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Climate science

Renewable but not carbon-free

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Hydroelectric energy is renewable, but reservoirs contribute to climate change by releasing carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere. A global estimate suggests that young reservoirs in low latitudes produce the largest emissions.

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Figure 1: Schematic methane emission pathways from a hydroelectric reservoir.

Change history

  • 17 August 2011

    In the version of this News & Views originally published online, the first sentence of the final paragraph should have read 'Barros and colleagues3 indicate that greenhouse gas fluxes from artificial lakes might be slightly lower than estimated previously'. This error has now been corrected in all versions of the text.

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Wehrli, B. Renewable but not carbon-free. Nature Geosci 4, 585–586 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1226

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