Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

A 2000 report by the World Commission on Dams showed a huge fall in popularity, leading some to declare the era of the dam was over. Almost two decades on and they are enjoying something of a renaissance. Andrew Tunnicliffe speaks with Professor Benjamin Sovacool about the impact dams have on the socioeconomics of a country and why corruption is often rife.

What does the future hold for the world's largest renewable energy source, hydropower? Hydropower is an incredibly old source of energy, tracing its usage back to the watermills that have been a staple of civilisations since ancient times. Today, it is the largest source of renewable energy in the world, with an installed capacity of over 1126GW in 2018. Hydropower is particularly prominent in China, where the world's largest power station Three Gorges power plant in Hubei province produces 22.5GW. Other massive projects also dot the country, including the Xilodu (12.3GW) and Longtan (6.3GW) dams.

A host of new technologies have been inspired by the natural world, as designers increasingly look to biomimicry when to creating new ideas for wind turbines, solar cells and hydropower. So could nature hold the answer to unlocking renewable energy?