a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by mk
mk  ·  2948 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1m people

Is anyone relocating?

There should be an international effort to either relocate people, or fix this dam.





WanderingEng  ·  2948 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Or retire the dam. I think the rock has been an issue since day one.

rrrrr  ·  2948 days ago  ·  link  ·  

From the article:

    A second structure, the Badush dam, was started 20km downstream, to prevent a catastrophe in the event of the Mosul dam’s failure. But work on Badush halted in the 1990s because of the pressure of sanctions, leaving it only 40% complete.
kleinbl00  ·  2948 days ago  ·  link  ·  

750MW, though. That's about 7% of their electrical grid capacity, which is already 40% too low.

WanderingEng  ·  2948 days ago  ·  link  ·  

That's one of those politically impossible situations. Either cause a small disaster now (less access to energy) or let a big disaster happen later. I suppose that explains why they used to do (and needed to continue) so much grouting. Anything to keep the energy flowing.

hyperflare  ·  2948 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's a pretty clear-cut problem, though. Replace the machines and teams, finish the replacement dam ASAP, retire this dam.

The problem is more about policitical will - like most of them.

rjw  ·  2945 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Also how do you find people willing to do it? They're pretty near a city held by Daesh.

hyperflare  ·  2941 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I assume the same way they secured it last time, stationing coalition forces there. Not that that's going to happen.

mk  ·  2948 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yes, that's probably the best solution.

DERPALERT  ·  2948 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Kind of hard to do near a war zone