News

Damming the Red Sea could alleviate growing energy demands in the Middle East, engineers say, but such a massive project could also have untold ecological impacts, like those brought about by other major dams worldwide.

Scientists and policy makers have recently been exploring more ways to provide people with energy and electricity without using fossil fuels, which are driving Earth's rising temperature.

One fossil-free way to make electricity is to dam a river. But an entire sea?

In a new study, Roelof Dirk Schuiling of Utrecht University in the Netherlands and his colleagues examined the possibility of damming the Red Sea to feed the growing energy demands of surrounding Middle Eastern countries through hydroelectric power. While such a huge project could significantly reduce fossil fuel use, and therefore cut greenhouse gas emissions, it could also cause irrevocable damage to local wildlife and displace people from their homes, the researcher conclude.

A March 2007 report by the World Wide Fund for Nature noted the impact of dams on the ecologies of the Nile, Danube, Rio Grande, South America's La Plata, Australia's Murray-Darling and Asia's Yangtze, Mekong, Salween, and Ganges rivers, including damage to fish habitats and loss of wetlands.