Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

spectrum.ieee.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 397 posts

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#51

Post by arcticbull »

kortex wrote: post #46
arcticbull wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truthfully nobody's really heard of the Bangqiao Dam failure. I doubt this contributes to the discourse.

Anyone who's spent any amount of time looking into industrial and engineering disasters knows about Bangqiao. It's up there among the greatest single event losses of human life from human-created (non-war, non-disease) catastrophies, along with Bhopal, Chernobyl, Wanggongchang explosion, Halifax explosion, and a few other big ones.

I knew about it, but I don't think if you asked an average individual on the street, they'd have any clue - unlike asking any American or Canadian about Chernobyl, or any Canadian about Bhopal or Halifax.

I think Chernobyl has a much bigger influence on nuclear policy than Bangqiao on hydro despite the latter causing two orders of magnitude more deaths.

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#52

Post by theptip »

idiotsecant wrote: post #37

Obviously hydroelectricity is massively damaging to ecosystems. My day job includes designing hydroelectric control systems and even I can admit that. That's a big part of the reason that hydro is a non-starter in much of the western world, which is probably a reasonably good thing (although there are certainly some exceptions where hydro development seems like a no-brainer to me but I digress) What's not so clear to…

Since you’re in the industry I’m interested in your perspective on this report from Lawrence Berkeley lab on integrated battery storage for wind/solar projects: https://emp.lbl.gov/hybrid

It seems to me that high capacity integrated battery projects are being built in large numbers, and they are much closer to cost-competitive than I would have though from the general sentiment in the press/HN comments. Obviously they are more expensive than raw solar but still in a price range to be competitive with NatGas OpEx in the next few decades. If that’s true then we might not need to fight the environmental battles on pumped storage (which for the record I do agree could be used more).

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#53

Post by idiotsecant »

theptip wrote: post #52
idiotsecant wrote: post #37

Obviously hydroelectricity is massively damaging to ecosystems. My day job includes designing hydroelectric control systems and even I can admit that. That's a big part of the reason that hydro is a non-starter in much of the western world, which is probably a reasonably good thing (although there are certainly some exceptions where hydro development seems like a no-brainer to me but I digress) What's not so clear to…

Since you’re in the industry I’m interested in your perspective on this report from Lawrence Berkeley lab on integrated battery storage for wind/solar projects: https://emp.lbl.gov/hybrid It seems to me that high capacity integrated battery projects are being built in large numbers, and they are much closer to cost-competitive than I would have though from the general sentiment in the press/HN comments. Obviously the…

Too little, too late unfortunately. The amount of storage available from these projects is tiny and even though it's accelerating it's not accelerating at nearly the level required for the physics of a primary renewable grid to work. Chemical storage of energy is expensive and requires a long supply chain. It's huge that the costs are trending in a favorable direction and maybe eventually we can do all our load balancing that way but we don't need results 15 years from now, we need them yesterday.

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#54

Post by plorg »

idiotsecant wrote: post #37

Obviously hydroelectricity is massively damaging to ecosystems. My day job includes designing hydroelectric control systems and even I can admit that. That's a big part of the reason that hydro is a non-starter in much of the western world, which is probably a reasonably good thing (although there are certainly some exceptions where hydro development seems like a no-brainer to me but I digress) What's not so clear to…

When I was in school for power systems planning the the accepted notion was that pumped hydro storage is cool and great, but like hydropower, it is extremely geographically dependent, and we have basically developed all of the places where it would work (at least in the US), or at least, by order of magnitude, there are not enough remaining untapped hydro-related resources to make a dent in projected storage demand. Is that a wrong understanding?

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#55

Post by latchkey »

intrepidhero wrote: post #24
latchkey wrote: post #12

I spent a couple years on a motorbike traveling all through Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos (15k+ kms). Water mostly flows from the north (China) to the south in that region. The Mekong River. China and Vietnam have dammed up nearly all of the large rivers in those three countries, for hydro. There are countless projects constantly being built as well. The scale is pretty epic really. Vietnam has some of the largest numbe…

Properly managed hydro should help prevent flooding, which I imagine is incredibly valuable in an area with annual monsoon season. It's not like overflowing reservoirs are adding water to the watershed, it just means they don't yet have the in built capacity or were mismanaged, ie monsoon season arrived without sufficient capacity to absorb it, to prevent the natural flooding that was already occurring.

