Dam it

I'm going to take a different approach in this post and look at a project which is deemed 'renewable' but has encountered numerous problems. I'm going to look at the human rights issues involved as well as some pollution concerns. 

China's Three Gorges Dam (TGD) is the largest and and most controversial integrated project the world has ever seen. It was designed to meet China's ever growing energy demands as their position as a global superpower grows by the day. The turbines in the dam are designed (and hoped) to produce 85,000GWh annually of electricity, which at the time of design (1993) was 10% of total electricity consumed in China. However as China economy has grown so has it's need for electricity and in 2013 that figure now stands at ~0.02% (CEAP, 2010).

However it has caused countless problems for all those associated with the project. In some cases the dam has been a cause of great devastation including the destruction of both the environment and rich cultural heritage of the Yangtze River Valley, but it had also spurred a greater concern for the protection and conservation of both the environment and the way of life for many Chinese people. 

With such a large construction project and inundation of such a wide expanse of land, relocation posed an extreme challenge to the Chinese government. After factoring in population growth the number could reach 1.9million people (Wu et al., 2003). The relocation estimates have been much lower than the actual population and the current projections do not take into account the population upstream which will affected by siltation or the population of subsistence farmers downstream which rely on the river's disposition to replenish their soils on the floodplain (WSJ, 2007). 
Many residents were relocated to plots of land which were smaller and less fertile than the land they vacated. This along with farmers who were relocated to the city who lacked adequate skills to find alternative employment. Adequate compensation schemes were set up, however corruption and embezzlement of funds by local politicians has meant that the people displaced have not received any compensation funds (WSJ, 2007).

Pollution

A major cause for the pollution concern is the slowing of the river velocity which allows pollutants to collect behind the dam instead of being diluted and washed down the river. This can increase eutrophication. Moreover, the filling of the reservoir will imply the flooding of ~1,300 factories and mines, ~4,000 hospitals, ~40,000 graveyards and ~200 garbage dumping sites, with the subsequent migration of toxics including arsenic, sulphides, cyanides and mercury from these sources tot he reservoir water (Lopez-Pujol and Ponsetti, 2006). 

There are countless other probelms ranging from sedimentation, erosion, landslides, earthquakes, emissions... the list is vast.

When I first investigated the TGD during my undergraduate years, I was shocked at the number of people (comparatively the population of Birmingham) that had been displaced as a result and the sheer amount of back-handed corruption which has taken place since.
It goes to show that sometimes, there is a massive price to pay for mitigation and renewable energy schemes and it genuinely makes one wonder if it is worth it especially at it produces such a small amount of electricity compared to total consumed.