Domain: internationalrivers.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to internationalrivers.org.
Comments · 7
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Most methane comes from Dams not Cows
According to the estimates of the INPE researchers, dams are the largest single anthropogenic source of methane, being responsible for 23% of all methane emissions due to human activities.
https://www.internationalriver...Thus irrigation for crops is worse on the environment than cows.
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Re:There is no such thing.
I am not talking about maintenance of the turbines. I am taking about the reservoirs becoming silted up and unusable. It takes a long time but it eventually happens.
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Re:Hydroelectric?
1. Considering that we are building the Site C dam it seems that there is probably a need for more electricity that we can already generate.
2. 30 years is a very short time. I am talking about a hundred years. Over that time millions of tons of silt are deposited and would be unfeasible to "dig out". It takes a long time for a dam to become silted up but when it does it is irreversible.
3. I am also taking about elk and caribou that we already have few of. Then there are the bear and wolves that eat the deer. Then there is the issue of interrupting migration paths. Hunting does not wipe out entire populations in an area while dams do. A dam is basically an ecological disaster for the area. -
Re:That's not good.
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Re:interestingly, themselves sometimes touted
Here are citations for a GWP of 72 over 20 years:
Those above do not, AFAIK, take into account the greenhouse gases that are formed when the methane itself reacts with other parts of the atmosphere. They all talk about the methane breaking down quickly, but carbon dioxide and ozone are two of the gases formed when that happens IIRC.
There are also reports that don't mention time frames that list methane as anywhere from 10 to 58 times as effective as carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.
The 100-year figure you're likely to read is anywhere from 20 to 33 GWP for methane, with 33 being common in recent reports.
I'm not a climatologist, but I know how to read news sites and I know how to search the fucking web for my damn self. Do you?
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Re:Why do you care?
solar, wind and hydro each have drawbacks that nuclear doesn't. Solar, it depends on where you are, and doesn't work at night. Wind, very unpredicatable generation. It's good as a supplement, but not a main source. Hydro... that only works in certain areas with big enough rivers, and even that isn't terribly environmentally friendly. Nuclear has none of those drawbacks.
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Re:It would have likely occurred anyway
"The dam might have just brought the event forward a year or two."
Or decades, or centuries. It's hard to be sure yet. As the article mentions, there is ample precedent for earthquakes being triggered by the weight of the water behind dams and increase in pore fluid pressure, both in seismically active and relatively inactive areas. If you want to find papers, look for the term "reservoir-induced seismicity". In the high activity case, yeah, maybe it didn't make much difference, because the area could have frequent earthquakes anyway, but in the latter case (less active area) it can make a big difference versus the natural earthquake pattern. Having major earthquakes where they didn't happen before (in human memory) is pretty inconvenient.
Because the earthquake did happen in a fairly seismically active part of China, people should be cautious about interpreting too much into its location near a dam. For an earthquake that big the stress must have built up over a long period of time -- far longer than the dam has been around. It couldn't have been the sole cause. It is still a legitimate question that deserves further study.
This paper [PDF] gives a good description of the physics and evidence behind the process with an example from the Montecello reservoir [PDF] in South Carolina.
This paper, which unfortunately requires a subscription to read, talks specifically about reservoir-induced seismicity in China, especially in regards to the Three Gorges Dam project. It dates from 1998.