in Berkeley,
USA, and requires occasional international and domestic travel. The Policy
Program Coordinator reports to the Policy Director.

The duties and responsibilities of the Program Coordinator are:

1. Research and analysis: Monitor the strategies, policies and projects of
international dam builders and financiers and conduct research on these
topics. In particular, analyze developments regarding the World Commission
on Dams, the proposed Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol and
the role of hydropower projects in climate finance mechanisms.

2. Advocacy: Build pressure to convince international dam builders and
financiers to strengthen their social and environmental guidelines.
Promote the framework of the World Commission on Dams, and push back
against efforts to undermine this framework. Engage dam builders and
financiers in a dialogue if possible, and employ more confrontational
tactics if necessary.

3. Capacity building: Strengthen the capacity of civil society groups to
advocate for stronger social and environmental standards within their
countries and on the international level. Share information, publish
reports and fact-sheets, organize trainings and other workshops, assist
partner groups with small grants, and give direct advice as needed. Work
together with our China Global Program and support the policy work of our
regional programs.

4. Media work and other communications: Respond to media inquiries and
carry out international media work. Write articles, commentaries, blog
posts and reports. Contribute stories to our magazine, World Rivers
Review, and maintain the Policy Program's web pages.

5. Program coordination: Coordinate International Rivers' program to
strengthen the social and environmental standards and practices of dam
builders and financiers. Develop and implement strategies and work plans.
Supervise interns and volunteers. Help with fundraising, budgeting and
financial oversight for the policy program.

Requirements:

. Excellent research, writing and verbal communication skills in
English; other language skills a plus.
. Demonstrated ability to think strategically and develop effective
campaign strategies.
. Knowledge and understanding of sustainability and human rights
issues, international financial institutions and the corporate sector.
. At least five years of experience in international advocacy work.
. Diligence, independence, ability to handle multiple tasks and
deadlines.
. Ability to work well in a team and within an international network.
· Commitment to environmental integrity, social justice and the vision and
mission of International Rivers.
. Strong computer skills (including the ability to maintain web pages).
. Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience required;
Master's degree a plus;
. Authorization to work in the United States.

International Rivers offers a stimulating, casual and flexible work
environment. Our competitive salary and benefits package includes health
insurance and excellent vacation and sick leave. Salary commensurate with
experience.

To apply, send a cover letter, resume and writing sample to
jobpost@internationalrivers.org or to International Rivers, 2150 Allston
Way, Berkeley, CA 94704, USA; fax +1 510 848 1008. Please mention "Policy
Program" in the address or subject line. Deadline for applications:
September 12, 2010.

International Rivers is an Equal Opportunity Employer and First Source
Berkeley employer. We encourage applications from all qualified candidates
regardless of age, class, disability status, ethnicity, gender, race and
sexual orientation.
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GoM decides to scrap NTPC hydel project on Bhagirathi river

Two projects on Bhagirathi -- 480 MW Pala Maneri and 381 MW Bhairon
Ghati hydel projects proposed by the state government have already been
scrapped by the GoM.

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Friday, August 20, 2010

Position available: Policy Program Coordinator

Position available - please post and disseminate:
Policy Program Coordinator, International Rivers

This is a full-time position (40 hours/week). It is located in Berkeley,
USA, and requires occasional international and domestic travel. The Policy
Program Coordinator reports to the Policy Director.

The duties and responsibilities of the Program Coordinator are:

Requirements:

This is International Rivers' mailing list on the role of international financial institutions in promoting large dams.

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SA community blazes trail for local wind power

http://www.alertnet.org/db/an_art/60167/2010/07/20-094002-1.htm

S.African community blazes a trail for local wind power
20 Aug 2010 09:40:00 GMT

By Fidelis Zvomuya

EMAFENGWINI, South Africa (AlertNet) - With powerful wind gusts
whipping across its plains, Emafengwini, a poor rural community in
South Africa's Eastern Cape, has become the new frontier for local
power schemes.

On a cool and breezy stretch of land along the Indian Ocean, 147 km
from the coastal town of East London, South Africa's first community
wind farm is being built, following the completion of an environmental
impact assessment.

The Tsitsikamma wind farm project will implant 20 wind turbines, each
80 metres tall, over 7,000 hectares of Wittekleibosch farmland at a
cost of 1 billion rand ($138 million).

The windmills will each produce 2 megawatts of electricity, which is
expected to light more than 400,000 homes, include those of the Mfengu
community who own the land but don't yet have access to electric power.

