The DOI matches its Crossref record; 42 of the 42 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Should we build more large dams? The actual costs of hydropower megaproject development
Open accessAbstract
A brisk building boom of hydropower mega-dams is underway from China to Brazil. Whether benefits of new dams will outweigh costs remains unresolved despite contentious debates. We investigate this question with the "outside view" or "reference class forecasting" based on literature on decision-making under uncertainty in psychology. We find overwhelming evidence that budgets are systematically biased below actual costs of large hydropower dams - excluding inflation, substantial debt servicing, environmental, and social costs. Using the largest and most reliable reference data of its kind and multilevel statistical techniques applied to large dams for the first time, we were successful in fitting parsimonious models to predict cost and schedule overruns. The outside view suggests that in most countries large hydropower dams will be too costly in absolute terms and take too long to build to deliver a positive risk-adjusted return unless suitable risk management measures outlined in this paper can be affordably provided. Policymakers, particularly in developing countries, are advised to prefer agile energy alternatives that can be built over shorter time horizons to energy megaprojects.
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Cites
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Cited by
A global boom in hydropower dam construction
Zarfl, C., Lumsdon, A. E., Berlekamp, J., Tydecks, L., & Tockner, K. (2015) · Aquatic Sciences · doi:10.1007/s00027-014-0377-0 · Cited by 2,181
Balancing hydropower and biodiversity in the Amazon, Congo, and Mekong
Winemiller, K. O., McIntyre, P. B., Castello, L., Fluet-Chouinard, E., Giarrizzo, T., Nam, S., Baird, I. G., Darwall, W., Lujan, N. K., Harrison, I., et al. (2016) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aac7082 · Cited by 1,569
Anthropogenic stresses on the world’s big rivers
Best, J. (2019) · Nature Geoscience · doi:10.1038/s41561-018-0262-x · Cited by 1,315
Damming the rivers of the Amazon basin
Latrubesse, E. M., Arima, E. Y., Dunne, T., Park, E., Baker, V. R., d’Horta, F. M., Wight, C., Wittmann, F., Zuanon, J., Baker, P. A., et al. (2017) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature22333 · Cited by 838
Self-citationKuriqi, A., Pinheiro, A. N., Sordo-Ward, A., Bejarano, M. D., & Garrote, L. (2021) · Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.rser.2021.110833 · Cited by 555
Metadata
- Authors
- Ansar, A., Flyvbjerg, B., Budzier, A., & Lunn, D.
- Venue
- Energy Policy
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2014-06
- Volume
- 69
- Pages
- 43-56
- ISSN
- 2331-8422 (ISSN-L)
- 0301-4215
- OpenAlex
- W3123521572
- Cited by
- 733
- References
- 42
- Type
- posted content
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
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