Week 148 of our regular morning feature here at Friedman of the Plains Worldwide in which we highlight the great words and works of great men and women, as well as those who are insufferable, delusional, and even fictional.

Your Morning Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

“The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you
Don’t go back to sleep!
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep!
People are going back and forth
across the doorsill where the two worlds touch,
The door is round and open
Don’t go back to sleep!

I have been writing for the EXPLORER, The American Association of Petroleum Geologists’ Magazine, for decades, thanks first to my dear, dear friend Vern Stefanic, its former editor, who decided I could add something to the journal without knowing much about petroleum geology — and also, mostly, I think, because he wanted to help feed my family— and, now, to current editor Brian Ervin, who, like Vern, is uber familiar with my ignorance of hydrocarbons but throws me two, three stories a month to cover anyway.

As for this piece, I met Zijian in a park this past summer in Coimbra, Portugal. Melissa had lost her cell and when we went back to the bench where we had been, Zijian rode up on her bicycle, holding a phone, and said she was on her way to drop it off at the park’s Lost and Found.

Before handing it over to Melissa, she asked her to unlock it to make sure it was hers.

Zijian is a doctoral student in International Politics and Conflict Resolutions at the University of Coimbra, studying the effects of dams, generally, and hydroelectric power, specifically, on the Laotians, Cambodians, and Vietnamese who live and work along the Mekong River. I told her about AAPG, the Explorer, and while I thought it a long shot, I hoped a story about energy, even hydropower, might be of interest to an oil and gas journal. To Brian’s credit, he agreed and, I can only assume, pushed for it with the mucky-mucks at AAPG.

As it turned out, it is the magazine’s January cover story.

As with most energy sources, hydropower is both under- and over-appreciated and replete both with onerous side-effects and great promise.

“Hydropower,” of course, refers to the process of using the energy of moving or falling water to generate electricity or to power machinery.

According to the International Energy Agency, at present, hydropower’s contribution to the worldwide energy mix is 55-percent higher than that of nuclear power and larger than that of all other renewables combined, including wind, solar, bioenergy, and geothermal.

Specifically, hydropower supplies about 17 percent of global electricity generation, the third largest source after coal and natural gas. Over the last 20 years, thanks to the enormous building of damns, hydropower’s total capacity rose 70 percent globally, even while its share of total generation stayed stable due to the growth of other sources.

While India, Brazil, Canada, and the United States are significant players in the world’s hydropower landscape, China far and away has the world’s largest hydropower capacity. The country, in fact, recently completed the $1.87-billion Fengning Pumped Storage Power Station, the world’s largest pumped-storage facility.

And no place more than the Mekong River – the 12th-longest river and the third-longest in Asia, which runs through Southwest China (where it is officially called the Lancang River), Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and southern Vietnam – exemplifies the complex dynamic of hydroelectric power.

The Promise

The Mekong has the world’s largest inland freshwater fishery industry and is vital to the region’s food security.

Its biological habitat provides diverse livelihoods as well as four fifths of the animal protein for more than 60 million people. All the riparian countries – those on banks of the water, are involved in the construction or support of such dams along along the Mekong’s 3,000 miles.

China – which is building and has built the largest dams, specifically the Nuozhadu and Xiaowan dams – has the largest footprint.

It currently has 11 on the mainstream and dozens on the river’s tributaries. Laos, too, has built on the mainstream and on tributaries. Thailand, meanwhile, invests in Laotian dams, while Cambodia concentrates its activities outside the Mekong River Basin. Its dam, Lower Sesan 2, accounts for 20 percent of the country’s energy needs.

The Downside

While the dams provide cheap electricity, there is a concern that they are destroying the river by altering natural flow, trapping sediment, and fragmenting ecosystems, which lead to a loss of habitat for fish and other aquatic species. Further, the dams can also change water quality, block fish migration, and disrupt the natural process of flooding that replenishes floodplains.

One of the ironies is that while concerns about human-induced climate change have boosted their construction (hydropower is considered a “green” or renewable” energy) many believe dams are actually causing more damage to the environment than the effects of climate change they were supposed to offset. All that water rushing through those turbines of all those dams produce billions of tons of carbon dioxide, with much of these greenhouse gases released in the form of methane.

At least 25 percent of today’s global warming is caused by methane emissions.

