5 ms·
Realistically, hydro meets your three objectives (clean, reliable, carbon-free) with way less risk of irradiating a city or proliferating nuclear fuel generatio
by thehappypm 8y ago
Realistically, hydro meets your three objectives (clean, reliable, carbon-free) with way less risk of irradiating a city or proliferating nuclear fuel generation.
Advances in transmission line technology also enable hydro plants to be hundreds or even thousands of miles from power consumers. There's a project currently underway to connect a huge hydro plant in Quebec, where all the water from the Great Lakes drains to the Atlantic, to the New England market via a transmission line through Maine.
- sunkenvicar 7y agoHydroelectricity is cheaper than nuclear, but relatively niche. It needs a lot of flowing water and a large change in elevation. In many places it is dead in the water. Compare this to nuclear, which only needs a large body of cooling water. Saltwater or fresh water, doesn’t matter.
- thehappypm 7y agoHVDC means you can literally be a thousand miles from the power plant. That's distance from the Hoover Dam to Kansas City. There's literally nowhere in America beyond the range of a viable hydro plant.
- sunkenvicar 7y agoStrange that America isn’t pure hydro. Also strange that so many startups ignore hydro and jump to nuclear.