{"id":484944,"date":"2010-03-29T07:51:25","date_gmt":"2010-03-29T11:51:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthportal.org\/news\/?p=3240"},"modified":"2010-03-29T07:51:25","modified_gmt":"2010-03-29T11:51:25","slug":"ethiopia-looks-to-hydropower-to-meet-growing-demand-despite-enviro-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/484944","title":{"rendered":"Ethiopia looks to hydropower to meet growing demand despite enviro concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/2010\/mar\/25\/ethiopia-gibe-hydropower-dam\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/static.guim.co.uk\/sys-images\/Guardian\/Pix\/pictures\/2010\/3\/25\/1269536225932\/Hydro-dam-site-at-Omo-riv-001.jpg\" width=\"298\" align=\"left\" height=\"178\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/eenews.net\/Greenwire\/2010\/03\/26\/12\/\" >Greenwire<\/a>: In a bid to end an energy crisis, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eoearth.org\/article\/Ethiopia\">Ethiopia<\/a> is building a series of  megadams on its plentiful rivers, hoping to increase its power  generation 15-fold by 2020 and become an energy exporter to the region.<\/p>\n<p>With the help of Italian and Chinese construction firms, Ethiopia is  building dams hundreds of feet high to capitalize on hydropower from  rivers coming down from the highlands.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For a developing country like ours, the dams are a must,&#8221; said  Abdulhakim Mohammed, head of generation construction at the Ethiopia  Electric Power Corp. &#8220;Power is everything.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In rural areas of the country, 2 percent of households have access  to electricity, while the capital city of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eoearth.org\/article\/Addis_Ababa%2C_Ethiopia\">Addis Ababa<\/a> has been beset by  blackouts. The fast-growing economy and population has caused demand for  electricity to rise by 25 percent annually with no matching growth in  production. That led planners to look to the the rivers cascading from  Lake Tana, which provides 85 percent of the water for the Blue Nile.<\/p>\n<p>Several new plants will be built in the next few years, joining the  dams that are already on line or near completion. But the scale of the  projects is alarming environmental groups. A coalition of global  environmental groups started an online petition to stop the dams,  particularly the 797-foot Gibe III. The groups warn that the dam could  cause environmental damage as well as social and economic effects on the  tribes that live downstream.<\/p>\n<p>The dam will end the Omo River&#8217;s natural flood cycle, which could  affect herders and farmers and reduce the water level in nearby Lake  Turkana. International Rivers, one of the groups that launched the  petition, says Gibe III should be stopped and that other dams can meet  the country&#8217;s power needs. But the government is dismissing those  concerns, looking to China to secure financing to continue the project  (Xan Rice, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/2010\/mar\/25\/ethiopia-gibe-hydropower-dam\" >London  <em>Guardian<\/em><\/a>, March 25). <strong>&#8211; JP<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"akst_link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.earthportal.org\/news\/?p=3240&amp;akst_action=share-this\"  title=\"E-mail this, post to del.icio.us, etc.\" id=\"akst_link_3240\" class=\"akst_share_link\" rel=\"nofollow\">Share This<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Greenwire: In a bid to end an energy crisis, Ethiopia is building a series of megadams on its plentiful rivers, hoping to increase its power generation 15-fold by 2020 and become an energy exporter to the region. With the help of Italian and Chinese construction firms, Ethiopia is building dams hundreds of feet high to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4055,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-484944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4055"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484944\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}