Slashdot Mirror
Hoover Dams For Lilliput: Does Small Hydroelectric Power Have a Future?
New submitter MatthewVD writes "Boing Boing's Maggie Koerth-Baker, author of Before The Lights Go Out, writes that the era of giant hydroelectric projects like the Hoover Dam has passed. But the Department of Energy has identified 5,400 potential sites for small hydro projects of 30 MWs or less. The sites, in states as dry as Kansas, represent a total 18,000 MW of power — enough to increase by 50 percent America's hydro power. Even New York City's East River has pilot projects to produce power from underwater turbines. As we stare down global warming and peak oil, could small hydroelectric power be a key solution?"
Here in Norway we got more mountains and rain per square kilometer or per person the US could dream about - okay we have a cold climate too - but not even we are self-sufficient on hydro power or for that matter renewable power. Sure as fossil fuels run out they'll surely be built - just like wind, water, solar, geothermal, biofuel and everything else you can think of - but they won't add up to the current energy usage. This figure pretty much says it all.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
There are many places such as irrigation channels where you can place micro turbines that will have no ill environmental effect as these do not support aquatic life. It looks like this was not included in the report.
Irrigation canals DO support aquatic life. Where do you think they get the water from? Rivers.
It isn't necessarily vital aquatic life, but then where do you draw the line on vital vs. non-vital life?
The canals in Eastern Washington provide me with some of the best bow-fishing for carp in the region. Even the wasteways (surplus water from agricultural processes) have plentiful fish. And not just carp.
They're basically diverted rivers. That being said, turbines placed in irrigation canals will have less impact than those placed in full rivers. But even the impact of a full hydroelectric facility is manageable. Take the Columbia River, we still have record salmon runs from time to time.
One other hurdle with hydroelectric is that it is not considered renewable, so if there are mandates to require x% of electricity from renewable sources, hydro ain't gonna fit the bill due to lame liberals that deem is non-renewable.
Being a fan of hydroelectric power, I'm well aware of the issues on both sides of the argument, and still favor it. But I think what you pointed out on the latter portion of your post needs to be made more public, as it is an even better solution.
In real life we have hundreds of years of fossil fuels left.
Sort of true. There certainly will be oil in the ground 200 years from now. It won't be easy to get, nor will it be inexpensive. The global taste for fossil fuels, especially liquid fossil fuels is truly enormous and growing (think China and India who are attempting to get to US per capita energy expenditures). The supply of fossil fuels isn't growing much at all (happy words from various US politicians notwithstanding).
What we have hear is a failure to communicate. Nice writeup on the concept of Peak oil and how we need to change a few things.....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The answer is a solid NO .
Small scale hydro can make a heck of a lot of sense. I work with a small community high in the mountains of Washington State, where the primary power supply is a small scale hydro-electric generation system. The funny part is that this technology isn't "new"... The turbines and generators they're using have patent plates on them that read 10-04-86, and that's not 1986. Despite being easily 100 years old, the technology is still easy to maintain, and efficient. Based on the electrical output compared to the water flow, we figure this plant is about 80% efficient, which is pretty good.
In the summer, the system will generate upwards of 250kW of power, which is more than adequate for the community. In the winter, this does drop down to 30kW or so, but that is still more or less sufficient for the lower winter population.
The water supply for this system comes off a small creek flowing down the mountain, about 300' up there is a small diversion dam that the creek flows into. Water will either flow into the penstock, or continue down the creek depending on demand. As a side note, the water pressure is sufficient to push some of the water through the entire water treatment plant, and then into a storage tank, to supply the community's drinking water without the use of a single pump.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...