Big Dams Are Not the Answer to World's Energy Needs

twistoflex said: "ubrew,I don't get this. You pump seawater up to the resevior and then release it into where?" The full potential energy of the reservoir water is only obtained by draining it back to sea level. So, a set of pipelines with Pelton turbines at the bottom (at the coast) drain the reservoir. When wave power is high, seawater is pumped into the pipelines at the bottom and the net flow of water is reversed. The reservoir itself is just a potential energy battery that gets charged and discharged. But it allows intermittent wave power to be stored and used as more valuable base power in the grid. And the wave energy converters are just mechanical pumps, much simpler than actual electrical power-plants of their own.

On an unrelated topic: another way to recover river water energy (lower efficiency than a dam but with fewer ecological consequences) is simply to position water turbines in the flow (like wind turbines are positioned in an air flow).

This may be a bit late for the discussion, however BC Hydro ( a public utility owned by the people of BC) has sold over 1000 leases for private small electricity projects on rivers in our province. These will be private, for profit projects which will sell power back to BC Hydro at a higher rate than BC Hydro now charges citizens for power. Each project will destroy a river by diversion of the water, road and transmission lines built in pristine forests. New large transmission lines are being built to carry power though communities who are objecting to overhead lines, and on to Vancouver Island, and by undersea cable to California. This electricity is being sold to Californians as clean, green power. It is not! It is dirty power. Check out Saveourrivers.com to see the destruction of one river.

sojrnrz July 15th, 2008 5:39 am

Yes, the impact of excessive population needs to be hammered home. If we humans don't control population then nature will eventually do it for us.

USAn July 15th, 2008 1:34 pm

One child per family for two or three, possibly four generations - depending upon what size of population is deemed appropriate for a given standard of living and environmenal impact.

We always get calls for population control.

But it is the affluent countries with stable populations who's energy resource consumption is growing the fastest. And China has substantially stabilized it's population, but it's energy appetite is also increasing rapidly.

Meanwhile, the impoverished parts of the world have the highest birth rates - but they use only a small fraction of the world's energy.

And, what politically viable measures do you propose to reduce population on any time frame that will make a difference?

rtdrury,

"We want energy production scaled down to the local level to keep the political power in the hands of the people, to get rid of the power lines, and to preserve the environment. These unnecessary giant infrastructure projects are an affront to both people and planet..."

The probelm is, when you reduce the scale of electric generation, you reduce the efficiency - a lot.

Also, for successful wind and solar energy development, we will need a bigger, more robust grid to shuttle the power between regions where the wind is blowing, to where it is not blowing, and to various energy storage (hydro/compressed air/battery) facilities.

Localism is great for a lot of things, but for a lot of things it is not. Emotion, rather than reason, seems to be governmng this issue.

At it's worst, localism can be a form of elitism, since it would lead to renewable-resource rich localaties hogging the resources while resource poor localities live in poverty.

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The excess human populations will be under control in the near future ~Sojrnrz~.

http://www.energybulletin.net/3647.html

Then the current article in this link proves the author of the previous link's article is absolutly, 100% correct.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20080423_methane.html

If we don't stop burning coal and polluting our atmosphere with excess Co2, there won't be ANY human populations. We must develop clean renuable energy and that is very possible, affordable and the current technology is well proven. We don't need any new dams either.

Bottom line remains: until we control our excess population, our planet will never be able to recover. We are breeding like flies, and we won't be satisfied until the globe has become a pile of shit. How fitting!

Microhydro has far more potential to benefit people with far less destruction than dam hydroelectric. Dam hydroelectric uses huge amounts of concrete so the embedded energy and carbon is enormous. Dam hydroelectric also erodes the people's political power by placing control of energy in the hands of the few, and it creates the need for giant power lines all over the landscape.

We want energy production scaled down to the local level to keep the political power in the hands of the people, to get rid of the power lines, and to preserve the environment. These unnecessary giant infrastructure projects are an affront to both people and planet.

Notice how the capitalists race to provide commodities to the people before the people have a chance to develop their own. The people should reject all exchange/association with the capitalists and remain independent.

maybe people should just go to bed when the Sun goes down and shoot their TV....that would prolly reduce consumption in half. Then they would wake up well rested with clear minds to solve the Worlds problems.

why is my toaster oven not insulated? to use more energy of course.

Wind kills birds, birds eat crop pests.

photo voltaic, parabolic mirror solar/steam, Micro hydro, Ocean power........

I khow there aren't many fans of nuclear power on CD, but you have to look at the scale of the footprints. The Limerick nuclear station on 600 acres along a relatively small river in PA produces as much power as Hoover dam. The colossal Three Gorges dam dislocating hundreds of thousands of people in China will only produce 9 times as much power as Limerick or 6 times as much as Palo Verde in Arizona.

Hydro Canada is rerouting over half of the water from the Rupert river to increase hydro capacity. The scale of the diversion is supposed to be enormous.

