Ethiopia began work this week on a diversion of the Blue Nile – one of the Nile’s major tributaries – as part of an £8 billion plan to harness the river’s hydroelectric potential.
The centrepiece of the state-sponsored project will be the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, its 6,000 megawatt capacity the equivalent of six nuclear power plants. Complications of engineering mean that the river must first be diverted a few metres in order for construction to continue more easily.
The plan, however, is a controversial one, not least for Egypt and Sudan, who are dependent on the river’s water supply and thus wary about any possible disruption to its flow, either by the diversion or the dam itself. Ethiopia is thought to be the source of 85% of the River Nile’s total water supply, yet Egypt and Sudan claim 90% of its water through a colonial-era agreement.
