42GW hydro scheme in DR Congo

[dan_b]

This is huge.

[nowty]

The problem with these mega dam schemes in areas with scarce water supplies is the risk of Water Wars breaking out. For example Egypt has threatened Ethiopia over its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

Climate change is also going to make droughts and floods more extreme, so what may seem OK today may not be OK in 20 years time.

[dan_b]

And also, it forces these countries down the route of very large centralised generation, and transmission, infrastructure - which may not be the best thing for such a large continent as Africa with many countries at differing levels of development.

[Stinsy]

$80 billion buys a lot of solar panels that could be distributed to the communities where power is needed. It is also $1000 for every man, woman and child living in DRC, a country where the average salary s below $400 a year.

[Mr Gus]

That's a lot of solar & wind turbines, deployed with a lot less hassle maintaining it into the future.

Kariba dam that my father worked on is running at about 25% flow capacity, is in urgent need of expensive repair or else the whole region could be on the receiving end of a catastrophic failure, the basalt layer it was built on has eroded massively due to undermining of the spillway.

Wonder how that will be paid for?