COLÓN, Argentina — Darío Larrosa was 15 when he learned to drive a motorboat. Decades later, he still loves taking tourists fishing along the Uruguay River’s sandy shores aboard Abuela Elisa, the boat he named after his grandmother. He does ask the lucky anglers who catch something to release the fish, to help maintain the river’s fish stocks. But Larrosa and the wider community in Colón, a tourist resort in Argentina’s Entre Ríos province, are worried that a major green energy project rising on the Uruguayan side of the river could undermine riverine ecosystems and local livelihoods. In Uruguay, communities in Paysandú, a city 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) south of the project, have also put up resistance, despite promises of jobs and economic growth. Planned to become operational in 2026, the Paysandú e-fuels facility is a $6 billion project by Chile-based company HIF Global aiming to produce about 700,000 metric tons of e-methanol annually using green hydrogen. The 1GW-capacity facility is one of four major hydrogen initiatives in the country, as Uruguay seeks to further decarbonize its economy and export green hydrogen. The nation is already supplying 99% of its electricity from renewables and wants to become carbon neutral by 2050. According to Uruguay’s Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining (MIEM), developing the green hydrogen industry could bring the country $1.9 billion per year and create more than 30,000 jobs. The Uruguay River runs for more than 1,800 km (1,120 mi), from Brazil’s Serra do Mar mountains to the Río…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed