Photo © Brett Walton/Circle of Blue

In December, Portland, Ore.-based, Iberdrola Renewables began generating electricity at its 30-MW facility in Alamosa County. The 89-hectare (220-acre) site used to be farmland, but now it holds roughly 110,000 silicon panels.

By Brett Walton
Circle of Blue

SAN LUIS VALLEY, Colorado — Just as in every address that he has made to a joint session of Congress, President Barack Obama this week confirmed his commitment to the economic and environmental benefits of wind and solar energy, adding that opening more federal land to clean energy development is in the national interest.

“I’m directing my administration to allow the development of clean energy on enough public land to power 3 million homes,” the president declared in the State of the Union address on Tuesday evening.

But the government’s plan to turn large expanses of the American West into clean energy production zones is confronting considerable challenges, not the least of which is growing public resistance to big wind and solar projects that are popping up on wild lands close to rural communities. The public restiveness — driven by concerns about the effects of utility-scale installations on the environment and on small-town community values — is altering the government’s planning process and putting in doubt just how big the clean energy footprint will be on public lands.

In few places are the outlines of the opposition more clearly defined than here in the San Luis Valley, a high-altitude farming and ranching region that is the size of Connecticut. In this sunny section of Colorado, the Obama administration has designated four parcels — totaling more than 6,500 hectares (16,000 acres) and administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) — as “solar energy zones.”

“We are not against solar,” rancher Julie Sullivan told Circle of Blue. Last year, Sullivan helped defeat a large project on private land near her Saguache County home. “But we didn’t want a bad solar project, because then the bar would be lower. That would open the door to more bad projects.”

Competitive Edge and Citizen Acceptance
Indeed, as Jesse Morris, a solar analyst at the Rocky Mountain Institute, a renewable energy research and consulting group, explained in an interview with Circle of Blue, the wind and solar business is being influenced by a host of new trends in energy markets and citizen acceptance.

For instance, innovations in drilling technology and production have boosted domestic supplies of natural gas, which produces half the carbon emissions of coal and is selling at such low prices that utilities are planning new gas-fired electrical power stations. According to Morris, with such competitive pricing for electricity produced from natural gas, the economics of clean energy production could shift from big centralized solar installations to individual rooftop solar and smaller distributed systems.

In other words, big solar plants could quickly become obsolete.

“Solar is great, and we need as much of it as we can get to meet current and future energy needs,” Morris said. “The federal focus is on larger facilities. But — looking longer term — those facilities have real issues.”

In the meantime, the four solar energy zones here in the valley are joined by 13 other solar zones in five additional Western states that, three years ago, the federal government designated as prime areas to generate power from the sun. The Interior Department and a number of sister agencies are nearing the end of an environmental review, which began in 2009 and will reach another milestone on Friday, when the public comment period for the supplement to the 11,000-page draft assessment closes.

The final version will be released this summer. It will amend the BLM’s resource management plans to allow the agency to concentrate solar development in the most suitable areas.

Even through a casual reading of the citizen observations made during the first public comment period in early 2011, it becomes clear that the concerns expressed about big solar plants in the San Luis Valley are shared around much of the West. The Department of the Interior heard complaints about the negative effects of solar development on wildlife, on plants and water resources, on the fragmentation of animal migration corridors, on the cultural resources of Indian tribes, and on marred scenic views.

As a result, the department narrowed the number of solar zones to 17 from 24 and tightened the boundaries of others. The total area now prioritized for solar development on BLM-managed lands has been cut by more than half — from 273,972 hectares (677,000 acres) to 115,335 hectares (285,000 acres).

Though the Interior Department kept all four zones that had been proposed for the San Luis Valley, their total acreage was reduced by a fifth.

Sense and Sensitivity
Since 2010, the BLM has approved more than 5,600 megawatts of solar generating capacity, all in the deserts of Arizona, California, and Nevada.

Right now, a company can apply for a solar permit for any BLM land, Joe Vieira told Circle of Blue. He works on renewable energy projects from the agency’s San Luis Valley office in Monte Vista.

On conducting the latest environmental review, Vieira said, “the BLM is trying to be more strategic with where solar could be developed — finding those places with the least conflict over endangered species, views, and cultural and environmental resources.”

Two of the valley’s four zones have applications pending, Vieira said, and new transmission line capacity would be needed for all four solar zones. Because of suggestions made during the public comment period, the boundaries of three of these zones were modified and reduced. If all four zones were fully developed, the draft assessment estimates that they could support 1,450 MW using photovoltaic (PV) panels, or 2,612 MW using solar troughs.

Ceal Smith, of the San Luis Valley Renewable Communities Alliance, which supports small-scale solar development, calls the BLM plan “a giveaway to industry.” This is partly because, unlike gas and mineral leases, federal laws for wind and solar confer no financial benefits to the host community. To correct this, several U.S. senators from Western states have co-sponsored a bill that would create royalty payments for the two renewable sources based on the amount of electricity generated.

“If energy is being produced, the area needs to benefit,” said Christine Canaly, director of the San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council, a public lands advocacy group. “That mechanism is not in place for the BLM zones.”

Instead of developing thousand-acre tracts of public land, Smith suggested putting solar panels on degraded private land or in the empty corners of fields that are irrigated by the legions of center-pivot systems in the valley. That course of action would minimize land disturbance and help transition marginal fields away from excessive groundwater use that is draining one of the valley’s aquifers and affecting the holders of senior surface rights.

Portland, Oregon-based Iberdrola Renewables, for instance, built a 30-MW photovoltaic array last year on 90 hectares (220 acres) that were once used to grow carrots and potatoes. Whereas the crops would have consumed at least 270,000 cubic meters (220 acre-feet) of water each year, said Richard Sparks, an irrigation agronomist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, the solar plant will use almost none — just a small amount for the bathroom and the kitchen in the operation center, according to Iberdrola spokeswoman Jan Johnson.

On the other hand, solar thermal systems, which use much more water, could put additional strain on the valley’s water resources and traditional land patterns. The authors of the draft environmental assessment anticipated potential conflict, writing that “the transfer of agricultural water rights for solar energy development will result in agricultural fields being put out of production and will significantly alter land use in the San Luis Valley.”

Who Benefits?
The San Luis Valley has long supported small solar projects installed on homes and businesses. But, as Julie Sullivan tells Circle of Blue, few residents of the San Luis Valley are anxious to support a “bad” solar project that could “open the door to more bad projects.”

By bad, Sullivan is referring to a utility-scale project that a decade or so ago would have been widely cited in the national environmental community as beneficial. In this case, it was a 200-megawatt facility proposed by Tessera, a Houston-based company. Initial plans called for a fleet of 8,000 solar dishes, each 12-meters tall (40-feet tall) with Stirling engines to convert the sunlight into electricity.

Sullivan points from her dining room window to the horizon, where the Tessera solar dishes would have stood out against the freshly powdered Sangre de Cristo Mountains. This time last year, neighbors representing ranching, agricultural, and environmental groups were meeting in her home to discuss how to stop the project.

