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:
A brief history of hydropower: https://www.hydropower.org/iha/discov...

Development banks and hydropower project: https://ceeca-bhr.org/online-media-br...

Example of corruption from Bosnia-Herzegovina: https://link.springer.com/article/10....

Climate change and hydropower in the Amazon: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...

Reducing impacts of hydro – solutions from the Amazon: https://www.nature.com/articles/s4146...

Hydropower expansion without building new dams: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10...

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