FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ETHIOPIA'S BIGGEST HYDRO-ELECTRIC DAM

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INTERESTING FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ETHIOPIA'S BIGGEST HYDRO-ELECTRIC (GERD) DAM


https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethi ... SKBN1XG21L


¶Ethiopia has built a giant hydropower dam, (GERD) on the Blue Nile and started holding back the water flow to fill the reservoir behind it for a second year.

¶When completed, GERD dam can give electricity to 75% of Africans.

¶The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is the source of an almost decade-long diplomatic standoff between Ethiopia and downstream nations Egypt and Sudan.

¶The $4bn GERD was announced in early 2011 as Egypt was in political upheaval.

¶It is the centrepiece of Ethiopia’s bid to become Africa’s biggest power exporter, with a projected capacity of more than 6,000 megawatts.

¶Though construction has been hit by delays, Ethiopia began filling the reservoir behind the dam in 2020.

¶This initial two-year stage of filling is expected to bring the water level in the reservoir to 595 metres out of an eventual 632 metres.

¶Once it is finalised it will become Africa’s largest hydroelectric power generator and the world’s seventh-largest dam, according to reports in Ethiopia’s state media

¶Egypt is worried the dam will affect the overall flow of the Nile River and together with fellow downriver country Sudan brought the issue to the UN Security Council in a bid to get a binding deal on the dam’s operation.

¶Egypt has based its share of the river’s waters on a 1959 deal that gave it 55.5 billion cubic metres of water annually, and Sudan 18.5 billion cubic metres.

¶Other countries were not given allocations at that time and Ethiopia does not recognise the agreement.

¶Egypt, which has a rapidly growing population of more than 100 million, relies on the Nile for at least 90 percent of its freshwater.

¶Egypt, The largely desert country is already short of water. It imports about half its food products and recycles about 25 billion cubic metres of water annually.

¶Egypt is most worried about the risk of drought conditions such as those that occurred in the late 1970s and early ’80s, and has pushed for Ethiopia to fill the reservoir over a longer period if needed and guarantee minimum flows.

¶If water flows are restricted in drought conditions Egypt says it could lose more than one million jobs and $1.8bn in economic production annually, though it acknowledges such a scenario is unlikely.

¶Ethiopia, with a population of more than 110 million, accuses Egypt of trying to maintain a colonial-era grip over the Nile’s waters by imposing rules over the dam’s filling and operation.

¶Ethiopia also says the power produced by the huge hydroelectric project is indispensable for its development.

¶Both sides(Ethiopia and Egypt) have blamed each other for negotiations repeatedly stalling.

¶Ethiopia believes African problems should be solved by African Union(AU).

¶While the African Union has facilitated recent efforts, Sudan and Egypt have called for the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations to mediate directly.

¶Ethiopia has resisted this, saying that diplomacy outside the AU process was “demeaning” to the African body’s efforts.

¶However, Sudan is concerned about the safety of the dam, which lies just on the other side of its border with Ethiopia.

¶Khartoum has called for information sharing in order to minimise the effect on its own dams and water stations, and took precautionary measures at its own dams before the GERD’s second filling, citing a lack of data from Ethiopia



Egypt has never over the years appreciated the countries who allowed Egypt to use the water as careless as they want. They built the Aswan dam with no objections from other countries. I am not sure how Sudan sees itself in this to align themselfs with Egypt. Both countries actually have used the water more for irrigation than any other nation and now the first to cry foul


Will it collapse? A catastrophic failure of the second Ethiopian dam filling with 3 billion cubic meters of water, as it originally planned to fill 13 billion. Six gates have now been opened from the Sudanese Al-Rusairis reservoir to pass the water coming from Ethiopia

[Tallest_Skil]

Hopefully Egypt blows up the dam and exterminates the Ethiopians.

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No country should relieve on one source for anything. Egypt needs to get it together.