“I never thought I’d be fighting solar power,” says Sullivan, who taught environmental studies at Lesley University before marrying into the ranch life. “But it was an industrial project in an agricultural area. The renewable industry wants us to think that anything ‘renewable’ is green, and it’s not.”

Photo © Brett Walton/Circle of Blue

In the last few years, four photovoltaic solar installations have been built in Alamosa County near the San Luis Valley electrical substation. Together they have the capacity to produce 87 megawatts.

Last July, the company abandoned the project, citing noise levels that exceeded state limits. Defeating the installation marked something of an opening salvo by opponents in what will be a long-running struggle for residents and the federal government to define what a “good” solar project is and to shape solar development here, in the nation’s highest agricultural region.

A Solar Mini-boom
Another hotspot for solar development in the valley is Alamosa County, to the south of Saguache. Because the valley’s transmission substation is in Alamosa, four projects — 87 MW in total — have been built on private land there, providing financial benefits to the county.

Both Smith and Canaly said that Alamosa County had decided to keep projects relatively small — the largest two are 30-MW facilities on no more than 90 hectares (220 acres). They are popular because they make good use of existing grid space and reap tax benefits, which ultimately help local citizens, said Smith and Canaly.

While solar development on the valley’s public land awaits the conclusions of the Interior Department’s environmental review this summer, private landowners have been leasing or selling land to energy companies. A pair of 100-MW solar thermal plants, each with a 200-meter (656-feet) energy-storage tower, are proposed for 1,600 hectares (4,000 acres) in Saguache County.

On February 2, the county’s board of commissioners will hold a public hearing to discuss the latest application from SolarReserve, a Delaware-based company.

This article was prepared while the author, Brett Walton, participated in a fellowship that was paid for by the Institutes for Journalism and Natural Resources.

Photo © Keith Schneider/Circle of Blue

Domestic production of oil and natural gas is now climbing rapidly, due in part to drilling from rigs like this one in North Dakota.

By Keith Schneider
Circle of Blue

Four years ago, when he campaigned for the office he now holds, Barack Obama described the urgent need to pursue clean energy development because of a grave and persistent problem: demand and prices for oil were rising, along with national and economic security risks tied to ever higher imports. Supplies of domestically produced fuel, meanwhile, were falling.

Last night, as the president defined in the State of the Union the basic outlines of an “all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy,” the country greeted much different conditions. Domestic production of oil and natural gas is now climbing rapidly. Demand is going down. Imports are steadily declining. Prices have steadied.

The result is that while President Obama still presses for more sources of cleaner energy — “I’m directing my administration to allow the development of clean energy on enough public land to power 3 million homes,” he said — the allure of pursuing them is not nearly so keen. Summed up, the surge in fossil fuel production has indeed produced an economic reprieve, but one that is exceedingly risky for the land and water, and one that could well turn out to be a surrender to the future.

Here’s why.

Soaring Fossil Fuels
Horizontal drilling technology coupled with high-pressure water blasting — much of it developed with the help of federal research grants — has opened deep beds of hydrocarbon-rich shales all over the country to oil and natural gas production. An energy boom has erupted in eight Great Plains states and three mid-Atlantic states, plus Louisiana and California.

In 2011, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), production of natural gas from deep shales reached 18 billion cubic meters (630 billion cubic feet) per month, one-third of total U.S. natural gas production and 17 times more than in 2000. Last year, U.S. oil production reached almost 6 million barrels per day, and, for the first time since the 1970s, domestic oil production had risen for three straight years.

Photo © Keith Schneider/Circle of Blue

Horizontal drilling technology coupled with high-pressure water blasting has opened deep beds of hydrocarbon-rich shales all over the country. Trucks line up to fill with water to frack wells in North Dakota.

“Right now — right now — American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years. That’s right — eight years,” said the president. “Not only that — last year, we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past 16 years.”

The other side of the president’s plan — building a bridge to a new era of cleaner energy sources — is unfolding at a much slower pace. Last year, according to the American Wind Energy Association, almost 7,000 megawatts of wind energy capacity was constructed in the U.S., 31 percent more than in 2010, but China in 2011 built over 14,000 megawatts, or twice as much wind generating capacity.

Troubled Clean Energy
It takes big and consistent federal and state investment in wind, solar, cellulosic biofuels, geothermal, nuclear energy, clean automobiles, trains, and energy-efficient buildings to give innovators and entrepreneurs a solid grip in the cleaner economy. In the era of deficit and disinvestment that describes the political conditions currently at work in Washington, D.C., and most state capitals, lawmakers — supported by the fossil fuel sector — have expressed no enthusiasm for making those investments.

The arguments for pursuing wind, solar, and other cleaner sources of energy make a lot of sense, as do reasons for being more cautious about the consequences of oil and gas production.

The use of water is a good starting point.

Much of the nation’s shale oil and shale gas development is occurring on the arid Great Plains, where drillers require 7,500 to 19,000 cubic meters (2 million to 5 million gallons) of water to hydrofracture each well. In a region where competition for water is fierce, water managers are not sure where the supply for thousands of new wells a year will come from.

In addition, much of the water that goes down each well has to be brought back to the surface and then disposed of safely, because it contains chemical contaminants. States are only now considering requirements for wastewater disposal from shale oil and shale gas fields. Later this year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to come out with its preliminary assessment on the risks of fracking. The final analysis will be released in 2014.

Contrast that with generating power from solar photovoltaic and wind energy installations, which require essentially no water to operate. Or generating fuel from switch grass and other sources of plant-based fuel that can be grown on marginal lands and don’t need to be irrigated.

Big clean energy projects, though, are proceeding fitfully as they face mounting price competition in energy markets due to the surge in domestic oil and gas production.

Clean energy projects also confront serious opposition at the grassroots across the country. As Circle of Blue writer Brett Walton will report later this week, one such fight over constructing solar plants is currently taking place in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, which has been identified by the Obama administration as one of the 17 most favorable places in the U.S. to develop solar energy on federal land.

Reprieve or Surrender
In effect, the economic reprieve that is being fostered by new domestic oil and gas production could easily turn out to be a devastating surrender to the future.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have evaluated the effects of rising shale gas production on clean energy innovation and, in a report earlier this month, reached much the same conclusion.

“People speak of [natural] gas as a bridge to the future, but there had better be something at the other end of the bridge,” said Henry Jacoby, co-director emeritus of MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, and co-author the MIT Energy Initiative’s The Future of Natural Gas.

Photo © Ellen MacDonald

On Monday, the U.S. Department of the Interior banned any new uranium and other hardrock mining claims around the Grand Canyon, citing the potential health and environmental risks related to water contamination, Reuters reported.