“The immediate issue and biggest concern now in the Mekong is the trade-off between economic development and the environmental impacts.”

That’s Zijian Luo, who is working on her doctorate in international politics and conflict resolutions at the University of Coimbra in Portugal and has been studying the intricacies of the cultural, political, and economic dynamics of the Mekong for years.

And all roads, to mix transportation metaphors, lead back to China.

“For instance, China has more privilege in these hydropower projects as the upper Mekong generates more electricity,” she said.

She said that people in the Mekong region in all countries want the social and environmental impacts to be addressed properly, “instead of being downplayed by policymakers who wish to build more hydropower dams.”

Luo believes, as do many others, there is no absolute clean energy or green alternative that will meet people’s needs – and, perhaps more tellingly, in the abundance they need it. Hydropower is no exception, especially in underdeveloped countries where livelihood is mostly sustained by agriculture.

Luo said one of the problems is that dam construction often follows a one-size-fits-all mentality.

“The Mekong states are heavily dependent on foreign funds, mostly from the western countries. Australia and Japan and other European countries are taking a big stake, and the United States also has agreements and projects there too,” she explained.

She said energy policies and models do not always fit the special circumstances of these riparian nations.

“The good practice from the West may not be sustainable in the Mekong in the long run. The knowledge of local communities should be valued,” she said.

Specifically, along the Mekong, dams trap sediment, leading to coastal erosion and nutrient loss in the delta, while their reservoirs flood forests and wetlands.

These changes, in a very real sense, threaten the lives of those downstream.

But of course, the dams provide cheap, reliable energy.

According to a 2022 study by the International Renewable Energy Agency, the global weighted average of electricity of new utility-scale hydropower in 2021 was 11-percent lower than the cheapest new fossil fuel-fired power generation option.

Countries like Laos are building dams that might not even be needed, as they see such construction as a way to generate revenue, power their economy, and become what is being called “the battery of Southeast Asia.”

The Mekong River, according to the Mekong-U.S. Partnership Project, ranks third worldwide for biodiversity and in its study completed in 2021, entitled “Investigating Energy Alternatives to Hydropower,” it found that the anticipated benefits of three proposed Lao dams – Xayaburi, Don Sahong, and Pak Beng – would not make up for losses in fisheries, biodiversity, and livelihoods.

Power and Politics

Luo, who is from China, said those who work and live along the river are opposed to such dam building, but people from different riparian states have uneven power to stop construction in the Mekong region.

“Mass protest is still not a very popular practice in Southeast Asia, and often protesters are running high risk of being arrested,” she said.

The Xayaburi Dam in Laos was protested for years, but was not successfully halted and the dam was finished in 2019.

It is now in operation.

Further, in terms of energy production and footprint, while hydropower does not emit greenhouse gases as, say, fossil fuels do, its high upfront costs, environmental impact from dam construction, and limited expansion potential are drawbacks.

Luo, whose thesis is entitled, “Transnational Environmental Movements and their Impact on Regional International Society in the Mekong River Region,” said her work investigates the transnational networks and grassroots movements on one hand, and on the other, aggregates NGO reports, government and intergovernmental reports, transnational agreements, and conventions regarding the management of the Mekong River to uncover the goals, values, and effects on environmental norms on dams in the region.

The Mekong isn’t the only source of energy or wealth. Mineral resources including gold, copper, lead, zinc, phosphate, potash, oil and gas, coal and gemstones – much of it unexploited – presents explorationists with almost unimaginable possibilities.

Considering electricity demand will rise much faster than overall energy demand in the years ahead, hydropower will play a pivotal role, whether future damn construction continues or not. For people like Luo, it’s important that those tasked with hydropower construction understand that their work cannot be done in a vacuum.

Saying the advantages of hydroelectric power – ethically, culturally, and financially – are often “anthropocentric,” she cautioned: “States are not the only governors of the shared river. The Mekong people should have a say in it as they are the bearers of these politics, too.”

(Nationally recognized Barry Friedman has been an EXPLORER Correspondent for over ten years.)

Week 153 of our regular morning feature here at Friedman of the Plains Worldwide in which we highlight the great words and works of great men and women, as well as those who are insufferable, delusional, and even fictional.

Your Morning Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

“Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river, each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged.”