Hydropower

Food or frac-sand: it's a decision of vital importance across the country, but one most Americans don't even realize is being made -- largely by multinational corporations and dwindling numbers of yeoman farmers in what some in this country would call "the real America."

Americans are behind Obama, in the sense that they support the president's concept of a national clean energy standard. But they're also behind, in the sense that the voting public is unwilling to go as far as the president wants to go because of costs.

Ikal Angelei receives the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize today. She is defending the interests of 500,000 poor indigenous people against a destructive hydropower dam, and has successfully taken on many of the world's biggest dam builders and financiers.

In a crucial decision for the people and ecosystems of the Mekong River Basin, the governments of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam have just agreed to delay the Xayaburi Dam, the first of eleven dams proposed for the Mekong River.

If the World Bank and an Indian power utility have their way, the Rampur hydropower project in Northern India will increase global CO2 emissions by 15 million tons, at a cost of $164 million to unsuspecting energy consumers in Sweden.

Coral Reefs are in deep trouble due to warming and acidifying oceans, but they may not be in as much danger as previously thought.

Hydropower projects need to be based on a balanced assessment of all available options, the full participation of affected communities, strict social and environmental guidelines, and public oversight.

A new IPCC report demonstrates that there is a vast potential for energy technologies that have much lower environmental and social impacts than hydro-powered dams.

The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River is the world's largest hydropower project. Now the Chinese government has officially acknowledged the project's serious social, environmental and geological problems.

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Small, decentralized renewable energy projects such as wind, small hydropower and geothermal power plants provide a win-win solution for poverty reduction and resilience to climate change.

The proposed Susitna River hydro project in Alaska would involve building the biggest dam in the United States in 50 years and change the flow of one ...

The time for a rights-based approach to development has come, and the WCD report offers great guidelines on who to turn it into practice. Happy Birthday, World Commission on Dams!

There's something about smaller scale hydro power that gets the imagination going.

As the Bank shapes its energy sector strategy, civil society emphasized that World Bank energy investments must absolutely prioritize energy access for the poor, as well as low carbon development.

Deep in the Amazon rainforest, the Brazilian government wants to build a massive, nasty dam called Belo Monte. The hydropower plant has long been at t...

The fact that wind is now a bigger and more dynamic industry than hydro means that the new renewables industries will increasingly have more economic and political clout.

A quiet revolution is underway in the world of hydropower. A suite of emerging technologies holds the promise of a benign form of power generation tha...

In a classic case of the resource curse in the DR Congo, extractive projects are not promoting the country's long-term development, but rather are attracting short-term profiteers, conflict, and corruption.

On Jan. 13, Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi inaugurated the Gilgel Gibe 2 scheme, the country's biggest hydropower project. "It is possible to ...

Poorer nations looking to California for ideas in dealing with vexing water problems should leapfrog over our tarnished model of destroyed rivers, crumbling infrastructure, and contentious solutions to the mess.

Diversifying Africa's energy sector would help its climate-adaptation efforts in key ways: it would de-emphasize reliance on erratic rainfall for electricity, reduce conflict over water resources, and protect river-based ecosystems.

It's important to understand that the immediacy of a disaster response can also be followed by a long term recovery period that leaves those affected by Mother Nature better off than they were before.