The decision withdraws more than 400,000 hectares (1 million acres) of federal land — as well as the nearby watershed — for the next 20 years, the longest moratorium allowed by law, according to the official statement. Previously approved mining claims and existing mining operations would not be affected. The National Mining Association has expressed disappointment but stopped short of announcing an immediate challenge to the decision.

“A withdrawal is the right approach for this priceless American landscape,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement. “People from all over the country and around the world come to visit the Grand Canyon. Numerous American Indian tribes regard this magnificent icon as a sacred place and millions of people in the Colorado River Basin depend on the river for drinking water, irrigation, industrial, and environmental use.”

While hailed by environmental and progressive groups for protecting this World Heritage site and its neighboring Colorado River watershed, the Obama administration’s decision has been denounced by industry groups and some members of Congress from Western states as a big-government move that would hurt consumers and kill new jobs, according to Reuters.

Representative Doc Hastings, a Republican from the state of Washington who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, accused the administration of “putting politics above American jobs and American energy security.”

But Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, said that protecting the $US 687 million tourism industry that is dependent upon the canyon makes much more sense, according to the Guardian. “Extending the current moratorium on new uranium mining claims will protect tourism-related jobs, drinking water for millions downstream, and critical wildlife habitat,” Karpinski said.

As the price of uranium has risen, so has the number of claims on public land near the national park, from fewer than 1,000 per year in 2005 to more than 8,000 in 2009, though annual claims have declined slightly since then, according to Reuters, which cited figures from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

“The withdrawal maintains the pace of hardrock mining, particularly uranium, near the Grand Canyon,” BLM director Bob Abbey said, “but also gives the Department a chance to monitor the impacts associated with uranium mining in this area. It preserves the ability of future decision-makers to make thoughtful decisions about managing this area of national environmental and cultural significance based on the best information available.”

During the withdrawal period, the BLM projects that up to 11 uranium mines, including four that are currently approved, could continue, based on valid pre-existing rights. By comparison, during the 1980s, nine uranium mines were developed on these lands and five were mined out. Without the ban, there could be 30 uranium mines in the area over the next 20 years, including the four that are currently approved, with as many as six operating at one time, the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) estimates, according to the Interior Department’s statement.

At least one creek in the national park is known to be contaminated by uranium, and the government’s environmental impact review found high levels of arsenic from old uranium operations, as well as pollution in the Colorado River, the Guardian reported.

The decision to ban new mining claims in the area comes after more than two years of evaluation, during which the BLM analyzed the proposed withdrawal in cooperation with the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service.

Source: Guardian, Reuters, U.S. Department of the Interior

Images courtesy Chris Korbulic and Water For People

’Tis the season for giving. During the holiday season, hundreds of millions of dollars are donated worlwide to non-profit organizations working in the development sector. “Give the gift of clean water” is a common slogan that you are sure to find in your inbox at least a dozen times over the course of the next month.

But what does it mean to give clean water? How do we know that change is occurring? What looks different now, as compared to five years ago? If we had known then what we know now, what would we have done differently from the beginning? Looking five years down the road, will water still be flowing?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Ned Breslin is the CEO at Water For People, a nonprofit that implements drinking water and sanitation solutions in 11 developing countries. He is author of Rethinking Hydrophilantropy.

Though there is value to sharing the successes, as well as the failures, of an organization as lessons learned by that organization and lessons that other organizations can learn from, this is information that the development sector struggles to feel comfortable offering. There is a stigma associated with more transparent insight into programmatic impact, largely — but not exclusively — because of concerns over fundraising. Two points of view dominate this problem:

1. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: There are those who believe that, if the truth were known about how difficult it is to transform lives with development assistance, this would actually undermine funding for a particular cause or organization. This is perhaps best exemplified by a recent blog by Jessica Keralis, the chair of the communications committee for the American Public Health Association’s (APHA’s) International Health Section. Keralis essentially argues that context matters when discussing development; yet context with value to an audience that is otherwise unacquainted with the relevant back-story is difficult to come by in an increasingly sound-bite-driven era.

   “Is there value to sharing failures that could be lessons for your own organization or others? Absolutely,” writes Keralis. “But how much good does it do the average layperson to hear about a failed project? …Unless an individual has background knowledge on how aid and development works, it is difficult to put these stories into context.”

   Therefore, Keralis points out, it is not prudent to be honest about what is happening in the field. She even states that, if she were running an NGO, she would consciously not divulge project difficulties to donors, who could lose faith “in a charity’s ability to learn from its mistakes.”

   And, let’s be frank, many CEOs and fundraising directors would tell you the same thing after hours, over a beer.

   Keralis goes on to say, however, that there is “true value to learning from failed projects.” Unsuccessful scientific experiments are still published alongside their breakthrough counterparts, but the difference is that they are published in professional journals — in other words, “failures are shared with an audience that can appreciate them and the lessons they bring.” In conclusion, Keralis suggests that the development sector use the research world as a model for how best to exchange lessons about failure, as if within a like-minded support group. And she implies quite strongly that the general public should not be told of these difficulties.

2. One Size Fits All: The development sector is still dominated by simplistic fundraising campaigns that link a small donation with a large, transformative result. You know the campaigns I speak of: “Your $25 donation equals water for life for one person,” or “Contribute $10 per month to end hunger.”

   The hope with these one-size-fits-all campaigns is that people will reach for their wallets and not ask any challenging questions about whether or not the intended outcome was actually achieved. And, to date, that hope has proven to be true – it seems that the simple threshold of low payment for transformative outcome does, in fact, lead to donor contentment. Data on how much is actually raised using this model is not clearly evident, but the fact that the approach is so prolific suggests that it at least resonates with both organizations and individuals.

   Once again, many CEOs and fundraising directors would tell you, over that same beer, that this approach is an easy sell, with little risk of tough questions.

Thankfully, quite a few senior leaders from significant development agencies are beginning to challenge both of these standard viewpoints.

For instance, Dr. Unni Karunakara — the president of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders), an international and independent medical humanitarian organization that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflicts, epidemics, healthcare exclusions, and natural or man-made disasters — correctly questions relief agencies and the media for oversimplifying the challenges faced on the ground in Somalia with simplistic messages about how famine can be easily eradicated.

Dr. Karunakara rightly worries that the effort to raise lots of money through simplistic messaging misleads people, undermines education efforts on what it truly takes to eradicate hunger, and are likely to backfire, as it is improbable that hunger and famine will never again rear their ugly heads.

The consequence of such simple campaigns — and their possible ricochet-like effects — could raise broad doubts about the entire development effort in Somalia, despite the fact that some organizations, like MSF, are already hard at work and continue to be invested over the long term, in ways that might, in fact, lead to a change over time. Dr. Karunakara and his cohorts at MSF understand that transforming Somalia will take considerable time, significant resources, multiple actors working together, and a good deal of luck.

And that battle would be completely undermined if a donor bothers to ask the legitimate question, “Wait a minute; I thought my $25 solved this problem?”

