Damning Dams

Great report on the economics of dams.  Flyvbjerg is the expert at looking at megaprojects.  Link to the article - summary:

"We find that even before accounting for negative impacts on human society and environment, the actual construction costs of large dams are too high to yield a positive return,” a new report states. “Large dams also take inordinately long periods of time to get built, making them ineffective in resolving urgent energy crises.” Simply put, dams don’t just destroy the environment and impoverish local communities. They also don’t make economic sense.

The new report was prepared by researchers from Oxford University and is based on the most comprehensive economic analysis of large dams ever undertaken. The peer-reviewed scientific study offers a devastating verdict on the economics of large dams, and has important implications for future energy sector planning.

Over four years, the authors of the new study –  Atif Ansar, Bent Flyvbjerg, Alexander Budzier and Daniel Lunn – analyzed all large dams which were built between 1934 and 2007 for which reliable costs and schedule figures are available. Their database includes 245 projects in 65 countries with a total cost of US$353 billion (in 2010 prices)."