Destabilizing Egypt; Ethiopia’s Nile River Dam

Sep 14, 2017 | Thomas C. Mountain
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Ethiopia’s new “ Grand Renaissance Dam”, scheduled to be completed next year, will take close to half (40%) of the Nile River’s water every year for the next 5 years as it fills up. How is Egyptian President Al Sisi going to survive for the next 5 years without almost half the Nile’s water when the country is presently suffering serious water and hydroelectric shortages, never mind crippling inflation, growing hunger and a terrorist insurgency? So far the world thinks that somehow, some way, Egypt, almost 100 million people and growing, already on shaky ground economically, will find a way to survive something that the country has not faced in over two thousand years, almost a half less water from the river Nile for 5 years straight. And what if a drought hits the Ethiopian highlands, the source of the Nile River, with chances are this happening at least once in the next 5 years with the accelerating global warming trend, and Egypt loses over half of its water? If international opinion turns out to be wrong, and that cutting Egypt’s water by nearly half for 5 years is not survivable, then an enormous explosion is brewing in Egypt, the Arab world’s biggest country, this huge explosion being brought about by the construction of Ethiopia’s massive dam generating 6,000 MW of electricity, something that Ethiopia doesn’t even have the infrastructure to use.