Similarly, Dominic Nutt, the head of the communications and campaign team for World Vision — a Christian humanitarian organization that provides hope and assistance to 100 million people in nearly 100 countries by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice — suggests that, like many in the development sector, his organization may be somewhat stuck, due to their simplistic fundraising approach.

Nutt argues that the gap between field realities and fundraising promises are immense, and that simplistic messages, though they appeal to the average person who will, in turn, then open his or her own wallet to make a donation, ultimately mask the difficulties of what real support for global development work looks like. In this way, Nutt asks exactly the right question about whether this simplicity actually undermines the fieldwork.

Two Demographics + Two Solutions = One Transformative Change
I welcome further discussion and open debate on this challenge that non-profits face, as I know of no field staff who likes these simplistic campaigns or who believes that such small amounts of cash can radically change, for example, the life prospects of a rural African woman. Likewise, it sounds as if more and more senior leadership is saying the same thing — and not just after hours, over a beer.

Yet, despite this growing bottom-up awareness, the development sector will never become truly transparent until two things happen. First, non-profits that are engaged in complex overseas development will need to find the courage to tell their stories, to be open and honest about difficulties they have encountered in achieving transformative changes around the world, and to communicate their failings alongside their successes.

For water supply, this is simple. Sustainability — which rolls off the tongues of non-profits quite easily when talking about their own work — in the water sector means that water is flowing, that inevitable mechanical failures are addressed rapidly, and that funds collected are used to keep water flowing, to extend services to new families in a service area, and to eventually upgrade the water technology, so that water continues to flow forever.

Shifting gears, the second thing that needs to happen within the development sector looks at the funders, rather than the funded. Philanthropists must begin asking tougher questions about the real and lasting impact of their charitable contributions, which will require donors to be clear as to what outcomes they expect to see. This means that philanthropists must stop focusing only on the short-term questions of whether money was spent well and whether the project was completed. Though both questions matter, the more challenging questions take this dialogue to the next level.

The question is not whether $10,000 was allocated to a small village in northern Uganda and a handpump was installed, but, rather, whether that $10,000 actually has led — over time — to the community collecting clean water from that improved source (and its upgraded replacements) forever. The question is not whether a family of four in rural India repaid a loan for a new toilet, but whether they actually use that toilet and no longer are plagued by open defecation in their household. The question is not whether a pledge of $15 fed a Sudanese girl for one month, but whether that she eventually began to thrive, not just survive, so that she never again has to reach her hand out for another bowl of donated food.

I believe that this is what the donated money was intended to do: to keep water flowing in northern Uganda, and to have a functioning toilet that is used in rural India, and to eradicate hunger for a girl in Sudan. The money — important that it is and necessary that it is spent well — is simply the vehicle to these desired outcomes.

But, as with chiseling any sculpture out of solid rock, to truly scratch the surface of transformative change, organizations must allow the imperfections of their glossy façade to be seen and donors must choose the right tools with which to etch.

Ned Breslin
Follow Ned Breslin on Twitter.

This is the third in a multi-part series in which Ned Breslin discusses NGO success-indicator models and their alternatives. See Part I and Part II on Circle of Blue.

Photo courtesy of EIA

Newly released EIA report on global energy projections to 2035.

Global energy consumption will increase by 53 percent over the next 25 years to a mind-boggling 225,700 terawatt-hours (770 quadrillion BTUs ) as water- and carbon-intensive fossil fuels continue to dominate the world’s economies, despite the global recession and the strong growth in the renewable sector, according to a new annual report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

About half of the projected increase in energy use will occur in China and India, the world’s first- and third-largest energy consumers, respectively. The two developing economies will account for more than 30 percent of the global energy use during the next two decades.

“China alone — which only recently became the world’s top energy consumer — is projected to use 68 percent more energy than the United States by 2035,” said Howard Gruenspecht, the administrator for the EIA, in a press release.

In general, however, the overall projections made in the EIA report only reflect laws and policies as they stood at the beginning of 2011. In other words, the report does not incorporate prospective legislation — in China, for example — that, together with oil-price volatility and the pace of global economic recovery, could significantly affect energy markets.

Coal Production and Consumption
China relies on coal for about 70 percent of its energy generation, consuming 3.15 billion metric tons (3.5 billion tons) of coal last year. Meanwhile, India has been steadily increasing domestic coal production, its major source of energy, reaching about 532 million metric tons in 2009-10.

Though future generation from renewables, natural gas, and nuclear power will largely displace coal-fired production, coal will remain the largest source of world electricity through 2035, particularly in developing nations, according to the EIA projections. China alone will account for 76 percent of the projected increase in world coal use.

Unconventional Gas and Oil
Nevertheless, natural gas production will have the fastest growth rate among fossil fuels. The natural gas industry is already reaping a bonanza from its unconventional fuel production in the United States, and is expected to significantly expand into Canada and China.

Though world oil prices will remain high during the next few decades — even reaching $US 125 per barrel in 2035 — conventional and unconventional oil consumption is likely to continue to grow to meet rising global demand.

Renewable Alternatives
Renewable energy is projected to be the fastest-growing source of primary energy over the next 25 years, with most of the increase due to newly installed hydropower capacity in the developing world.

However, this will do little to offset the emission of greenhouse gases globally, which are likely to increase by more than 40 percent during that same period. The report did not analyze the overall impact on global water resources.

Driven by new installed capacity — predominantly in China, Russia, and India — electricity generation from nuclear power is also expected to increase from 2,600 terawatt-hours (8.9 quadrillion BTUs) worldwide in 2008 to 4,900 terawatt-hours (16.7 quadrillion BTUs) in 2035.

Nukes
Though the study acknowledged that there is still “considerable uncertainty about the future of nuclear power” with regard to plant safety, radioactive waste disposal, and proliferation of nuclear materials, the report failed to analyze the short- and long-term implications of the March 2011 disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. For instance, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, in particular, have already announced plans to phase out or cancel all of their existing and future reactors within the next decade.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, India’s Ministry of Coal, Talking Points Memo

Photo © Keith Schneider/Circle of Blue

Shanghai’s Pudong New Area accounts for nearly 30 percent of the city’s GDP and was made possible, in part, because of the investment city officials made in cleaning up the Huangpu River.

By Keith Schneider
Circle of Blue

LINGANG PORT CITY: Shanghai, China — Dishui Lake, constructed where the Yangtze River meets the East China Sea, is a perfectly circular manmade lake that was meant to put people in close proximity to fresh water.

The Nanhui Dongtan Wildlife Sanctuary, which lies on Dishui Lake’s eastern bank, is a 122.5-square-kilometer (47-square-mile) expanse of tall grasses and shallow, rain-fed ponds that also tests the lure of fresh water; in this case, to recruit great flocks of migratory birds.

From 2003 to 2005, both the lake and the sanctuary were constructed from silt and mud, carried downstream by the Yangtze and captured with long rock and concrete groins that engineers extended into the river’s mouth. Shanghai’s planning officials envisioned using the new ground to build a seaside district — Lingang Port City — that was intended to attract thousands of businesses and 400,000 residents by 2020; 800,000 residents by 2050.

