Environmental Impacts of Renewable Energy - thoughts from the Itaipu Dam

This post is going to be a bit deeper, there are things on my mind. In line with the way I'm writing this blog I'm putting in a disclaimer that these are thoughts tha have occurred to me, some questions I'm thinking through. It isn't meant to be taken as a thoroughly researched facual essay. Just thought I'd get that in there. I left Lake Ypycarai near Asuncion wondering if it was possible to travel for extended periods of time without returning home with a slightly Greener tinge to your politics. As detailed in a previous post Lake Ypycarai suffers from natural algal polution as well as man made polution through refuse and other avoidable measures. Set in stunning landscape it could be a natural wonder for people to enjoy and to provide work and income. It was a reminder of how good a job New Zealand does of protecting it's natural environment but also of how much work needs to be done to maintain it. I wondered how much bearaucracy and corruption you would have to break through to build a sustainable future for the lake. I wasn't to know my thoughts on green energy would be challenged so soon and in the same country. We visited the Itaipu dam on the Parana river, which forms the natural border between Paraguay and Brazil. The dam is still the largest Hydroelectric producing plant on earth, though in terms of dam size it has been knocked into second place by the Three Gorges dam in China. Renewable energy has always seemed like a great energy source, solar makes so much sense to me and the sheer power of water makes hydro a sensible way forward, using naturally occuring energy without destroying the source is good, yes?

The building of the Itaipu dam, commenced in 1973 resulted in the destruction of the Sete Quedus falls, the most spectacular waterfalls on earth with more than twice the volume flow of Niagara and twelve times that of Victoria falls and covering a greater area than the neighbouring Iguazu falls on the border of Argentina and Brazil only 20 killometres away. Not only were the falls drowned by the lake created for the dam, the Brazillian government, which had already dispanded Guaira Falls National Park to allow the project to go ahead, dynamited the rock face of the falls to remove the navigation hazzard eliminating any chance of restoring the site in future. One of the great wonders of the world gone for ever, surely an environmental catastrophe. In the process of creating the lake 10,000 families were displaced removing hundreds of years of history and splitting up families and communities, leading to the town of Foz do Iguazu growing from 32,000 to 136,000 people in ten years with no infrastructure to cope. In a final twist, as peole flocked in record numbers to catch a last glimpse of the falls before they were lost, a viewpoint collapsed killing 80 people. Generating an impressive 80% of Paraguay's energy and 20% of Brazil's is an engineering marvel, being the third most populous country just think how much sustainable energy has come fromthat one source. But there is no doubt it has come at huge environmental and social cost. It has merely posed in my mind the question of how far we go to generate renewable energy? How do we measure the cost / benefit of doing so? Would we allow the same to happen to Iguazu falls today? Yeah, they look nice but look at all that power!

The tour of the dam itself was impressive, it is truly an enormous project, employing at it's peak 40,000 people. The lake levels were at a level where the flood gates were closed as all the necessary water was going straight into the turbines which meant we missed the spectacular sight of the spillways in full flood. It did allow us to see the sheer size of them though which was awesome.

Interestingly as the dam straddles Paraguay and Brazil we crossed over into Brasilian territory, though without getting off the bus so immigration was unnecessary. The drive along the dam gave a close up view of the pibes surrounding the twenty turbines of which Brasil uses eighteen, effectively buying the electricity from eight of them from Paraguay. From the top of the dam there was a great view towards the twin cities of Foz do Iguazu in Brazil and Ciudad del Este in Paraguay, separated only by the river. An educational and interesting morning, I definitely recommend it.