The Canal System of Bolshoy Solovetsky Island
Arcadia, 2014, no. 11
hydroelectric power
World War as a Factor in Energy Transitions: The Case of Canadian Hydroelectricity
Of the many factors that shaped energy transitions in the twentieth century, the World Wars are rarely considered. Yet the dramatic effects of war mobilization on energy systems and the restructuring of supply lines through new geographies of military action and alliance suggest the importance of war as an external shock or crisis with the power to reshape the political economy of energy systems profoundly. Hydroelectricity in Canada during World War II provides one example of this process. The War consolidated and propelled a transition to hydroelectricity, yet the transition was not simple or linear.
Rising Waters: Submersion and Survival in Yung Chang’s Up the Yangtze
Using Yung Chang’s 2007 documentary film Up the Yangtze, Weik von Mossner unravels the power struggles accompanying the construction of the world’s largest hydroelectric power plant—the Three Gorges Dam in China.
Losing the Unruly Stream: Kondopoga and the Kivach Waterfall
Arcadia, 2013, no. 11
Rivers in History: Perspectives on Waterways in Europe and North America
This book presents one of the first comparative histories of rivers on the continents of Europe and North America in the modern age. The contributors examine the impact of rivers on humans and, conversely, the impact of humans on rivers.
Episode 2: "Natural Resource Development in British Columbia"
Tina Loo is talking about hydro-electric development and high modernism and Jonathan Peyton is interviewed on the history of resource conflict in northern British Columbia.
"Postponed Leap in Carbon Dioxide Emissions: The Impact of Energy Efficiency, Fuel Choices, and Industrial Structure on the Finnish Energy Economy, 1800–2005"
Finland first mad the switch from indigenous energy sources—fuel wood, wood refuse, and hydropower—to imported fossil fuels in the 1960s, during a hightened phase of industrialization. This article is an analysis of developments leading up to this change.
Narradores de Javé [The Storytellers]
This drama captures how the inhabitants of Javé, a small village somewhere in Brazil, set out to secure a future for themselves in the face of plans for a hydropower dam that threaten to submerge their village.
"Was Brazilian Industrialisation Fuelled by Wood? Evaluating the Wood Hypothesis, 1900–1960"
Two substantive criticisms of Warren Dean’s ‘wood hypothesis’ are offered here: the wood hypothesis is accurate in general but underestimated the industrial consumption of fossil fuels, without conclusively rejecting the competing ‘hydroelectricity’ hypothesis; the method used for estimating potential energy supply from forest area was erroneous.