The idea for this new borough was to reduce crowding, build contemporary commerce centers, and encourage lower population densities in Shanghai, a city of 23 million that is tallying 1 million additional residents every two years. If Shanghai were an American state, only California and Texas have more people.

The enterprise hasn’t quite worked out the way planners in Shanghai’s city government envisioned, however. For the time being, the wildlife sanctuary has been much more successful in attracting winged residents than neighboring Lingang Port City and its lake has been in recruiting businesses and human residents — yet.

Shanghai city managers know how to build a 21st-century city, and they are doing so with a clear focus on environmental values and energy efficiency, in addition to improving the quality of the water supply and expanding the size and number of parks and open spaces.

Better City, Better Life
Last year, Shanghai hosted a World Expo with the green-oriented theme: “Better city, better life.” Among the innovations promoted was Shanghai’s ongoing program to establish new and planned residential and business districts outside the core central city.

Lingang Port City was one such example, featuring big runs of green space, lots of clean water on display in canals and ponds, and countless new energy-efficient homes and offices. All of these new districts will be tied to the central city and to each other via Shanghai’s clean, fast, and steadily expanding subway system, which now consists of 11 lines, 267 stations, and 410 kilometers (255 miles) of track.

In 2002, Shanghai opened a Maglev train line from the downtown area to Pudong Airport. The train, which operates on powerful magnets that lift the cars onto a thin cushion of air, travels 431 kilometers an hour (267 miles per hour) and makes the trip in less than 7 minutes — 40 minutes less than in a taxi.

Photo © Keith Schneider/Circle of Blue

Yong Yi, a WWF staff scientist and an important player in establishing the wildlife sanctuary in Lingang Port City.

The Urban Land Institute, based in Washington, D.C. and one of the premier U.S. urban planning and development research organizations, reviewed Shanghai’s master plan in 2006 and declared: “No other city in history has attempted to tackle its urban issues with such a comprehensive program of public improvements and new-town development at its periphery.”

Dishui Lake, the centerpiece of the Lingang Port City district, was intended as a showcase of the city’s master plan. With a diameter spanning 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) and a surface area of 5 square kilometers (2 square miles), Dishui has three sizable, grass-covered peninsulas that serve as green open space. From a birds-eye view, the peninsulas resemble continents and the lake — round as a dime and about 60 kilometers (37 miles) to the south of Shanghai’s high-rise central core — looks very much like a replica of Planet Earth. On its northern and western banks, the lake is surrounded by a constellation of new residential and office towers, the mostly uninhabited dark stars of Lingang Port City.

On the lake’s southern and eastern flank, though, lies the great expanse of freshwater ponds and grass reclaimed from the Yangtze estuary that is, for the time being, much more successful in attracting wild residents.

Big Water Cleanup
Though people have yet to show up in droves, filthy water is not one of the district’s impediments. Since 1995, Shanghai has spent $US 8.1 billion (RMB 50.3 billion) to construct a network of 52 sewage plants that now treat nearly 80 percent of the city’s wastewater, according to the Shanghai Municipal Oceanic Bureau, a city agency. In contrast, Shanghai had only five treatment plants during the late 1980s — one of which was constructed in 1921 — and 80 percent of the city’s sewage poured, untreated, into rivers and lakes.

The source of Dishui Lake’s water is the Huangpu River, a tributary of the Yangtze River, that runs through the center of Shanghai. While still unfit for swimming and difficult to treat for drinking, the Huangpu is nevertheless much cleaner than it was 20 years ago, meaning that fish can survive and it no longer has an overpowering odor.

One advantage is that Dishui Lake’s walkways and grassy shoreline parks are busy on weekends with families and couples who drive down for the day from Shanghai to enjoy such large expanses of uncrowded ground.

Photo © Keith Schneider/Circle of Blue

Upstream, meanwhile, the Huangpu serves as the watery ribbon decorating the soaring office towers — outlined at night by laser-edge red, blue, and yellow LED lights — of Shanghai’s spectacular Pudong New Area. Only 20 years ago a geography of farms and marginal lands, Pudong now accounts for more than $US 63 billion (RMB 400 billion) in annual gross economic activity in this city, or 26.9 percent of the Shanghai’s annual GDP, according to the Shanghai Bureau of Statistics. Had the river been as fetid as it once was, the foreign investors that helped build one of the world’s most impressive skylines along the Huangpu’s southern bank might not have been nearly as interested.

Growth and Development = More Energy, More Water
That kind of economic growth, though, also is unnerving Shanghai residents and pressuring the region’s resource base, especially for energy. The city’s energy consumption has increased by 250 percent from 1995 to 2010, in part because Shanghai is pumping and processing 12.52 billion cubic meters (3.31 trillion gallons) of water annually for its growing array of industries and residential developments, according to the Shanghai Water Authority. This is about twice as much water as was pumped and processed during the late 1990s.

Photo © Keith Schneider/Circle of Blue

Two of the conservation officers who protect the sanctuary’s birds from predation by poachers, who sell them for food. In one particularly gruesome event in September 2009, conservation officers discovered 3,000 birds killed by a poacher.

Almost 60 percent, or 7.33 billion cubic meters (1.94 trillion gallons) annually, is used by the city’s power producers, including the 2,000-megawatt Waigaoqia plant, an ulta-super-critical coal-fired generating station — the world’s most efficient, according to Siemens, which helped build it.

Additionally, Shanghai treats 2.3 billion cubic meters (608 billion cubic meters) of wastewater annually, or seven times as much as it treated in 1988, when the city began its big push to clean up polluted waterways.

As Lingang Port City and Dishui Lake await what city officials are convinced will be a wave of new residents, they are promoting the area as a “green city, wisdom city, and healthy city.” Perhaps the most significant lesson that a Westerner could draw from such a message is the capacity of a wealthy government to make decisions that so readily illustrate the limits of centralized decisions, as well as their optimism and promise.

In 2009, for instance, as new residents and businesses failed to appear around the four-year-old Dishui Lake, a decision was made to merge the Lingang government district with the Pudong New Area government. The big merger, which was completed last year, emptied the government campus buildings on the northern shore of Dishui Lake. Hundreds of city jobs moved out of the district.

But a big transportation infrastructure project — the expansion of Line 11 of Shanghai’s subway system — is expected to produce a new station stop near Dishui Lake, perhaps as early as next year, that should help to link the distant new district with the rest of the city, now reachable only on Shanghai’s busy highways.

People Not There, Wildlife Is
But the empty eight-lane boulevards are deserted, as are the newly constructed business and residential neighborhoods of Lingang Port City. But, in ways big and small, Dishui Lake and its neighboring bird sanctuary also represent the big strides that Shanghai, China’s largest city, has taken to leverage natural landscapes and to clean up its freshwater resources, thereby enhancing the metropolitan region’s impressive prosperity and building a healthier quality of urban life.

