China's Insatiable Need For Water and Energy Hitting Downstream Countries Hard

China is busy touting its hydroelectric power projects as a way of going green and weaning the most populous nation on the planet from coal and other emissions-heavy power generating sources. They are damming rivers at a prodigious rate, but the dam projects aren't nearly as green as one would first believe, and they are having a disastrous impact on countries located downstream of the newest dam projects.

The Xiaowan dam in the hills of Yunnan province is one of eight hydroelectric projects that will bring China?s industrial revolution to the impoverished region. It is by far the biggest of the four dams built so far that when done this year will be the biggest arch dam in the world.

But not all of the water is China's. The downstream half of the 2,700-mile-long river winds through Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, where it is known as the Mekong.

In those countries, 60 million people rely on the Mekong not for electricity but for food, water and transport. They say the Chinese dams have reduced the river to its lowest levels in 50 years, and environmental groups accuse China of reducing the river flow downstream.

"Many local people and groups that monitor the dams in China point the finger at the dams as one of the main causes of the drying up of the river," says Srisuwan Kuankachorn, co-director of Towards Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance, a Thailand-based environmental group.

Srisuwan says the countries are in a drought caused by China that has killed fisheries, withered croplands and dried up waterway transportation routes.

And the problems are likely to get worse with the completion of the Xiaowan dam. A United Nations report issued in May 2009 warned that China's eight planned dams, of which Xiaowan is the fourth, "may pose the single greatest threat to the river."

By destroying the habitat on the Mekong, the Chinese are causing untold misery in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, which rely heavily on the Mekong for food, potable water, and transportation. With river levels at such low levels, the problems for Vietnam are only going to increase as salt works its way upstream and food production becomes more variable.

Terrorists Attack Russian Hydroelectric Plant in Caucasus

Terrorists seriously damaged a hydroelectric facility in the Caucasus region of Russia.

Two carloads of assailants attacked a hydroelectric station in southern Russia early Wednesday, killing two workers and setting off bombs.

The attack took place in Kabardino-Balkariya, one of the republics in Russia's restive Caucasus region where clashes with insurgents are frequent.

A spokesman for the republic's police, Adlan Kakakuyev, said two cars carrying a half-dozen assailants attacked the Baksan plant at about 4:30 a.m., killing two guards and wounding three others in gunfire. The attackers then set off explosives in several parts of the 25-megawatt plant and detonated them before fleeing.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attack.

The explosions and subsequent fire destroyed two of the plant's three power units, but there was no danger of flooding downriver, the state news agency ITAR-Tass cited power company RusGidro as saying. The dam and plant are on the Baksan River, a waterway that flows into the Terek, a major regional river.

This is not the first time terrorists have damaged hydroelectric facilities in the Caucasus region. Last August, a major attack killed 76 people and badly damaged one of the largest hydroelectric facilities in Russia. Islamic terrorists claimed responsibility for that attack.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Chechen terrorists claim responsibility here. Russian authorities have called for stepped up security at hydroelectric facilities.

Islamic Terrorists Claim Credit For Russian Dam Explosion

Earlier in the week, an incident occurred at a Russian dam in the Caucasus Mountain region. An explosion and flooding seriously damaged the hydropower facility, killing at least 76 people. At the time, the Russian authorities said that there was a transformer explosion that damaged turbines and collapsed the concrete ceiling of the turbine room.

The dam is the largest hydroelectric power plant in Russia and supplies power the entire region. The explosion also caused an oil slick on the river downstream from the dam. The authorities were also trying to reassure towns and people living downstream that the integrity of the dam was intact.

Now, a Times of India report indicates that an Islamic terror group is claiming responsibility for the attack. The Russians vigorously deny the claims, saying that there was no trace of explosives found in the wreckage.

Russian investigators strongly denied the claim by Riyadus Salikhiin, a militant group with roots in Chechnya, that it had hit the power station as part of a new campaign of "economic war" in Russia.

The claim was posted on a rebel website, Kavkazcenter.com, which said it received a statement by email. There was no way to check the veracity but Russian officials said Monday's tragedy at Russia's biggest hydroelectric plant was caused by a technical fault and there was no evidence of an attack.

"Russian security service explosives experts have found no trace of explosive material at the site of the accident," said Vladimir Markin, spokesman for the investigative committee of the state prosecutor.

"Various theories for the cause of the accident are under investigation. However there has been no confirmation of the theory of a terrorist act," he said, according to news agencies.

It would make sense for an Islamic terror group to claim responsibility, even if they had nothing to do with it since it would burnish their credibility among other terror groups and serve to enhance their recruitment efforts. However, at present there's no way to know for sure if they managed to infiltrate the Russian hydropower facility. If they did, it would reveal a serious breach in Russian national security, and one that should raise similar questions elsewhere in the world.

NIMBY Strikes Again

This supposed study by Ocean County in New Jersey claims that the county will lose $400 million in tourism money if a proposed wind farm project is built.

Ocean County could lose nearly $400 million in tourism revenues if a pilot project with wind turbines is placed 3 nautical miles off its coast, a new state-funded study says.

But a wind farm farther offshore would have a much lower impact and would have a minimal economic impact overall if it were built off Ocean, Atlantic or Cape May counties. It could have a positive effect in some cases, according to the study by Global Insight, hired by the now-defunct New Jersey Commerce Commission.

A project with dozens of wind turbines could be operating from 3 to 20 nautical miles off the coastline, from Seaside Park to Stone Harbor, in 2012. But most current proposals are for wind farms 8 to 18 miles off Atlantic or Cape May counties.

"Basically, one coastal county gets to be the sacrificial lamb, and I would ask which county freeholder director is going to step forward to volunteer his county to shift their tourism revenues to the next county over," said Tim Dillingham, executive director of the American Littoral Society, a Sandy Hook-based coastal conservation group.

New Jersey is dragging its feet over this plan, and there's absolutely no evidence that these wind farm projects will affect tourism.

Plus, if you market it right, it could be a tourism draw - showing that wind power projects are not the eyesores that the opposition claims and produces clean and abundant renewable energy.

I suspect this study's authors had a preconceived notion that it would affect tourism, and came to the appropriate conclusion.

Of course, if they moved the wind farms further offshore, the affect on tourism decreased significantly. Moving the wind farm to six miles offshore would reduce the effects tremendously.

Again, we see the forces of NIMBY (not in my backyard) coming into play here, as local officials do not want these wind power projects in their areas, even though they claim that they want to go green. Other New Jersey communities have already imposed severe restrictions that all but ban wind power turbines in their communities, including Wayne, New Jersey.

Meanwhile, Glenn Reynolds notes that hydropower is clean and green. The projects suggested in that article are indeed green and have the potential to help local communities produce power. However, there are significant bureaucratic hurdles, to say nothing of the eco-leftists who will come out of the woodwork to claim that various hydropower projects destroy habitat and they call for the elimination of dams or put such severe restrictions on hydropower so as to make it impossible. Closer to home, there's been opposition to the East River hydropower project because some wonder whether the underwater turbines will turn the fish into sushi and that project has had several technological setbacks preventing it from reaching its peak efficiency.