A plan to build a gigantic dam across the mouth of the Red Sea that could generate huge amounts of clean, renewable energy has been condemned by experts who say it would wreak untold ecological ruin.
The scheme proposed to part the Red Sea with a massive wall more than 150 metres high, one kilometre thick and 100 km long, stretching between Yemen in the north and either Eritrea or Djibouti in the south. Details of the proposed dam are published in the current issue of International Journal of Global Environmental Issues (DOI: 10.1504/IJGENVI.2007.016114).
It is suggested in the study of this scheme that such a dam would yield more than twice the energy of China’s Three Gorges Dam, which spans the Yangtze River in central China. It is said that it would generate some 50 gigawatts has been termed "heliohydroelectric" power. It works by allowing the sun to lower the water level inside the dam through evaporation. Water allowed back into the closed sea then turns turbines to generate electricity.
Scientists are under massive debats of this macro-engeering feat and there are many theories of failure and ecological disaster.
For the full story read this link at New Scientist.