This is especially true, explains Yong Yi — a 33-year-old environmental scientist and the senior program officer for the Shanghai office of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF, formerly the World Wildlife Fund) — for a low-lying coastal city in an era of warming temperatures, rising seas, and more violent storms.

Photo © Keith Schneider/Circle of Blue

In 2003, during the construction of Dishui Lake, which was formed from sediments and was connected to the East China Sea, a baby blue whale swam into one area of the reclamation project and got stranded. Construction workers guided the 10-foot baby whale back to the sea and reported that as it swam away it rose out of the water three times, as if to say thank you. A steel monument in the shape of a baby blue whale commemorates the event.

Yong was part of a group of environmental leaders and city officials who helped establish the sanctuary in 2007. The area, she says, has a certain magical attraction for people in an urban center, where big natural spaces are scarce.

Very clearly the rain-fed sanctuary is achieving much of what Yong and her colleagues anticipated. It is attracting so many birds that 11 conservation officers are needed — most of whom spend the bulk of their time preventing poaching.

Qing Wang, a conservation officer in the Nanhui Dongtan Wildlife Sanctuary since 2008, tells how he and his colleagues sometimes spend winter nights hiding in the marsh grass to catch poachers. On one particularly grim day in September 2009, conservation officers discovered illegal hunting had netted 3,000 small birds, which were destined to be sold for food. A poster showing those 3,000 birds — lined up in a room, in neat rows — now hangs on the wall of a sanctuary building as a reminder.

Early on this still and overcast September morning, Wang frowns, pointing at the poster on the wall, and makes it clear that the event from two years ago hurt him.

Over his shoulder and through the doorway, the heavy equipment of Shanghai’s emergence as a global capital is readily event. Big jumbo jets coast north on the landing flight path to Pudong Airport, the city’s international gateway. Ocean-going ships make their way upstream to Shanghai’s docks. The tops of Lingang Port City’s tallest buildings, where city officials say they want to install green roofs, are visible.

Yong peers into the dark water of one of the sanctuary’s shallow ponds. In the distance, about two kilometers (one mile) to the west, the tops of the buildings around Dishui Lake are visible. A flock of ducks, the vanguard of the thousands that will begin their winter layover next month, pass by overhead. In front of Yong rest the unrippled, gray-metal waters of the East China Sea, held back by a big concrete and earthen dike.

“You can see the city. You can see the sea,” Yong says. “Here are wetlands, nature, birds, fish — people and nature can live together — that’s what you see when you come here. Shanghai is an estuary city. These are the kinds of places the city must see as valuable to protect itself.”

Keith Schneider — who has reported on energy, water, and climate change from four continents — is a Traverse City-based senior editor for Circle of Blue. Reach him at keith@circleofblue.org.

Photo © Keith Schneider/Circle of Blue

A fishing platform along the banks of the East China Sea.

]]> http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2011/world/manmade-lake-and-nature-preserve-at-center-of-new-shanghai-borough/feed/ 2 http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2011/world/loans-for-water-energy-and-transportation-president-obama-backs-infrastructure-bank-in-jobs-speech/ http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2011/world/loans-for-water-energy-and-transportation-president-obama-backs-infrastructure-bank-in-jobs-speech/#comments Fri, 09 Sep 2011 12:27:14 +0000 Brett Walton http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/?p=32030 By Brett Walton
Circle of Blue

Included in the U.S. president’s proposed American Jobs Act is the BUILD Act, allocating $US 10 billion to create a National Infrastructure Bank, governed by an independent board, which would help attract private capital and lower the borrowing costs for public works projects of regional significance.

In a speech Thursday to a joint session of Congress, U.S. President Barack Obama supported a bi-partisan bill that would create a federal fund for financing transportation, water, and energy infrastructure projects.

“It’s the kind of proposal that’s been supported in the past by Democrats and Republicans alike.”

– Barack Obama,
U.S. President

Sponsored by Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry and Texas Republican Kay Hutchison, the BUILD Act is one of many job-creating proposals that President Obama is rolling into an economic package called the American Jobs Act.

The BUILD Act is supported by both the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business lobby, and the AFL-CIO, its largest labor organization. The bill would allocate $US 10 billion to create a National Infrastructure Bank that would help attract private capital and lower the cost of borrowing for public works. An independent advisory board would be entrusted to select projects based on merit and not political significance.

“It’s the kind of proposal that’s been supported in the past by Democrats and Republicans alike,” Obama told Congress during his half-hour speech. “You should pass it right away.”

The projects Obama used to illustrate his point primarily involved transportation — bridges and highways, public transit, and airports. But Michael Likosky, a fellow at the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University who has worked with international infrastructure banks for more than 15 years, thinks water projects, such as sewer improvements and water treatment plants, would be very attractive to the bank.

“Water is one of the main areas that will be addressed by the bank. It is one of the areas with the greatest need.”

– Michael Likosky,
NYU Institute for Public Knowledge

“Water is one of the main areas that will be addressed by the bank,” Likosky told Circle of Blue. “It is one of the areas with the greatest need.”

The need to get Americans working again was the overarching theme of the president’s speech. Tax credits, tax cuts, and tax code reform, in addition to infrastructure spending, all factored into Obama’s proposal.

“The purpose of the American Jobs Act is simple,” he said, “to put more people back to work and more money in the pockets of those who are working. It will create more jobs for construction workers, more jobs for teachers, more jobs for veterans, and more jobs for the long-term unemployed.”

Brett Walton is a Seattle-based reporter for Circle of Blue. Walton can be reached at brett@circleofblue.org.

]]> http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2011/world/loans-for-water-energy-and-transportation-president-obama-backs-infrastructure-bank-in-jobs-speech/feed/ 1 http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2011/world/photo-slideshow-and-qa-om-prakash-singh-documents-the-perception-and-harsh-realities-of-water-and-sanitation-in-delhi-india/ http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2011/world/photo-slideshow-and-qa-om-prakash-singh-documents-the-perception-and-harsh-realities-of-water-and-sanitation-in-delhi-india/#comments Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:55:17 +0000 Circle of Blue http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/?p=31830 Delhi reportedly has a high percentage of coverage for sanitation and water supply. But one photographer has 74,000 images spanning the last 10 years that challenge the perception of progress.

Photo courtesy of Om Prakash Singh

With no water at home, some Delhi residents bathe in the heavily polluted waters of the Yamuna River.

Om Prakash Singh, a Stockholm-based visual anthropologist and director of WaterZoom, has spent the past decade documenting water and sanitation challenges in India. Through his work, mostly in the poorest areas of Delhi, he has captured more than 74,000 images of private, everyday moments of life with limited water and without a proper toilet to use. His exhibit of photographs, “Urban Right to Water & Sanitation,” was on display at World Water Week 2011 in Stockholm. It was produced with his wife, Nandita Singh.

