Reducing greenhouse gas emissions of Amazon hydropower with strategic dam planning.
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Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 31537792.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-12179-5 and PMC identifier 6753097.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Hundreds of dams have been proposed throughout the Amazon basin, one of the world's largest untapped hydropower frontiers. While hydropower is a potentially clean source of renewable energy, some projects produce high greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per unit electricity generated (carbon intensity). Here we show how carbon intensities of proposed Amazon upland dams (median = 39 kg CO<sub>2</sub>eq MWh<sup>-1</sup>, 100-year horizon) are often comparable with solar and wind energy, whereas some lowland dams (median = 133 kg CO<sub>2</sub>eq MWh<sup>-1</sup>) may exceed carbon intensities of fossil-fuel power plants. Based on 158 existing and 351 proposed dams, we present a multi-objective optimization framework showing that low-carbon expansion of Amazon hydropower relies on strategic planning, which is generally linked to placing dams in higher elevations and smaller streams. Ultimately, basin-scale dam planning that considers GHG emissions along with social and ecological externalities will be decisive for sustainable energy development where new hydropower is contemplated.