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Deploy diverse renewables to save tropical rivers

A strategic mix of solar, wind and storage technologies around river basins would be safer and cheaper than building large dams, argue Rafael J. P. Schmitt, Noah Kittner and colleagues.
  1. Rafael J. P. Schmitt

    1. Rafael J. P. Schmitt is a postdoctoral fellow at the Natural Capital Project, Department of Biology and the Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.

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  2. Noah Kittner

    1. Noah Kittner is a senior researcher in the Group for Sustainability and Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.

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  3. G. Mathias Kondolf

    1. G. Mathias Kondolf is a professor of environmental planning in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning and co-director of Global Metropolitan Studies, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA.

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  4. Daniel M. Kammen

    1. Daniel M. Kammen is a professor of energy in the Energy and Resources Group, the Goldman School of Public Policy, and the Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA.

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A man adjusts the propeller on a micro hydro turbine in the flow of the Nam Ou River at Ban Sop Kha, Laos.

A microhydro turbine on the Nam Ou River in Laos generates electricity for nearby villages. Credit: Ethan Welty/Cavan Images/Alamy

Demand for clean energy is soaring across developing nations in Africa, South America and southeast Asia. Governments from Myanmar to Brazil face hard decisions. Should they invest billions of dollars in tried-and-tested hydropower, damming yet more rivers to generate electricity? Or should they spend on emerging solar, wind and energy-storage technologies, the costs of which have plummeted in the past decade?

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Nature 569, 330-332 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01498-8

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