Key words: "properly managed".

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#56

Post by ltbarcly3 »

arcticbull wrote: post #50
ltbarcly3 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They want you to pay for the impacts of carbon emissions This can't be quantified currently. Current methods of 'paying' for carbon emissions have ended up being corrupt wealth transfers. That people are still for them is pretty good evidence they aren't really concerned about the consequences of carbon emissions.

> Current methods of 'paying' for carbon emissions have ended up being corrupt wealth transfers. Not really, Canada just refunds people whatever they collect in carbon taxes at the end of the year, with the goal being to make the decision clearer at the point of sale. [1] > That people are still for them is pretty good evidence they aren't really concerned about the consequences of carbon emissions. Anyone who thinks…

> Canada just refunds people whatever they collect in carbon taxes at the end of the year

This is a very clever system which I have to admit sounds like a great idea, I was talking about things like carbon credit markets.

> Anyone who thinks you should emit less carbon understands that making carbon more expensive

This is not the case, it's likely (and to the point of OP) that making carbon more expensive in location A just acts as an indirect subsidy of carbon emissions in location C. In other words, if you make 1 KG of carbon more in location A, that will often make it economical to perform the same work in location C (still releasing at least 1KG of carbon) and then ship the result back to A releasing another KG of carbon. Worse, the more of something that is used in a certain place the cheaper that thing can become. A carbon tax in location A might make it economical to build a (or a larger) pipeline to move natural gas to location C, and then you get https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox where carbon emissions increase much more in location C than they were reduced in location A.

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#57

Post by bryanlarsen »

idiotsecant wrote: post #37

Obviously hydroelectricity is massively damaging to ecosystems. My day job includes designing hydroelectric control systems and even I can admit that. That's a big part of the reason that hydro is a non-starter in much of the western world, which is probably a reasonably good thing (although there are certainly some exceptions where hydro development seems like a no-brainer to me but I digress) What's not so clear to…

We certainly can use solar, wind & batteries to eliminate fossil fuels from our electricity system. Estimates are that we'd need about 300TWh of batteries, which is on the edge of feasible. Pumped storage would be a lot cheaper, though.

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#58

Post by stjohnswarts »

bpodgursky wrote: post #34
onepointsixC wrote: post #17

Hydro isn't unfashionable. We just don't have reasonable places to keep daming, so there's little really to talk about. Nuclear is unfashionable, because there's huge growth potential among wealthy industrial countries, but because it's not "liked" there's very little actual growth.

Actually the Yosemite valley has significant hydro potential.

Isn't that all protected wilderness though?

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#59

Post by stjohnswarts »

chungy wrote: post #3

It's not very green at all. It's known to kill large swaths of the ecosystem. The true green yet unfashionable energy source is nuclear fission.

I'm glad more people are coming around. I just wish it was 30 years ago and we'd actually be seeing some benefits for it by now. Now it's at least 20 years out.

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#60

Post by idiotsecant »

plorg wrote: post #54
idiotsecant wrote: post #37

Obviously hydroelectricity is massively damaging to ecosystems. My day job includes designing hydroelectric control systems and even I can admit that. That's a big part of the reason that hydro is a non-starter in much of the western world, which is probably a reasonably good thing (although there are certainly some exceptions where hydro development seems like a no-brainer to me but I digress) What's not so clear to…

When I was in school for power systems planning the the accepted notion was that pumped hydro storage is cool and great, but like hydropower, it is extremely geographically dependent, and we have basically developed all of the places where it would work (at least in the US), or at least, by order of magnitude, there are not enough remaining untapped hydro-related resources to make a dent in projected storage demand.…

Entirely wrong. All pumped storage requires is a big high spot and a big low spot*. Take a look at this, for example:

https://www.gordonbuttepumpedstorage.com/

There are a lot of good pumped storage sites out there.

*exaggeration, but close enough.

Post reply on HN