J. Carl Ganter, Circle of Blue: Tell us about the show; what are you finding through your work?

Om Prakash Singh: It exposes imagery of real situations. In the reports that we see, [we hear that a particular] area is covered for water facility, as well as for sanitation. But, when I visited, I found a different story. And this is where we depict the realities.

For example, these pictures come from Delhi. Half of these pictures are only seven days old. But, according to reports and other places, Delhi is 100 percent covered for water supply, as well as for sanitation. This absolutely is not [consistent with] my observation. Through these photographs, I am trying to expose the reality. And, also, through this exhibition, we are sensitizing the different stakeholders, big actors, to get back to the real situation and organize a realistic action plan. And, thirdly, with this exhibition, I am trying to convince and push a lobby for the use of documentary photography as a means of effective communication in water resources management. It’s emotion, and you get involved immediately, and you get sensitized. And you help your own intelligence to understand that and get involved immediately. We have covered 15 states in India – that are huge, it’s like 50 countries – and depicted different issues on water resources management and sanitation.

You are finding disparities between official reports and what’s happening in the neighborhoods. People who stand in line to use the toilet or to get a drop of water when, you say that, on paper, the problems don’t exist. Give me an example of a recent experience photographing in the streets of Delhi. Take us there. What is it like to be that bridge between the perception and the reality, between the numbers, and, literally, on the ground?

Om Prakash Singh: When you go in the field, and, especially I want to cover border situations – the successful, as well, where things have happened — and I want to see it. And at the same time I want to see the problems; where the problems are. For example, [in theory] this area has been covered by the government or maybe by some development agency. But I would like to see what the reality is. So, in many places, in most of the places, in 90 percent of the cases, I have found that the area is [in theory] totally covered; it is a successful story [according to official information]. But, [in fact], it’s contradictory – nothing is there. And the photographs are speaking about this situation. And in such situations, I really feel it’s very pathetic.

So in books, in records, Delhi is 100 percent covered, but this is [not the real] situation. You feel very emotional that, “Oh my God, for such a basic need, they have to queue for hours and hours, and they can’t even be sure that [water] will turn up. They have to wait for hours and hours, even just to have it fail.” I’ve waited for hours and hours with the people. Just seven days ago, I was in Delhi, and I was there at 6:00 in the morning. It’s a daily activity, you know – the tanker is supposed to go there to deliver the water supply. But many people have been waiting much before then. I started at 6 o’clock, and I waited until 9:30. The tanker didn’t [come], and people had to return without water, even after waiting so many hours. See, you can now imagine the hardship. The statements of the people are so touching sometimes: “We are here to own a glass of water.” So most of their productive time goes for waiting for water or for procuring the water for their domestic use.

What will happen to these people now? No agencies, no NGOs, nobody will be bothered about them because “that area is covered. So let’s go to a new area!” Because they [the agencies and NGOs] have limited resources and funding, and they want to go to new areas to make things work.

And, on the other side of this, is the sanitation piece. You have pictures of people going to the bathroom in the open, in fields, along railroad tracks. Your pictures are of very private moments.

Om Prakash Singh

Photo © J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue

Om Prakash Signh, a documentary photographer, at Stockholm World Water Week 2011, where a sample of his collection of 74,000 images were on display.

Om Prakash Singh: We have made it public; it is very public now. They also don’t mind, because this is the realistic situation – anywhere else, anybody would have objected, “Why are you taking this photograph?” But they want to highlight their situation. I have never been objected; rather they have helped me, “Ok, sir, you are here for something very good. Let this thing go to somebody. Show our situation – how pathetic our condition is, in what condition we are living here.” Going out to defecate; it is early in the morning, at 5 o’clock, and they have to queue for hours, and most of them sleep while standing in the queue. The photographs are there, depicting that.

And [it is] such an unhygienic condition – you can’t stand it for even a moment. Yet, they are standing there for hours and hours. And we are talking about hygiene – what is this? So the most private thing has become a public thing.

So what’s the response of the authorities when they see something that’s so frank and so revealing, and that in most of society, it would be far too open?

Om Prakash Singh: Yes, when they see a situation like this, they don’t have any words to say. But, of course ,they want to cover it and blame each other. “I was responsible for that, and I was cheated.” So all kinds of blame games and shifting the situation. But the picture speaks – if this had been words and statistics, they would have said, “We doubt your integrity, we doubt the authenticity of this information or this statistic. What was your sample size?” But with pictures, you can’t do this. So they have to accept that this is a problem. But they say, “Oh my God, I didn’t know about it, but I’ll take care of it.” So, at least you get some response, you get some response. My thing is that I will genuinely take the issue and bring it to the right forum, the right platform, and put it before the right authorities, the responsible authorities. And this is what I am doing, and I am proud of it.

Let’s take a walk over to your booth here at World Water Week, and maybe you can describe some of the images here. Pick a couple of pictures and walk me through the situation here.

Om Prakash Singh: Let’s talk about the first picture. You see small children queuing up, and you can see the source of water – basically, they are collecting from the leaks of the pipe that is going to the elite colonies. This entire area doesn’t have safe drinking water. So they are collecting from these drops. And you can imagine the amount of time it must be taking. [The children] are also missing school, because it’s their responsibility [to bring water]… And that is why the drop-out rate for girls is higher in schools.

And that’s such a small child, carrying such a big load of water. That means, at the same time, he doesn’t have time for recreation, which will certainly undermine his whole development. It’s not just a question of rich-poor colonies or slums.

And they are holding up signs that say, “We want water, give us water”?

Om Prakash Singh: Yes, so it’s not just the situation in the slums, poorer areas, or unsettled colonies. But even the best colonies want water, and that’s why they have to get the water in a very democratic way. It’s the reality.

And in this photograph you see [leaking pipes with hoses collecting every drop]. Normally people say that there’s wastage of water to leaks, but, just imagine if this water were not there — there would be no water, in fact. So, the people are basically utilizing the water. Thousands of people are collecting from the leaks of the pipeline. And see the amount of water they are carrying? Because they have to walk on this pipe, with this heavy load of water in their hand, they always get injured.

And about the sanitation, look at this picture along the Yamuna River: is this water – physically or visually – is there anything that tells you that you can use this water for any purpose?

What we see here is a man basically bathing in sewage.

Om Prakash Singh: But, of course, that’s what I am trying to show. But, for him, this is the only source of water, so he has to do it.

Similarly, in the case of sanitation, this is a mobile van [with bathrooms]. You can practically see that the ladies are asleep. They are completing their sleep here, because they have to come early in the morning to get chances first. If they don’t turn up, they will be far behind in the queue, if the pressure comes. They have to go out; they are forced to go out [early in the morning]. And that is why they are defecating openly — some of them are defecating in storm water drains. And how safe are storm water drains? They are destined to go to fresh water, maybe ponds, lakes.

So it all becomes an open sewer?

Om Prakash Singh: Yes.

