Restoring Salmon To Their Original Habitat -- With a Cannon

StartsWithABang writes Hydroelectric dams are one of the best and oldest sources of green, renewable energy, but — as the Three Gorges Dam in China exemplifies — they often cause a host of environmental and ecological problems and challenges. One of the more interesting ones is how to coax fish upstream in the face of these herculean walls that can often span more than 500 feet in height. While fish ladders might be a solution for some of the smaller dams, they're limited in application and success. Could Whooshh Innovations' Salmon Cannon, a pneumatic tube capable of launching fish up-and-over these dams, finally restore the Columbia River salmon to their original habitats?

Comments

Pet Peeve

[Jane Q. Public]

I get pretty pissed off when people say that hydroelectric power is "cheap" or "free" or "clean" energy, or that all the money to build the dams came from the Federal government so everyone should enjoy the benefits.

It DOES have ongoing costs to people who live in the region, and they aren't small. While some recreational activities are created, others are lost, so that's a zero-sum. But then there are the other ecological costs: loss of fish and fisheries for many thousands of square (not to mention linear) miles of waterway. There is the loss of land behind the dam which was often (perhaps typically) farmland. And so on.

There are many other factors: wildlife typically will no longer migrate across the reservoir, leading to loss of habitat. Etc. etc.

It ain't free, and people in the region do pay for it.

Re:Pet Peeve

[Zembar]

Great idea... Unless, you know, someone on the other side of that artificial mountain needs that water to survive and/or grow food everyone needs to survive.

Re:Pet Peeve

[khallow]

Yep - all the woes of the nuclear power industry is the anti-nuclear NIMBYS fault. They caused all of the problems if they just shut up all the problems would go away.

I wouldn't say "all", just "most". Anohter classic example is the continued operating of older, less safe plants because new ones can't get built.

Re: Pet Peeve

[TheGavster]

Casualties from modern, western nuclear designs are easy: zero. You get more exposure from a banana than standing next to TMI during the event. And yes, the nimby folks are the source of most of the problems. We wouldn't have plants decades past their intended life using obsolete designs, and we'd be storing nuclear waste in geologically sound facilities rather than temporary storage pools.

As for scalability, you can add a reactor to a nuclear site much more easily than you can add a dam to a hydro site.

Re:Pet Peeve

[rossdee]

The problem is that nearly all the places that can be dammed have been dammed already. .

Do the calculations

[sjbe]

I haven't performed the calculations behind it but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's cheaper than nuclear power

Then do the calculations before spouting off publicly and anonymously about it.

Salmon

[sjbe]

it's clean because using the power produces no big emissions(apart from manufacturing replacement parts).

Emissions are not the only type of pollution that matters. Hydro dams mess up ecosystems rather badly in a lot of cases. They might be the least worst alternative but "clean" in this case is only a relative term. They are certainly not consequence free.

also the thing with salmon is tha wild salmon from the rivers wouldn't fill the supermarkets anyways - it's just a sport... a niche sport.

Salmon serve ecological purposes beyond simply occupying space in grocery stores and providing entertainment for fishermen. Salmon are important parts of food chains and dams tend to interrupt this food chain with sometimes serious consequences.