How to solve our Big Dam Problem

Hydropower is a bit like the ‘boomer’ of renewable technology which needs to catch up with the times. While it produces more renewable energy than all other sources combined – it has a terrible social and environmental record. And an even more uncertain future. What does this grandfather of renewables need to do to stay relevant for the new gen?

Reporter: Aditi Rajagopal
Video Editor: Aditi Rajagopal, Henning Goll
Editor: Michael Trobridge

We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Our new channel Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world — and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.

#Hydropower #ClimateChange #RenewableEnergy

Read more:

Chapters:

00.00 Intro
01.25 Hydropower: Grey zoned
03.38 Heavy on the planet
05.37 Same sh*t, new decade
07.04 Power dynamics of power
08.05 The climate paradox
09.03 Hydro sans dams?
10.35 New generation: ‘Boomer’ hydro going Gen Z

[DWPlanetA]

What do you think about hydroelectric dams? Do the costs outweigh the benefits?

[deepakverma]

Sardar sarovar dam in India provided clean electricity and water security to the gujrat region which had a huge impact in agriculture sector which eventually boomed in Gujarat by the irrigation system

[ProjectPhysX]

11:17 this looks rather ingenious to me. The floating solar panels generate electricity, don't need extra land area, and reduce evaporation. In some places in the US, reservoirs are covered with plastic balls to reduce evaporation. Solar panels seem the better solution.

[prax]

In the case of Sardar Sarovar, obviously the people got displaced, but it help get water security to people that live in the remotest of places

[hugoleosp]

Wait.. what? Deforestation is caused mainly because the construction of dams? Well .. here in Brazil is because agriculture, mining, live stocks .. everything but the construction of dams.

[terramater]

That is really well put, hydropower is often touted as a clean, green energy source, but the environmental costs of constructing even a single dam can be enormous, with huge impacts felt across entire river ecosystems. Our crew talked to Matt Ferrell to take a closer look at some of the far-reaching consequences of hydroelectric dams and asked what can be done to develop this technology to better balance energy and conservation.

[alperenbaser]

Ataturk Dam is not build on Tigris River but Euphrates River .Ilısu Dam build on Tigris.

[luffirton]

The combination of hydro and floating solar is really cool. The surface of that area is unusable you can’t build anything there. So put solar panels over the big lake and use that as main power source and the water as battery a genius solution.

[taestudy._]

As a igcse student, I was about to choose hydropower and dams and some issues it creates as my topic for individual reports, but the research I could get access to was really limited as a student .As soon as I saw the thumbnail of this video I got excited and felt relief that researchers and adults are focusing on this topic thank you DW planet A for the great video

[scaratb]

sardhar sarovar was and still is primarily meant for irrigation. Dams already serve multiple purposes, and always have been, you can not completely ignore the primary focus on a dam to take cheap shots at a statue nearby.

[GoodDay-rkfy]

Nepal relies 99.9% on hydropower, only 2 small thermal plants and are almost shutdown

[dennisenright]

Hydroelectricity is by far the best renewable. It's dependable, affordable, and its output can be adjusted to suit electrical demand far more easily than any other renewable, and it actually is better than natural gas, and far better than oil or coal, at how fast it can respond to demand. And yet it tends to be ignored in favor of less dependable renewables like wind and solar. The dam in Portugal with the floating solar panels is actually a very good example of this. The output of the panels is reportedly 5MW and that of the dam itself is 518MW. Those numbers are the reported maximum capacity for each type of electricity generation. The panels capacity is less than one percent of the dam and yet many people believe that the panels are a big part of the combined power output. It would be interesting to know how many kw/h each system actually produced.

[DWPlanetA]

We erroneously named the river that the Atäturk dam sits on as the "Tigris" when it is in fact the "Euphrates". Though the dam complex does impact the Tigris too. We apologise for the mistake!

[Paulo.]

Nice video, but I think the argument at the end, that we kind of need every community to be happy in the energy transition, is kind of dangerous. For example, nobody wants to live close to wind turbines, power lines or nuclear. Sure, you should listen to communities and try to benefit them with the projects, but if you take 20 years to build a transmission line, we'll never decarbonize electricity in the pace we need. You can try to just do rooftop solar and offshore wind, but then everybody will end up with a bill 2 or 3x as high...

[ladydamemarvelous-micynyc]

Why does everyone ignore tidal generators. The technology is there and is not as damaging and with more investment can be possibly our most productive form of energy production.

[vivekbhasker]

Okay there's a problem with the hydropower projects but what is the solution 😮 or any replacement of such dams or projects

[Siddharth_Rao]

Wonder why Sardar Sarovar Dam has been singled out for so much love in this video? World bank stopped funding the dam but the people of Gujarat stepped in with funds to complete the project.

[adithsarath]

Wasn't the sardar sarovar more about irrigation project than power generation?

[vishalkumarkushwaha]

Carbon and steel is used to build the dam.but solar and other renewables are build out of wood..😂😂😂

[nilomaia]

When people talk about the negative enviromental impacts on the ecosystems they always conveniently forget how important the dams are in a more and more unpredictable rain pattern.

Brazil's rivers have been heavily impacted by this. What is the impact of a severe drought on these ecosystems? That's exactly where dams may play a very important role.