Latin America
Related: About this forumChile rejects huge hydro-electric project in Patagonia
10 June 2014 Last updated at 13:47 ET
Chile rejects huge hydro-electric project in Patagonia
The Chilean government has rejected what would have been the biggest energy project in the country's history.
The HidroAysen project would have seen five huge dams built on two rivers in a beautiful part of Patagonia.
"This project has many aspects that were poorly thought out," said Energy Minister Maximo Pacheco.
Environmentalists celebrated the decision, saying the project would have had a devastating impact on the area's ecosystem.
"These giant dams would have put at risk the wilderness, traditional culture, and local tourism economy of this remarkable region," said Amanda Maxwell, Latin America project director at the Natural Resources' Defence Council.
Thousands of people had protested against the HidroAysen project.
Environment Minister Pablo Badenier said HidroAysen had made insufficient provision for those who would have been displaced, and the quantification of damage to the environment and wildlife were inadequate.
More:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-27788286
[center]
The people of Chile have been struggling so hard for years to save this beautiful land. [/center]
eppur_se_muova
(36,317 posts)Wild should wild remain.
Judi Lynn
(160,656 posts)dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)HidroAysén is owned by a corporation which is a joint venture between Endesa (a subsidiary of Italian conglomerate ENEL), with a 51% stake and by Colbún S.A. which owns the other 49%.[2]
The dams were approved on May 9, 2011 under the government of President Sebastián Piñera.[3] The decision was made by eleven counselors on a committee. Ten voted in favor, with one abstention.[4] Twenty-seven days earlier the Foreign Investment Committee was already aware of the decision ahead of time.[5] The transmission line is yet to be approved.[citation needed] If completed these companies would own 80% of the Chilean energy market together establishing a duopoly.[6] The project was placed on hold in early June 2012 due to protests.[7]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HidroAys%C3%A9n
Twenty-seven days earlier the Foreign Investment Committee was already aware of the decision ahead of time........
Judi Lynn
(160,656 posts)Thank you for adding some depth here.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Judi Lynn
(160,656 posts)It is a deeply held belief that Patagonia should be left as it is, as the Spaghetti Monster intended it! It is breathtaking, and also the same area where they've discovered so many wildly ancient dinosaur and other fossils, a truly incredible, wonderful place.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)We lose too much when we dam up the wild rivers.
Judi Lynn
(160,656 posts)delrem
(9,688 posts)The story _Hothouse_ by Brian Aldiss, which I read when I was approx. 12 yrs old and which remains forever imprinted on my imagination.
I have no clue about the plausibility of the physics but _Hothouse_ is the story of Earth's end times according as entropy I guess, when the Sun is way older and natural gravitational/momentum forces have put the Moon in a geostatic orbit around the Earth, and like the Moon does today w.r.t. Earth, Earth always faces one way to the Sun. Aldiss imagines the habitable part of the planet to be a hothouse and where life has evolved accordingly (at least insomuch as required to tell his tale), and that there have evolved giant spiders that spin webs between the Earth and the Moon. The humans, the heroes of the story, have regressed technologically and in all such ways, and they live in a tree, the single tree that dominates the entire habitable portion of the planet. The story is an adventure tale of wonder for youth as it follows the young heroes (there are no "elders" of one clan.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Judi Lynn
(160,656 posts)Chile rejects $8 billion HidroAysen dam in Patagonia
Luis Andres Henao, The Associated Press
Published Tuesday, June 10, 2014 7:14PM EDT
SANTIAGO, Chile -- Chile's government rejected an $8 billion proposal to dam Patagonian rivers to meet the country's growing energy demands, handing a victory to environmentalists who praised Tuesday's ruling as a landmark moment.
A ministerial commission rejected the HidroAysen plan, which would have tamed two of the world's wildest rivers and built more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometres) of power lines to supply energy to central Chile.
After a three-hour meeting, Chile's ministers of agriculture, energy, mining, economy and health voted unanimously to reject the project. The committee "decided to side with complaints presented by the community," Environment Minister Pablo Badenier told reporters. "As of now, the hydroelectric project has been rejected."
The project would have built five dams on the Baker and Pascua rivers in Aysen, a mostly roadless region of southern Patagonia where rainfall is nearly constant and rivers plunge from Andean glaciers to the Pacific Ocean through green valleys and fjords.
Patricio Rodrigo, executive secretary of the Patagonia Defence Council, called the decision "the greatest triumph of the environmental movement in Chile."
More:
http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/chile-rejects-8-billion-hidroaysen-dam-in-patagonia-1.1862505#ixzz34HmakkXI