Kloro might be right about fast reactors. Using unenriched uranium or DU, they could recycle their own high level waste along with waste from conventional enriched uranium reactors. The cooling and recycling systems need more work, and they will be more expensive to build, but they are coming.

I lived on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana for 25 years. The tribes there are the Salish and the Kootnai. They were salmon tribes. Then, in the 1930s the Grand Coolie Dam was built and one year the salmon didn't return. End of the tribes' cultures.

I traveled up the Indus river last summer, "the mightiest mountain river in the world." It's gorge through the Himalaya, which extends for about 400 kilometers, is the world's deepest canyon, 23,000 feet deep at one point. It is slated to be dammed and flooded. We saw them surveying for the dam last year, and the local tribespeople want the dam so they will have more electricity. They don't know about the IMF routine of getting the poor country so deep in debt that they lose their sovereignty and the contracts to international corporations that lock in the electricity before the dam is ever completed.

And we lose the mightiest mountain river in the world in the process.

ubrew

I don't get this. You pump seawater up to the resevior and then release it into where? a river? a pipeline?

Generally speaking, like all other mega-projects created for the purpose of centralized control of a resource, big dam hydro ultimately benefits only the corporations that build and operate the facilities. In the long run, everyone else loses.
Only people who live or farm right on the banks of rivers should be able to use them for power. It is quite possible to divert small amounts of water from a steadily flowing river to run small generating stations that do not require any kind of damming at all. However, with steadily improving solar and wind technology even this relatively benign form of hydropower is unnecessary.
http://hubpages.com/_37pula8qw5jpo/hub/A-TIME-FOR-EVERY-SEASON

We can cut our energy consumption in half with an energy conservation program. With a much smaller energy need the dirtiest power sources can be replaced with the best of the renewable sources.

Ask Buffett, Gates, Soros and the rest of the 500 richest people in the world to invest their own money in nuclear power without government subsidy or liability protection. You won't get dime one from these guys. That is the only reason no new nuclear plants have been built.

They will and do invest in other energy sources because as bad as they are they are not as stupid, dangerous, and environmentally reckless as nukes.

kloro July 14th, 2008 3:28 pm
"solar and wind cannot meet our energy needs. breeder reactors can."
BULLSHIT!
I'm sick and tired of hearing this goddamn lie repeated by people who don't give a rat's ass about the future or the present for that matter. Solar, wind and, in some cases, geothermal power, even with current technology, are MORE THAN ADEQUATE to provide all our energy needs. No form of nuclear power is acceptable or even necessary. It's merely another corporate fascist boondoggle with only one purpose in mind, money, money, money. People who propose subjecting others to completely unnecessary exposure to unbelievably lethal dangers for the sole purpose of making a pile of money are simply psychopathic.
http://hubpages.com/_37pula8qw5jpo/hub/Earth-is-Speaking--Will-You-Liste...

Wikipedia lists 100 pumped storage facilities, where water is pumped uphill at night and dropped through turbines in the day. They don't have to be large dams. For example, one plant at Storm King Mountain is on the Hudson and pumps water through a tunnel in the mountain to a little artificial lake in the hills.

Solar/wind also needs high voltage direct current lines, the kind that efficiently sends energy thousands of miles and doesn't cause leukemia.

So, kloro, your assertion about solar/wind just isn't true. I read lots of pro-nuclear people saying the exact same thing like a mantra, though, which is really weird.

Breeder reactors are the answer for despots in small countries who want a few pounds of plutonium for a bomb or three.

Little dams are the answer to solar storage for nighttime power usage. Profit for big business and big finance is in the big dams. So we build the big ones.

Not true kloro. Photovoltaic cells plus wind power could supply all our energy needs IF a better electrical storage technology were developed. And even with current technology pour the money from needless wars into R&D of all kinds of solar plus wind and waves and wood fired generators could take up the slack.

We would have to eat less meat, but growing trees to fire generators would give a net carbon foot print of 0.

Tree farms would clean up our water and make more of it available.

We can no longer afford insanity in high places.

I'm a big fan of small dams on coastal ranges near the ocean. The dam catches fresh water from a local drainage about 500-1000ft above sea level. However, the reservoir is also connected to a wave farm via a sea-water pipe. The wave farm pumps sea-water up 500-1000 ft into the reservoir which serves as an energy battery (wave power being so intermittent). Also, this means the wave energy converters are reduced to mere pumping devices (no conversion to electricity required). This is simpler for devices exposed to the vagarities of the ocean environment.

solar and wind cannot meet our energy needs. breeder reactors can.

All dammed resevoirs are destined to fill up with silt. In the war aqainst nature, nature always wins.

It's the end of cheap resources for ever growing populations.

The oligarchy is building private armies to defend their hoards from the masses they exploited and impoverished.

Dams, drilling on our coasts, new nuke plants, coal, war, corporate, financial and political crimes are the last ghasp of an ecocidal society.