A recent analysis has shown that the the Dam that would cover 90% of the Tapanuli orangutan population has had the prospects of positive outcomes hugely hyped by it’s backers, and minimising negative facts about the Dam have been buried.
The region is already well connected to the grid with almost all Communities already served. Due to the astounding amount of Forest that would be lost if this damn were to be created, if it were to ever reduce carbon emissions it would take many decades if not centuries for the carbon cost of the dam to be offset by the electricity it creates. Given that in order to stop catastrophic climate change we need to be cutting carbon emissions now it will not help in this fight whatsoever.
What little rainforest will be left with also be heavily under threat as the company who was building the Dam has done poor work in the past and said they would be a fear that the Dam would collapse and destroy the rainforest below it.
Any detractors who read this report should bear in mind that all the many many large projects being undertaken in Indonesia and Sumatra this is the only one that the analysis suggests should not go ahead. This is by no means a report saying Sumatra may not advance, it is merely saying that the classes of this damn are substantially less than claimed and their negatives are far greater and that therefore it should not have been greenlit.