The Mfengus were forced off their land in 1977 and moved to Ciskei's
Keiskammahoek under the apartheid regime.

They began negotiating for the return of their land in 1990 and, after
four years of discussions and court applications, their bid succeeded.
The farm was allocated to more than 100,000 families in 1994 under a
government land reform programme.

LOCAL BENEFITS

The community remains extremely poor, however, and lacks work and
education opportunities. The nearest school is at least 25km away.
Unemployment is high and local people become desperate in times of
drought.

They are looking to the wind project to help turn their fortunes
around. It will be run by a consortium including the Tsitsikamma
Community Trust, which represents them.

The trust will own at least 10 percent of the project's equity, and
receive an equivalent proportion of revenue during the plant's 25-year
lifespan.

Its partners are Exxaro Resources, Danish wind turbine manufacturer
Vestas, the Danish Export Credit Fund, the Danish Industrialisation
Fund for Developing Countries, Danish energy company Dong Energy,
Denmark-based power producer European Energy and Eastern Cape
Community Wind Energy.

The Danish Export Credit Fund will provide start-up loans for inputs
and other materials, and Dong Energy will purchase carbon credits
generated by the scheme.

"From the carbon trading, there will be money to build a clinic, a
school, roads and water infrastructure and of course to bring
electricity to the people," explains Thobile Makamba, chairperson of
the Tsitsikamma Community Trust.

DANISH CONNECTIONS

The wind project was initiated by Port Elizabeth company Watt Energy,
which is owned by Nelson Mandela Bay municipal councillor Mcebisi Msizi.

Msizi spent seven years in exile in Denmark during the apartheid era,
and his contacts in the European country, a global leader in wind
energy, are a key driver of the Tsitsikamma deal.

As a child growing up in Emafengwini village, one of Msizi's chief
memories is of the wind. It is so fierce - even on a calm summer's day
- it threatens to propel your car into the Tsitsikamma mountains.

The area is judged to be the second windiest in the country, says Msizi.

The trust's Makamba is hopeful the community will be transformed by
the scheme. "We are going to contribute our land and the abundant wind
we have here," he says.

By 2013, the wind farm is expected to produce 40 megawatts of
electricity, which will be sold to state-owned power company Eskom. It
will be transferred to Eskom's power grid through a new sub-station to
be built nearby at an estimated cost of more than R100 million,
explains Msizi.

"The aim is that the community will benefit from a share of the R14-
million annual revenue, which will come from selling the electricity
generated to Eskom at an agreed buy-back rate of R1.25 a kilowatt," he
says.

The project is also expected to create more than 1,500 jobs for local
people in constructing roads, erecting the turbines and maintaining
them once they are up. And it has brought people from different
backgrounds - financiers, technology providers, entrepreneurs -
together with the local community.

"We've created a new landmark," says Makamba.

FILLING THE POWER GAP

The scheme also brings the country a step closer to boosting its
production of cleaner and renewable energy. South Africa experienced
several blackouts last year due to a coal shortage, which left Eskom
short of supply.

The government is aiming to produce 10,000 gigawatts of energy from
renewable sources by 2013. It is estimated there are some 5,000
megawatts of wind power under development in South Africa, while the
government has mandated the procurement of 40,000 megawatts by 2013.

As yet, the country has only seven commercial-sized wind turbines in
operation, three at Eskom's demonstration facility at Klipheuwel,
north of Cape Town, and four at the private Darling wind farm to the
city's northwest.

If successful, the Tsitsikamma project may be duplicated elsewhere in
the country. Watt Energy has already started discussions with Port
Alfred, Hamburg and Coega, for example.

With demand for electricity outpacing infrastructure in South Africa,
community-based renewable energy schemes like Tsitsikamma have
considerable potential to help plug the country's looming power deficit.

Fidelis Zvomuya, based in Pretoria, South Africa, is a writer
specialising in environmental reporting.

Reuters AlertNet is not responsible for the content of external
websites.
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Floods in Pakistan: Lend a Hand and Learn a Lesson

Floods in Pakistan: Lend a Hand and Learn a Lesson
International Rivers, August 20, 2010

[Please visit www.internationalrivers.org/en/node/5715 for links to NGOs
and background documents.]

The floods that are currently ravaging Pakistan have created a human
tragedy beyond imagination. At least 1,600 people have lost their lives,
20 million people have been affected, and 4 million people have been left
homeless. Many families have lost their whole existence - their homes,
fields, crops and cattle - overnight, with no safety net to fall back on.
The floods have also washed away schools, health centers, roads and
bridges.

