Course: REEC 120 Sustainability and Renewable Energy

Unit 9 Overview

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The topic of this unit’s Live Seminar will be hydropower.

Starting off this section of the course, I would like to tell an anecdote. In 2012 I took a class to Belize, running a predecessor of this course. Yes, it was laid out a bit better than this, it will get better, I promise.  Anyways on the last day in Punta Gorda, the power went out. No big deal.  Well, after twenty minutes, word had reached everybody that the entire country was without power.  Belize gets nearly 1/3 of its electricity from Mexico, and when there is a shortage, Mexico must turn off the electricity to the folks in Belize. The Belizeans are used to this. As a country their energy policy is almost entirely dependent on another country, and if the country says we do not have enough, then that's it.

Part of the experience in Belize was to explore a hydroelectric station. The hydroelectric station on the Columbia River near P.G., Punta Gorda, could provide nearly most of the electricity for the town. However, there was a feeling of mistrust and damage caused by the dams. It seems that a foreign-owned company installed some dams elsewhere in the country, and the waters were turned into a rust color caused by the flow. Animals and habitat were affected. Even though the electricity produced was directly benefiting the country, it came at a risk of habitat change and with a cultural change by the villagers that live near the rivers. (See also this archived article from Newsbelize.com)

I asked the students to choose: defend the dams or defeat the dams. It was a tough call because a) the folks need power, and b) the changes caused natives and folks to be forced to change their way of life.  No easy answer.  And this is the point: there are no easy answers to our problems.