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Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

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Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#341

Post by alex_duf »

MrPatan wrote: post #337

Because it was never about solving the problem, it was about absolution. Without suffering they won't feel they deserve the absolution they crave, so every solution has some "problem" - Electric cars still emit particles from the brakes! - Nuclear reminds me of a scary TV show I saw! - Solar doesn't let plants grow under them! - Wind turbines kills birds! The solution will be to come up with a way this type of person…

>A few decades or centuries ago they accomplished this with just a wooden box and a black robe

What is the wooden box / black robe referring to? I'm missing the reference here.

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#342

Post by theshrike79 »

baxtr wrote: post #329
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…

Is that the case for all Hydro? Or only for specific types of Hydro applications? I am curious to understand the different technologies. I am also asking because in the end every kind of power generation will have some effect on the ecosystems. It's always a question of trade-offs.

River ecosystems are really complex and far-reaching. It's about more than just fish swimming upstream to spawn.

Hydroelectric dams destroy these ecosystems completely. Yes, you can build bypass channels for fish, but that's just a part of the system and the channels don't work properly in many cases.

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#343

Post by nirimda »

pfdietz wrote: post #268
sidewndr46 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't you need two reservoirs in that case? Otherwise where is the water being drained down to take advantage of the potential energy?

Yes, of course. Off-river pumped hydro involves two reservoirs.

I think the confusion is a couple of comments up you said "There's a plan to put a reservoir for one on top of a mesa in the desert in Arizona" which is really confusing since of course they're planning to put a pair of reservoirs for one in the desert in Arizona. I guess only one is on top of the mesa though.

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#344

Post by sfifs »

theptip wrote: post #175
gernb wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need 2 weeks of storage. https://energytransition.org/2017/07/germanys-worse-case-sce...

You don't use batteries to cover that worst-case scenario.

If you want to eliminate Carbon emissions, you do. The electricity supply network is always built for overcapacity or else bad things happen with frequency and device damage

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#345

Post by blippage »

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…

> Obviously hydroelectricity is massively damaging to ecosystems.

The whole of the human race is massively damaging to ecosystems. That bit isn't in doubt. The question is as to whether the benefits outweigh the costs. And naturally, humans get to be judge and jury on the matter. But hey, do you want to be able to get to work, afford that iPhone, or not?

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#346

Post by dmos62 »

blippage wrote: post #345
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…

> Obviously hydroelectricity is massively damaging to ecosystems. The whole of the human race is massively damaging to ecosystems. That bit isn't in doubt. The question is as to whether the benefits outweigh the costs. And naturally, humans get to be judge and jury on the matter. But hey, do you want to be able to get to work, afford that iPhone, or not?

What are you saying? Are you asking if the benefits of the human race outweigh the costs? Or of hydroelectricity? If it's the latter, I think OP clearly said that in his opinion hydro is a "no-brainer" in a minority of cases.

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#347

Post by dmos62 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #33
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.

> Hydro isn't unfashionable. Its unfashionable for new capacity because much of the low-hanging fruit opportunities are plucked, and it has high upfront costs, and , while good from a climate and air pollution standpoint, it is still one of the most enviromentally destructive energy sources. Also, while it doesn’t induce climate change, it can be vulnerable to climate change.

> it doesn’t induce climate change

You could make climate change worse through bad natural water management. E.g. you could create a desert, or something in between.

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#348

Post by SuoDuanDao »

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…

I think the reason is, pumped hydro competes with fossil fuels as a storage mechanism, and it's very hard to compete with fossil fuels as a storage mechanism on economic terms. In terms of clean tech, it's probably still the best in pure economics, but batteries are currently getting more attention because Tesla found that by bundling its batteries with wheels and motors it can sell them as luxury goods. That circumvented the need to store energy cheaper than fossil fuels, but it's obviously hard to do anything similar with pumped hydro storage.

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#349

Post by [deleted] »

pydry wrote: post #202
lutorm wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression is that most "PV+storage" plants have storage enough to handle uneven loads and production rates on maybe hour timescales during the day. The storage required to provide overnight supply, though, is much larger, not to mention that required to handle seasonal variance in PV production. It seems hard to imagine batteries would provide that, but for that maybe the most cost-effective option is to just siz…

PV paired with wind is actually a lot more stable than either one individually because their outputs anticorrelate with each other. A surprising amount of demand can be shifted with real time pricing, too. Right now storage is almost irrelevant since deployed solar/wind capacity rarely reaches 100% of demand.

[deleted]

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#350

Post by zizee »

pencilguin wrote: post #303
zizee wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pumped hydro needs to be truely massive scale, both in the amount of water (read: lots of depth AND surface area), and the height differential between the two reservoirs. To make it cost feasible we really need very favourable natural geography. Building such structures ourselves would be astronomically expensive.

Pumped hydro does not, in fact , need "lots of depth". 10m is typical, for which cheap earthen dikes suffice. It does not, in fact , need "very favourable natural geography". It needs an elevation difference, something found almost everywhere, Holland and Kansas excepted. Kansas has deep underground cavities, which also suffice. Building dikes is cheap and low tech. Dikes predate written language.

On the depth thing, I really only meant to mean you need lots and lots of water. You could have a shallow basis, and take over a huge area of land, or or smaller amount of land if you have deeper water. Deeper also allows for less evaporation, less land area.

Perhaps your and my definitions of favourable geography are different. You need a water source, due to evaporation, you need a big resovoir at elevation, and another lower. If you don't want to build it all yourself you need valleys that you can close off at one end. You need ground that is not permeable, so the water you have stays where you want it.

Perhaps I am misreading you, but you seem a bit agitated with your in fact writing style. We're all friends here. I am not anti pumped storage. Far from it. If you can make it work economically, it's a great solution. It will definitely be part of the mix. But there's reasons it's not being rolled out everywhere, and a lot of this is due to cost and unfavorable geography.

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