Pakistan's civil society and international aid agencies are doing their
utmost to bring relief to the victims of this tragedy. Our local partner
organizations - primarily Action Aid Pakistan, Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum
and SUNGI Development Foundation - are among them. We urge you to support
the efforts of our partner organizations in Pakistan.

You can donate directly to SUNGI and Action Aid in the United States or
United Kingdom. Thank you for your support.

A natural or human-made disaster?

Once the floods have subsided and the victims have received support,
Pakistan and the international community will have to learn the lessons of
the current disaster. Are the floods a natural or a human-made disaster?
What kind of flood management will help to prevent or mitigate future
catastrophic floods in a time of climate change?

Daanish Mustafa, a water expert from Pakistan who teaches at King's
College in London, sheds light on the background of the current disaster
in an interview with the BBC. Mustafa explains that by walling in the
Indus and by destroying natural floodplains, Pakistan has substituted high
frequency low intensity floods for low frequency high intensity events:

"The focus has been on dams, which have their usefulness, but wetlands
unfortunately have been drained and settled and removed. As a result the
river's excess water has no where to go."

The Indus has one of the highest silt loads in the world. Due to dam
building the silt now gets deposited in the river bed and reservoirs. As a
consequence, the river bed is elevated, its capacity to drain flood water
dwindles, and the pressure on the levees increases. Dam builders have
often failed to take such changes into account.

In 2004-10, the World Bank rehabilitated the Taunsa Barrage on the Indus
at a cost of $144 million. As Mushtaq Gaadi, who teaches at Quaid-i-Azam
University in Islamabad, points out in an excellent commentary, local NGOs
objected to the dominant engineering perspective and urged the World Bank
to pay more attention to the sediment deposition. The Bank refused. Now
the embankments near the barrage breached, and caused huge devastation in
areas which are not normally flooded. "The very structures meant to
control flooding have partially caused and definitely exacerbated the
flood problem itself," Gaadi concludes.

Due to climate change, extreme weather patterns such as the current floods
are becoming more and more frequent. Managing floods is a more appropriate
response to such a scenario than trying to control them. According to
Daanish Mustafa:

"The kind of monsoon patterns you are seeing this year is very unusual.
The scary part is we have seen this sort of unusual monsoon pattern about
four or five times this past decade. (...) The fundamental message is that
the past averages are not going to hold. There is going to be greater
uncertainty in the future. That being the case, then we have to be a lot
more proactive and have to think about, well, if this becomes the pattern,
then what?"

More information:
Read "Before the Deluge: Coping with Floods in a Changing Climate" to
learn more about better flood management in the face of climate change.
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Floods in Pakistan: Lend a Hand and Learn a Lesson

Floods in Pakistan: Lend a Hand and Learn a Lesson
International Rivers, August 20, 2010

[Please visit www.internationalrivers.org/en/node/5715 for links to NGOs
and background documents.]

You can donate directly to SUNGI and Action Aid in the United States or
United Kingdom. Thank you for your support.

A natural or human-made disaster?

"The focus has been on dams, which have their usefulness, but wetlands
unfortunately have been drained and settled and removed. As a result the
river's excess water has no where to go."

You received this message as a subscriber on the list: sasia@list.internationalrivers.org

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The Taunsa Barrage, the World Bank and the Pakistan floods

Engineering failures
By Mushtaq Gaadi
Editorial in Dawn (Pakistan)
Monday, 16 Aug, 2010
www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/editorial/engineering-failures-680

THE devastating floods in Pakistan have once again ignited public debate
on the necessity of new water reservoirs in the country. The proponents
of Kalabagh Dam, including some prominent politicians, TV anchorpersons,
and Punjab water engineers, hold that if Kalabagh dam had been built, we
would not be facing the present disaster wreaked upon millions of people
in the Indus Valley.

According to them, the Kalabagh dam or any other water engineering
project should not be politicised because these issues are essentially
'technical'. Decisions on such vital issues should be left to the wisdom
of engineers and technical experts.

Implicit in this argument are three underlying assumptions, all three of
which are incorrect. First, it is assumed that 'technical' engineering
interventions in natural (water) systems have nothing to do with
politics. Second, that the control of river flows through engineering
structures is the best possible way to control flooding. Third, that the
knowledge of the engineering community is conclusive and beyond any
critical scrutiny. Nonetheless, mounting evidence and experiences
throughout the world suggest that these assumptions are not only
reductionist but also in fact part of the problem of river basin management.

