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O texto a seguir é um e-mail em resposta a um artigo escrito em um jornal. Traduza o e-mail do inglês para o português sem que haja perda de sentido de uma língua para outra. O texto deve ter adequação lexical e gramatical, e a estrutura do gênero deve ser respeitada.

 

Hydropower projects offer exceptional value for money

 

March 17, 2014 10:48 pm

 

From Mr Richard Taylor.

 

Sir,

 

Contrary to the negative findings of the Oxford study on the cost of hydropower dams (“Warning on high cost of large dams”, March 10), major hydropower projects offer exceptional value for money for many developing countries.

 

For example, the Itaipu dam in Brazil and Paraguay criticised in the report generates almost 100 terawatt hours of electricity annually – more than the total electricity consumption of Belgium, Austria or Switzerland. All debts have been scheduled to be paid by 2023, as set out in the original 1973 binational treaty, and revenues generated from the project (as of 2012) already exceed $63.2bn – almost six times the actual cost of construction. This includes more than $10bn paid as government royalties.

 

While accusing others of being either “fools” or “liars”, the authors of the report have taken historical data relating to construction estimates and compared them with eventual total project costs, not taking into account the operating life, efficiencies and multiple services of hydropower schemes. All large infrastructure projects take time to construct, and cost and time overruns do occur. To demonise a key renewable energy technology on this basis does the authors’ institution a disservice.

 

Governments in developing countries turn to major hydropower projects for their energy needs because the resource is local, the technology reliable, the scale considerable and the resulting electricity price economical and predictable. That there have been cost overruns with dams has been well publicised long before this research – but the fact that governments of developing countries continue to turn to this reliable source of clean energy shows that the advantages can greatly outweigh the challenges.

 

Richard Taylor, Executive Director, International Hydropower Association, Sutton, Surrey, UK.

(Fonte: www.ft.com (Financial Times) <http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/078f5002-a924-11e3-9b71-00144feab7de.html#ixzz3i6EPs5ef>.)