11–20 of 33 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're a US citizen, you already do fund such an entity with your taxes. If it's important to you, let your legislators know, and vote accordingly.
You "already fund" something, but need to vote for it to be funded?
A common misconception is that hydroelectricity has the advantage over other renewables of requiring less land. This is not the case. The surface area of Lake Mead is 640 square kilometers -- this much ecologically viable land was destroyed to make way for hydroelectricity. The power generation capacity afforded by the Hoover Dam on this lake is roughly 2 GW. A solar panel produces roughly (we're lowballing) 100 watt…
A common misconception is that hydroelectricity has the advantage over other renewables of requiring less land. This is not the case. The surface area of Lake Mead is 640 square kilometers -- this much ecologically viable land was destroyed to make way for hydroelectricity. The power generation capacity afforded by the Hoover Dam on this lake is roughly 2 GW. A solar panel produces roughly (we're lowballing) 100 watt…
It's also a misconception to equate huge-reservoir hydro with all hydro. The Norwegians have incredibly high head, phenomenally efficient hydro in the mountains with minimal environmental impact. We have run of river hydroelectric in the states that diverts some water via penstock, as well as canal-based systems and those that utilize Army Corp dams. In fact, there is significant non-powered dam resource available: h…
Do you have wildlife issues to consider in the design? E.g., are the dams on rivers fish migrate up?
This part of the article really caught my eye:
>>> Current “use it or lose it” water laws don’t allow farmers to sell any surplus allotment, so they end up growing as much alfalfa as they can and selling it on the global market. Peter Culp estimates that 50 billion gallons of water—1.5 pulse flows—is shipped to China each year in the form of alfalfa, and even more to Japan. An open water market would allow both cities and environmental groups to pay farmers far more than they currently make growing alfalfa. Terrible! The US West has been fighting water scarcity problems for 10+ years and we're exporting billions of gallons of water overseas?
There is also a new documentary out called DamNation which looks quite interesting. http://damnationfilm.com/
A common misconception is that hydroelectricity has the advantage over other renewables of requiring less land. This is not the case. The surface area of Lake Mead is 640 square kilometers -- this much ecologically viable land was destroyed to make way for hydroelectricity. The power generation capacity afforded by the Hoover Dam on this lake is roughly 2 GW. A solar panel produces roughly (we're lowballing) 100 watt…
You can turn hydro on and off quickly and it works during the night
There are engineering concerns with waves and the usual problems anytime you mix water electricity and metal.
There are biological concerns where polluted water is already anoxic enough so blocking light is not going to help.
Still there's no inherent reason the land can only be applied to one tech.
Maybe if you have an infinite supply of cheap incredibly tall concrete pylons you could mount windmills too, although that's sounding unlikely.
Really great article. I love the weekend reading on HN. This part of the article really caught my eye: >>> Current “use it or lose it” water laws don’t allow farmers to sell any surplus allotment, so they end up growing as much alfalfa as they can and selling it on the global market. Peter Culp estimates that 50 billion gallons of water—1.5 pulse flows—is shipped to China each year in the form of alfalfa, and even mo…
The theory is, that by ensuring we have a broad set of food stocks that we can potentially draw on should circumstances dictate, then we are capable of maintaining the basic elements of survival. (Energy Security is another one on the list - it's why we have aircraft carriers in the middle east).
Those farmers might be shipping Alfalfa to China right now, in the face of that thing called "Free Markets", but faced with a food stock collapse in the United States, it would take little more than a few strokes of the pen to require that same alfalfa go to American cattle.
A common misconception is that hydroelectricity has the advantage over other renewables of requiring less land. This is not the case. The surface area of Lake Mead is 640 square kilometers -- this much ecologically viable land was destroyed to make way for hydroelectricity. The power generation capacity afforded by the Hoover Dam on this lake is roughly 2 GW. A solar panel produces roughly (we're lowballing) 100 watt…
Really great article. I love the weekend reading on HN. This part of the article really caught my eye: >>> Current “use it or lose it” water laws don’t allow farmers to sell any surplus allotment, so they end up growing as much alfalfa as they can and selling it on the global market. Peter Culp estimates that 50 billion gallons of water—1.5 pulse flows—is shipped to China each year in the form of alfalfa, and even mo…
Couldn't resist. Not often alfalfa comes up in conversation.
A common misconception is that hydroelectricity has the advantage over other renewables of requiring less land. This is not the case. The surface area of Lake Mead is 640 square kilometers -- this much ecologically viable land was destroyed to make way for hydroelectricity. The power generation capacity afforded by the Hoover Dam on this lake is roughly 2 GW. A solar panel produces roughly (we're lowballing) 100 watt…
Is this really a common misconception? Has no one ever seen a dam? I can't think of any other form of energy production whose sole requirement is massive amounts of land to flood.
Brazil's debate on hydroelectric dams (and we have a lot of them) are solely bound on the flood areas and environment/habitat destruction they cause.
I really doubt that's a common misconception.
A common misconception is that hydroelectricity has the advantage over other renewables of requiring less land. This is not the case. The surface area of Lake Mead is 640 square kilometers -- this much ecologically viable land was destroyed to make way for hydroelectricity. The power generation capacity afforded by the Hoover Dam on this lake is roughly 2 GW. A solar panel produces roughly (we're lowballing) 100 watt…
Interesting. I suppose it makes sense, in a way: solar power captures solar energy directly, whereas hydro captures solar energy only indirectly, through the water cycle. Do you have any ballpark ideas about how the cost of producing the dam (most concrete, I guess) compares to the cost of producing 120 km^2 of solar panels + 'enough' battery capacity, in terms of some kind of ecological footprint? My intuition is th…
But these usually flood a minimal area like 10000 square meters.
Public companies that develop hydro power projects annual reports is a good place to look for this type of information.