A closer analysis of the present flood and flood-related events
experienced at/around Taunsa barrage furnishes us with some
counter-intuitive, and indeed, scandalous evidence: the very structures
meant to control flooding have partially caused and definitely
exacerbated the flood problem itself.

The flood trauma started with the breach of the eastern marginal
embankment in the upstream of Taunsa barrage. The breach caused the
Indus to outflank the barrage and the river carved out a new channel to
the left of its original course. Very shortly, floodwater flowing down
this new channel found its way into the extensive network of irrigation
canals on the left side. Consequently, masses of roiling, churning
floodwater are now rushing through and inundating relatively higher
ground which was rarely inundated by the Indus. Nature is responsible,
yes. But we must not overlook the role that engineering structures have
played in transforming the present floods into an enormous disaster
unparalleled in the history of this region.

Taunsa barrage is one of the most vulnerable diversion structures built
across the Indus River. Therefore, it was recently rehabilitated and
modernised with the help of a World Bank loan of $144m. The project was
approved and implemented on an emergency basis so that the barrage could
be kept functional. All that money has been washed right away. The Bank
is now involved in similar costly rehabilitation works at Jinnah
barrage, the latter also failing to withstand these recent floods.
Jinnah barrage's staff was compelled to blow up the embankments on the
right bank resulting in widespread inundation and heavy damages to the
under-construction hydropower project also stationed there. The Bank has
plans to undertake similar rehabilitation projects at other barrages in
Punjab.

When the rehabilitation of Taunsa barrage was being planned in early
2004, local civil society objected to the dominant engineering
perspective and asked the Bank and the irrigation department to pay more
attention to mitigating the barrage-induced alterations in river
hydrology and problem of sediment deposition, a phenomenon which has
made the flood protective structures susceptible to regular failure. In
this regard, a memorandum was submitted to the then country director of
the World Bank. The memorandum asked both the Bank and the provincial
government to appoint an independent review commission to ascertain the
nature and scope of rehabilitation works at Taunsa barrage. However, the
country director turned down the demand in a separate press conference.

The main problem with Taunsa barrage is the rising riverbed owing to
huge sediment deposition in the upstream areas. Before the construction
of dams and barrages, the Indus used to transport about 250 megatons
(Mt) of sediment annually, mostly silt and clay, to the Arabian Sea.
This helped in the development and nurturing of freshwater mangroves
prior to the phase of dam construction. By 1974-75, this had fallen to
about 100 Mt per annum and it is believed the present rates are
negligible. Taunsa barrage traps huge sediments left over from the
upstream storage and diversion structures. Moreover, the pond area is
additionally fed annually with large amounts of silt eroded from the
highly degraded catchment areas of the Suleiman Range. These heavy silt
loads are transported through western tributaries (hill-torrents) of the
Indus River.

The obstruction of great volumes of water together with the suspension
of a large amount of sediment has complicated the flooding problem at
Taunsa barrage. The riverbed levels are now higher than they have ever
been. The construction of a series of protective levees and dykes has
also contributed to raising the riverbed and the sedimentation of
upstream areas. These changes forced the river into developing an
oblique flow line and establishing a more tortuous course. Consequently,
it now spends its vigour on eroding the vulnerable banks. Moreover, the
rising riverbed levels have rendered protective levees and river
training works ineffective. Under the rehabilitation project, the crust
level of the barrage was raised by one foot so that silt entry into the
right bank canal could be controlled. The protective embankments were
also to be raised correspondingly but criminal negligence in this regard
resulted in no such measures being undertaken. Similarly, local accounts
and media reports suggest that the barrage staff has failed to properly
operate the newly installed motorised hoisting system.

According to these reports, 10 gates were not fully opened which, if
true, turned out to be the main cause of the flood disaster. The truth
of these reports must be ascertained, but if they hold, then an official
inquiry must be held into the incident and people held accountable.The
nature of the debate on the Kalabagh dam in the aftermath of the flood
disaster is depressingly flawed. Not only is this debate politically
divisive for an already fragile federation, it also covers up the story
of how engineering failures have contributed to this disaster.
Reconstruction without the benefits of an honest analysis would be
tantamount to recreating this same situation, or even worse, in the future.

The writer is a native of Taunsa and teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University,
Islamabad.
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