Environmental and Social Impacts of Hydroelectric Dams in Brazilian Amazonia: Implications for the Aluminum Industry

Philip Fearnside

World Development, 2016, vol. 77, issue C, 48-65

Abstract: Aluminum smelting consumes large amounts of electricity and helps drive dam-building worldwide. Brazil plans to build dozens of hydroelectric dams in its Amazon region and in neighboring countries. Benefits are much less than is portrayed, partly because electricity is exported in electro-intensive products such as aluminum, creating little employment in Brazil. Dams perversely affect politics and social policies. Aluminum export offers an example of how a rethinking of energy use needs to be the starting point for revising energy policy. Dam impacts have been systematically underestimated, including population displacement and loss of livelihood (especially fisheries), biodiversity loss, and greenhouse-gas emissions.

Keywords: aluminum industry; Amazonia; energy policy; global warming; hydroelectric dams; Brazil (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (28)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X15001965
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:77:y:2016:i:c:p:48-65

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2015.08.015

Access Statistics for this article

World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes

More articles in World Development from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().