Democratic Republic of Congo wants to build the world's largest dam.

[rah]

agreed, better spread the money around.

[Elok]

Well I'll be dammed. How much economic benefit will this provide to the country, once the dam funds are spent on drugs, floozies and cars? Do they buy entirely foreign products, or will some of the cash trickle down to the poor bastards living in huts?

[Dinner]

Of course that means fossil fuels instead of nonpolluting hydro power. I'm a little torn.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Of course that means fossil fuels instead of nonpolluting hydro power. I'm a little torn.

Hydro power apparently isn't that clean :

http://www.reuk.co.uk/Hydro-Contributes-to-Global-Warming.htm

[Colonâ„¢]

From the Library of Congress Country Studies (can't provide a direct link):

The massive Inga I and Inga II hydroelectric facilities also created a severe drain on Zairian resources. The project was initially scheduled for completion in 1978 but was not finished until 1982. The load forecast used to justify the project was based on overly optimistic expectations of copper price rises, mining expansion, and rapid expansion of the economy generally. Its cost was estimated at US$2 billion in 1983 prices, financed by the United States Export-Import Bank and the governments of Italy and Sweden. But cost overruns and underestimated management costs for foreign managers turned cheap power into expensive electricity as Zaire struggled under the heavy debt burden incurred to build and maintain the project. In 1990 Inga II generated only 14 percent of its total capacity. A planned free-trade zone and a Swiss aluminum refinery near the dam had also failed to materialize.

Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inga-Shaba

You have to situate these dams into the context of the mindset back then, which was that massive silver-bullet schemes would propel African economies to the industrial era. Rather they crumbled under mismanagement, bribery and cronyism, saddling many African countries with debt while at it.

[Sandman]

Too bad the Congolese aren't civ players. Then they'd know that building wonders is pointless if you're in last place.

[Winston]

Democratic Republic of Congo wants to build the world's largest dam.

That's impressive. I didn't even know you could build clams.

[Elok]

Build clams? Huh?

Sandman, are you sure they're in last place? What about North Korea? Or Somalia? I'd better make this an open question: which is the crappiest country on Earth?

[C0ckney]

it would take somewhere pretty crappy to be crappier than the congo.

[Dinner]

It's to bad seziceko and the rest plundered the **** out the Congo because it actually got off to a good start. It wasn't long before all the guys who wanted law and order along with democracy were assassinated or imprisoned though. With decent government its mineral resources and natural wealth could have made it at least equal to most latin American nations.

[Spiffor]

When you're an African government, it's very difficult to have both stability and transparency, if there is massive mineral wealth.

Any ******* with an army (read: the former colonist, a guerilla fueled by any foreign country, a neighbouring country) can claim a mine and make money off it. Thus, unless you bribe pretty much every ambitious person, you'll end up with either a civil or international war over mineral resources.

That's what happened to Congo.
That's what could have happened to Gabon if France and the local dictator weren't so good at bribing, so that the country remains stable (and underdeveloped).
That's what could well happen to Mali now that they have discovered oil there.

I'm all for Congo developing its hydro potential. Unfortunately, such a white elephant will likely result in something stupid. They'd be better off building smaller dams next to their main cities, so that human productivity can bring more prosperity than minerals.

[Barnabas]

Hey, at least we can build our own dams!

Well, Bolivia not, I mean Brazil and Argentina

[OzzyKP]

Such a huge centralized project is very bad for Africa which has very little infrastructure. Sure it could be built, but as past experience shows us, it comes down fairly easy during bad times.

The most promising stuff I've heard about energy in Africa is entirely decentralized solar powered laptops, phones, and other such innovations. I think investing the money into decentralized energy solutions like that is a good idea.

[Alexander I]

I really don't think there's any way they'll be able to pull this off. Not in a hundred years.

[DRoseDARs]

I imagine $80bn would be better spent buying small solar panels for individual homes to provide basic electricity to far more of the poorest in Africa than any single set of power plants with no infrastructure (certainly nothing that would be safe from sabotage during the oh-so-frequent conflicts) to deliver said electricity. There's nothing resembling our Western economies throughout much of Africa and much of the people a dirt poor. They don't need wall outlets to power their plasma tvs, iPods and plug-in hybrids, they need basic access to electricity to power simple lights, small refrigerators for perishables and medicines, fans in the summer and heaters in winter. Forget trying to modernize their economy for now, worry about meeting some very basic needs first. Build from the bottom up, not top down. A little spread around helps a lot more than everything bet on a single project. And given the continent's frequent unrest, losing a single point-source of electricity is far more devastating for the continent as a whole than if the solar panels in a single country in a civil war were destroyed. Minimizes the loss to a smaller area, makes it less expensive to recover and quicker too.