Scaling Solutions: Finding Balance Between Hydropower and Rivers in Nepal

Next week Nepal’s Supreme Court will hear a case aimed at moving ahead with the construction of hydroelectric dams on the Karnali River, the country’s last major river that remains undiscovered. The case requires the Court to grapple with a seemingly irreconcilable conflict between two national goals:

(1) Boosting Nepal’s economy with more low-carbon electricity generated from hydroelectric dams on its rivers;

(2) Maintaining healthy, natural rivers is important to a range of cultural traditions and environmental resources – valuable in their own right, but also supports the significant economic potential of nature tourism.

Tough choice, right? Well…unless these are conflicting goals.

Although not easy, they can be reorganized when viewed at the appropriate geographic level. The Supreme Court’s decision may help shift the debate away from the scale of conflict and the scale of solutions.

And on that latter scale, we will see that Nepal can have abundant, low-carbon electricity and A healthy, free-flowing Karnali River.

To explain how, let’s start with the basics. At heart, this is a discussion about how best to use the bounty produced by combining two main ingredients: height and water. The Karnali river has these ingredients in abundance, as does the rest of Nepal.

Elevation and abundance of water are the most important components of hydroelectricity and, in fact, Nepal generates over 95% of its electricity from hydroelectricity. The country also plans to increase its generating capacity several times over the next few years and is looking to hydropower for almost all of that growth.

But altitude and plenty of water are key ingredients for a number of other benefits. The rivers that flow out of the Tibetan plateau carve amazing gorges and have been regarded as sacred springs for thousands of years. In the lower valleys, these rivers recharge the ground water during heavy rains and deliver sediment and nutrients to sustain the production of subsoil agriculture and fisheries. They form a long network of interconnected and complex channels for migratory fish and, when they reach the southern plains of Nepal, they have the potential to create important habitat features for wildlife, from rhinos to river dolphins.

Therefore, when they are created when mixed together, water and altitude are also the main attractions that support nature tourism: walking, fishing, and boating.

These different values—from electricity to canyons to rafting—arise from the alchemy of altitude and water that can coexist on a national scale or even on a river scale. They have difficulty living together on the scale of one river.

A river created by hydroelectricity will be difficult to access for migrating fish. Electricity built in mountain gorges generally creates long stretches of serpentine water sources or, on the contrary, almost waterless areas (due to disturbance). Any changes, when placed at the top of the white water list, are not compatible with world rafting.

The conflicting fates of the Karnali River are at the center of the current Supreme Court case. The Karnali is one of the longest free-flowing rivers in the Himalayas and the last of Nepal’s major rivers without dams. In its current form, the river offers some of the best rafting and kayaking in Asia and provides habitat for migratory fish, including the iconic megafish, the golden masheer. As it flows through the floodplain, the mighty Karnali carves out an intricate mosaic of habitats, including grassy islands and oxbow lakes that are essential to the One-Horned Horned. The lower reaches are also home to endangered gharials and the largest population of river dolphins in Nepal.

These diverse environmental and cultural traditions have encouraged the government, communities, and organizations in the province that shares the river’s name to pursue the vision of “Green Karnali.” Their plans suggest a healthy Karnali River that serves as the heart of regional tourism based on natural and cultural resources that are increasingly rare across Asia, and the world at large.

Acquiring the Green Carnival could position the province to capture a larger share of the world’s growing demand for tourism focused on natural and cultural resources. The Province of Karnali can follow in the footsteps of Costa Rica, which has protected most of its forests and rivers and is now synonymous with nature-based tourism, representing almost 13% of the Gross Domestic Product (before the pandemic) and its main source of foreign exchange. .

But Karnali also has great hydroelectric potential, with several large dams planned on the main river.

The opposing views of the Green Karnali versus the dammed Karnali are now meeting in the Supreme Court, as the Court is hearing a lawsuit brought by the river’s representatives on the basis of Nepal’s constitutional guarantee of citizens’ rights to a healthy environment.

As noted above, when such conflicts collide on the same river field, the competition becomes a worthless game. But if the field can be expanded, say across the country, then a wider range of solutions emerges and legitimate, balanced outcomes are possible.

I was part of a research team that explored this relationship between increasing geographic scale and increasing the ability to find balanced solutions. We assessed a wide range of options for Nepal to meet its future energy needs with low-carbon, low-cost electricity and asked, among these, which options would allow Nepal to retain most of its current renewable resources. in rivers?

In this research, a group of Nepali experts defined “High Conservation Value Rivers” and these rivers were mapped across the country. Not surprisingly, the Karnali has emerged as one of the top ranked rivers based on expert criteria and data compiled to assess the country’s river systems.

Then an energy research team from the University of California, Berkeley, developed an advanced model of the Nepalese grid and simulated ways to meet the projected electricity demand in 2040. The chosen model among the pool of potential investments for production, maintenance and distribution projects to build. active grid; the difference that changed between these options was cost.

Using this model, we can run simulations based on different policy options, such as the option to avoid new hydroelectric dams in certain regions or on certain rivers. The output of the model will tell us how much this policy choice will affect the cost of Nepal’s future energy system.

For example, we found that avoiding building hydroelectric dams in national parks (about one quarter of the proposed dams in Nepal are within park boundaries) could increase the cost of the system by only 2% (the most important factor is the rounding error that cannot be seen as energy development must deal with a range of cost uncertainties that are much larger than the variance).

Importantly in the current Supreme Court case, we have explored the policy option of leaving the core of Karnali intact.

The result? Avoiding the construction of hydropower dams on the main Karnali could have a negative impact on the cost of the energy system in Nepal. This result is possible because: (1) there is such a large pool of potential hydroelectric dams in Nepal that there are many similar hydroelectric alternatives on other rivers, including the already dammed and dammed Karnali; and (2) wind and solar PV—currently the cheapest forms of electricity generation in many parts of the world—are deteriorating in Nepal.

This survey provides a very optimistic view for the people of Nepal. Their country can maintain different values ​​of the Karnali – with the river serving as an economically important “Green Karnali” destination –and Its energy economy is cheap, low carbon electricity.

This national approach to balancing electricity and healthy rivers will allow Nepal to envision a sustainable future, with a clean and green energy system.

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