Sustainability

Glaciers as a source of energy

Hydroelectric energy production represents an important revenue for the mountainous regions of many countries, including Italy. Glacial melt waters guarantee a supply of great quantities of water even during the summer season, and many reservoirs and hydroelectric plants are directly supplied by glacial streams. In the Italian Alps, many examples can be found in the northern mountainous regions such as Piedmont, the Aosta Valley, Trentino-Alto Adige and Lombardy In some glaciers, water is collected directly from within the glacier. One of the most famous is the Engabreen, in Norway, where an important glacier laboratory has been installed in a tunnel to tap sub glacial water - here it is possible to carry out observations inside the glacier. Even on the Argentière Glacier, that descending from the French slope of the Mont Blanc, in the Sixties, tunnels were dug to collect melt waters. Due to unforeseen variations in the direction of the subglacial streams, the project was not as successful as expected and the galleries have now been closed and transformed into an underground laboratory for the study of basal erosion.