I am disappointment to hear that Malaysia is planning to source 30% of its electricity from hydroelectric power plant. In The Star today:
PUTRAJAYA: The plan is to have 30% of electricity over the next decade generated through hydropower to reduce the adverse effects of fossil fuel use.
Power generated through gas and coal will be reduced to 45% and 25% respectively.
Hydroelectricity generation currently constitutes only 5.5%, gas 70.2%, and coal 21.8%.
I would prefer to see the country diversifies its sources and includes heavier utilization of green renewables like solar and wind energy.
Further in the article:
“Hydroelectricity is environment-friendly, renewable, cheap and stable. Prices of fossil fuel are not stable and are always increasing,” he [Energy, Water and Communications Minister Dr Lim Keng Yaik] told reporters after addressing the ministry’s monthly gathering here yesterday.
While hydroelectric is renewable, it is not environmental friendly and hence, not green. Hydroelectric dam devastates local environment perhaps more than any other types of power plant. The larger a dam, the greater the damage done to the local environment. The intensity of damage done to the local environment by a large dam could rival any other types of power plant at typical operational level.
One does not need to be reminded how various dams in the United States have contributed to the falling salmon population:
Scientists estimate that about 70%-95% of the human-induced kills of salmon in the Columbia Basin are dam related. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service “the major decline of the runs coincides with the construction and operation of dams for electrical power, irrigation, and flood control. Between 1930 and the late 1970’s about 200 dams, including 19 major hydro-electric dams, were constructed in the Columbia Basin to provide water for irrigation, flood control, barging, and cheap electricity for the aluminum smelters and cities of the region. Hardly any major stream was left untouched. For example, the 1214 mile Columbia River was turned into a series of back to back dams and reservoirs. Less than 200 miles of the Columbia River in the United States remain free-flowing today.
Or the extinction of the Chinese dolphin.
In The Star further, the minister seems to have implicitly assumed that hydropower plant produces less or practically no greenhouse gases compared to fossil fuel-based plants:
The minister said burning fossil fuels increased global warming and caused other damage.
That assumption does not necessarily hold for all cases.
Recent publications have suggested that dams in tropical areas produce significant amount of greenhouse gases due to decomposition in areas flooded by dams:
Hydroelectric dams produce significant amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, and in some cases produce more of these greenhouse gases than power plants running on fossil fuels. Carbon emissions vary from dam to dam, says Philip Fearnside from Brazil’s National Institute for Research in the Amazon in Manaus. “But we do know that there are enough emissions to worry about.”
In a study to be published in Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Fearnside estimates that in 1990 the greenhouse effect of emissions from the Curuá-Una dam in Pará, Brazil, was more than three-and-a-half times what would have been produced by generating the same amount of electricity from oil.
This is because large amounts of carbon tied up in trees and other plants are released when the reservoir is initially flooded and the plants rot. Then after this first pulse of decay, plant matter settling on the reservoir’s bottom decomposes without oxygen, resulting in a build-up of dissolved methane. This is released into the atmosphere when water passes through the dam’s turbines.
Therefore, please reconsider dear sir.
