Hundreds of new hydropower projects are planned in the Western Balkans, as investors sought to take advantage of the huge and relatively untapped water resources in the region. Now, however, public sentiment is turning against these investments and several have been cancelled or put on hold. In the latest development …
Around 10,000 members of the Kachin community on Thursday, Feb 7, staged a protest march in Kachin State’s Myitkyina calling for termination of dam projects both upstream and downstream on the Irrawaddy River. While Myanmar is bound to suffer serious environmental impacts if the Myitsone Dam project goes ahead, …
The last year ended up with a massive landslide blocking hydropower reservoir on Bureya River. Since the RwB reported on the issue last year considerable attention of national authorities and international media was drawn to it. Many politicians have participated in crisis-solving making this somewhat reminiscent of parallel drama of …
Nepal’s hydropower boom needs strategic assessment and public oversight Children crossing a bridge across Budhi Gandaki River in Arughat, Nepal (Photo by Eugene Sim0nov) Prologue: A tale of two dams In 2017, I visited 1,200 MW Budhi Gandaki hydropower project, 70 kilometers from Kathmandu, and found many similarities with the …
We are getting used to it: “No one was killed, we are happy” –became a standard reaction to “better” incidents at large-scale dams which are on the rise this year. So far in 2018 just on the RwB’s record large dam accidents happened in China, Colombia, Kenya, Laos, Myanmar, Russia. …
Greed, corruption and vanity – are main driving forces not letting large dams to sink despite the obvious fact they no longer make economic sense. New brilliant article in Yale 360 proves that. The rise of wind and solar power, coupled with the increasing social, environmental and financial costs of …
