Sublime

Making a reservoir displaces local communities and wildlife. When you cover land with water, if there’s a lot of carbon in the soil, the carbon eventually turns into methane and escapes into the atmosphere—which is why studies show that depending on where it’s built, a dam can actually be a worse emitter than coal for 50 to 100 years before it

When you cover land with water, if there’s a lot of carbon in the soil, the carbon eventually turns into methane and escapes into the atmosphere—which is why studies show that depending on where it’s built, a dam can actually be a worse emitter than coal for 50 to 100 years before it makes up for all the methane it’s responsible for.*2

It can’t be seen from the visitor center, but the design of the plant incorporates a reservoir. On maps and in aerial photos, it’s visible as a polygonal lake behind the plant, away from the river, and it serves the same purpose as the high mountain lake at Dinorwig, storing water that can be used to generate electricity during times of high demand

Human beings have invented hundreds of stock-maintaining mechanisms to make inflows and outflows independent and stable. Reservoirs enable residents and farmers downriver to live without constantly adjusting their lives and work to a river’s varying flow, especially its droughts and floods.

A landmark event for Chinese environmental history was the halting – or shelving – of the massive Nu river dam project in 2004, as discussed in Chapter 7 (see Maps 7.1a and 7.1b). The event was important for various reasons, including the collective action taken not only by the Chinese groups but also by international NGOs and groups and