Pink Sea Dam – Wikipedia

Speculative macro-engineering proposal

Dam in Djibouti, Yemen

The Pink Sea dam is a speculative macro-engineering proposal put ahead in 2007 by a bunch of scientists and engineers.^[1] Though the authors’ intentions are to discover “the moral and environmental dilemmas and a few of the political implications of macro-engineering”, the proposal has attracted each criticism and mock.^[2]

Proposal[edit]

The thought is to dam the Red Sea at its southern finish the place the Bab-al-Mandab Strait is simply 29 km (18 mi) broad. Pure evaporation would quickly decrease the extent of the enclosed Pink Sea. The dam would additionally decrease the Pink Sea by about 2.1 meters per 12 months (6.8 toes per 12 months).^[3] Water dashing again into the ocean would then drive generators to generate electrical energy. The dam would have the potential to generate 50 gigawatts of emissions-free hydroelectric energy. Compared, the biggest nuclear energy plant in the US has an output of three.2 gigawatts.^[4]

Implications[edit]

The proposal’s authors level out that “Macro-engineering initiatives of this measurement trigger huge destruction of present ecologies”, some extent emphasised by critics^[5] who observe the harm attributable to present, far smaller schemes.

The authors additionally observe the advantages of the venture. In addition to serving to to fulfill the area’s rising vitality wants, there are environmental advantages to the scheme: “On the constructive aspect of the environmental scale, nonetheless, are the large reductions of greenhouse gasoline emissions, and the diminished tempo of fossil hydrocarbon useful resource exhaustion“.

Influential scientists corresponding to Peter Bosshard,^[6] coverage director of International Rivers in California, condemned the scheme as ludicrous.