21/06/2020
Damming the Nile
When the late Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi unveiled his plan to build Africa?s largest hydroelectric power plant in 2011, he gave it a title in keeping with its ambition. Nearly a decade and $4.8-billion later, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is nearly complete. And so, Meles might argue, is Ethiopia?s rebirth as a continental superpower. Nestled deep in the Blue Nile Valley, not far from the border with Sudan, the dam is an extraordinary construction: 155 metres high and 1 780 metres long, with a reservoir that can hold 72-billion litres of water and 16 turbines that will be able generate 6 000 megawatts of power ? more than double Ethiopia?s current capacity. It is the eighth...