]]> http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2011/world/photo-slideshow-and-qa-om-prakash-singh-documents-the-perception-and-harsh-realities-of-water-and-sanitation-in-delhi-india/feed/ 3 http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2011/world/alaska-governor-authorizes-4-5-billion-dam-project/ http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2011/world/alaska-governor-authorizes-4-5-billion-dam-project/#comments Wed, 10 Aug 2011 13:53:18 +0000 Brett Walton http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/?p=30871 Because of old age and a desire to restore fisheries, in many parts of the United States old dams are being removed. But in Alaska, the state legislature and the governor want to build what would be one of the nation’s tallest hydroelectric facilities. If built, the 200-meter dam on the Susitna River would be the nation’s fifth tallest, completed by 2023.

Photo courtesty Stravis S. via Creative Commons

At a press conference in Anchorage on July 25, Alaska Governor Sean Parnell signed a ceremonial copy of a bill to authorize a 200-meter (700-feet) rockfill dam on the currently dam-free Susitna River. Parnell signed the official bill on July 13, after it had passed the state legislature in June, the Anchorage Daily News reports.

Senate Bill 42 gives the Alaska Energy Authority (AEA), a public corporation owned by the state, the power to issue bonds and enter into contracts to build the dam, which is scheduled to be completed by 2023 and is estimated to cost $US 4.5 billion — a figure that does not include some of the new transmission lines that would be built, according to Karsten Rodvik, AEA’s external affairs manager.

The Susitna Dam, planned for a site halfway between Anchorage and Fairbanks, will create a storage reservoir 63 kilometers (39 miles) long and three kilometers (two miles) wide at its broadest. If completed, the dam would be the tallest built in the U.S. since the 218-kilometer (717-feet) Dworshak Dam in Idaho, which began construction in 1966 during the height of the American dam-building era.

Plugging the Susitna River would also destroy nine miles of spawning habitat for the Arctic grayling fish, and change river flows and temperatures, which would help some species and hurt others, according to a preliminary evaluation prepared by the AEA in November 2010. Salmon would not be affected because they do not spawn above the dam site.

The state flirted with the Susitna project starting in the 1970s, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers first drew up a proposal. Construction was provisionally approved but then cancelled in 1986 due to an economic downturn and cheaper natural gas supplies flowing from new production in the Cook Inlet.

Alaska’s lawmakers have revived the project partly because of a law — passed last year — that requires the state to get half of its electricity from renewable and alternative energy sources by 2025. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), 20 percent of Alaska’s 6.7 million megawatt-hours generated in 2009 came from renewable sources, with 99 percent of those renewables classified as hydropower.

The Susitna Dam will add an estimated 2.6 million megawatt-hours of generation and will serve half the current energy demand of the Railbelt, the most densely populated area of the state.

At 15.1 cents per kilowatt-hour, the average cost of electricity in Alaska is among the highest in the nation. This is in stark contrast to 9.8 cents per kilowatt-hour, the nation’s average electricity cost, according to the EIA. The AEA’s preliminary evaluation pegs the cost of Susitna electricity to ratepayers at only six cents per kilowatt-hour, but that figure assumes the state will pay for half of the project’s $US 4.5 billion price tag.

AEA’s spokesman said that money matters have not yet been settled.

“We do not know the nature or level of state financing at this point,” Rodvik told Circle of Blue. “We’re not even in the formal FERC process.”

FERC is the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency that oversees hydropower development. The AEA will begin the permitting process this fall when it applies to FERC for a license. The permitting phase is expected to take six years, followed by five years of construction.

Source: Alaska State Legislature, Anchorage Daily News, EIA

]]> http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2011/world/alaska-governor-authorizes-4-5-billion-dam-project/feed/ 2 http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2011/world/united-nations-urges-ethiopia-to-suspend-gibe-iii-dam-construction/ http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2011/world/united-nations-urges-ethiopia-to-suspend-gibe-iii-dam-construction/#comments Wed, 03 Aug 2011 17:53:23 +0000 Nadya Ivanova http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/?p=30833 In June, a committee concluded that the construction of the dam endangered the existence of Lake Turkana, the largest desert lake in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The United Nations has called for Ethiopia to suspend construction of the giant Gibe III Dam, pending a detailed environmental assessment of the project’s impact on Lake Turkana and the surrounding area, the Daily Nation reported.

The decision came in June during the 35th annual session of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Committee, which establishes sites to be listed as being of special cultural or physical significance. The committee concluded that the construction of the dam endangered the existence of Lake Turkana, the largest desert lake in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

“The World Heritage Committee expresses its utmost concern about the proposed construction of the GIBE III dam on the Omo River in Ethiopia and its likely impacts on Lake Turkana, which is located downstream, in neighbouring Kenya, and draws almost 90 percent of its inflow from the above river,” the organization said in an official statement.

UNESCO also cited a recent study, commissioned by the African Development Bank, that found the dam would likely cause a significant drop in the lake’s water level, increase the lake’s salinity, and threaten the lake’s unique ecosystem.

The U.N. body asked the governments of Ethiopia and Kenya to invite a monitoring mission to review the dam’s impact on the lake. UNESCO also urged the project’s lenders “to put on hold their financial support” until the committee’s next annual meeting in June 2012.

The Gibe III dam is being built by an Italian company. ICBC, a Chinese state-owned bank, has approved funding for the project, while China’s export credit agency is financing the transmission lines from the dam.

The 1840-megawatt hydropower facility — approximately 250 kilometers (155 miles) southwest of the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa — is part of the Gibe-Omo Cascade project that also includes the existing Gilgel Gibe I Dam and the 420-megawatt Gibe II, which is nearly completed.

The Gibe III is the highlight of Ethiopia’s five-year plan to raise its power generation to as much as 10,000 megawatts and expand electricity coverage to 75 percent of the population, up from the current 41 percent. The World Bank estimates the country’s hydropower potential at 45,000 megawatts, the second-largest capacity in Africa, after the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Ethiopia has already signed agreements to export hydroelectricity to Kenya and has almost completed construction of the transmission line between the two countries.

But the Gibe III project has attracted strong criticism from a number of Western environmental groups over what they say are the dam’s negative impacts on the food security and local economies for half a million Ethiopians and Kenyans. International Rivers, a U.S.-based campaign group, has called the Gibe III a potentially “risky, economic gamble for one of the world’s poorest countries” and has questioned the project’s integrity.

The construction of the dam has also sparked tension between the Ethiopian government and activists in North America and Europe. During a recent international hydropower summit in Addis Ababa, for example, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi defended the government’s decision to expand the dam projects and called the views of Western critics “ironic” as Ethiopian facilities are “infinitely more environmentally and socially responsible than the projects in their countries, past and present.”

For more on the cultural significance of the Lake Turkana area and how climate change is lowering lake levels and affecting nomadic borders, read Water Conflict: Violence Erupts Along Ethiopia-Kenya Water-stressed Border.

Source: Daily Nation, International Rivers, UNESCO

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