Hello steemians, it is not a strange fact that whatever has advantages also has its disadvantages, so it does also apply to the concept of harnessing the water bodies to generate electricity, which we all know as Hydro-Power Generation..
Creating Dams in rivers to generate hydro-power may seem like a very clean and easy solution for energy hungry countries to generate clean energy, But there is a hidden truth in its details.
We are going to b looking at the perils in using dams for hydro-power generation on this post band we are going to focus on a particular settlement in the south western Albania, somewhere in Europe, The Vjoza River to be more precise..
In a Village called "Kuta", existing for about 2000 years, which is tucked above the water's edge. In 2016, the Albanian Government sold a concession to build up a dam about a few miles downstream. But now, the peril faced by the occupants of this settlement is that, in some few years both the settlement and its vegitations, including the woods will soon be under water because of the water that will be held back by the dam, this is according to Exerts. Also some experts say " If this dam is built, all of this will be gone" reffering to the settlement of Kuta..
The Vjosa river is widely regarded as Eruope's last wild river, it is fed by dozens of mountain tributaries, running on 169 miles from the Pindus mountains of northern Greece to the Adriatic Sea. But so far, this river has remained undammed but a total number of 31 dams are projected to be built along this river and its tributaries in the coming years. This has raised a question amongst both developers and environmentalists whether the true value of this special place is best realized by exploring it for kilowatts or conserving it all for its bio diversity & nourishment it provides to the communities up and down its shores.
This is not at all an easy question to answer in this region or even anywhere else. The proposed dam in the Vjosa river is just one example of a growing enthusiasm, especially in the lower income countries for hydroelectric power and promise of its clean, cheap and copious energy.
In other regions where dams have been constructed, these aging reservoirs have become inefficient, Local Ecosystem and habitat impacts are profound, also accumulating research suggest that hydropower reservoirs may be a much larger contributor of methane which is a greenhouse gas that is roughly 30 times more potent than carbondioxide, than previously realized.
In a recent study published in the Bioscience journal, researchers have found that reservoirs may produce as much as a billion ton of CO2 {Carbondioxide} equivalent.. Other analysis have shown that even the next Generation hydro power technologies are problematic so that even in the developing world particularly, dam projects are often baset by factors like questionable economics, local corruption and some uncertain long-term benefits.
Now, for the government and investors eyeing Vjosa and for the communities whose homes and lives would be changed forever by the looming dam projects, this is not an academic question, and this leads to the postulate of ROK RAZMAN a sloveman biologist and kayakar who who is a fierce defender of the Vjosa River, who said " When You build a dam, you destroy the single most important thing about a river, the Flow" You will kill the Eco system.
Rok Rozman, left, is a biologist and river activist in Albania. “It’s not just about snails and fish,” Rozman says of planned dams on the Vjosa. “It’s about people, because we depend on the rivers.”
Electricity consumption and economic development are closely linked, growth will not happen without a step change in the power sector, but the major question here is, what about the destruction of the Ecosystem and the contribution of destructive methane gas to the atmospehere and Habitat..
Thanks for reading, I how this post has been able to impact one or two knowledge on this topic..
All images gotten from: [www.undark.org] (https://undark.org/article/hydropower-dams-albania-vjosa/)
Reference: (https://undark.org/article/hydropower-dams-albania-vjosa/)