7 ms·

Hydro power is not green. It may be clean, by some definitions of clean, but it has a huge ecological footprint. The impact is harder to quantify than with oth

Hydro power is not green. It may be clean, by some definitions of clean, but it has a huge ecological footprint. The impact is harder to quantify than with other forms of power and is ignored due to that. Now, I'm not advocating against all hydro power, I think it's especially important in a pumped storage/peaking capacity. The projects definitely need to be analyzed on a cost/benefit analysis and as this points out, 3.5MW of power is just trivial and not worth it. As an aside, there are a number of dam removal videos on YouTube which are fun to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yM5m5-1-I0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yM5m5-1-I0

switchbak 7y ago
An opinionated, yet very educational documentary on the subject being Damnation: http://damnationfilm.com/ http://damnationfilm.com/
- AdamJacobMuller 7y ago
  Interesting, thank you!
- justinator 7y ago
  A good, fictional account of blowing up a dam (that's not The Monkey Wrench Gang) is Night Moves. One of the eco-warriors was critiqued by his boss at an organic farm (before he put 2 and 2 together...) that taking down one damn isn't enough - there were 10 more dams on that same river. I guess it's also sobering to think that most all major rivers in the USA are damned up. I think, without looking, save the Yellowstone River. That's it.
jimktrains2 7y ago
By your definition simply existing is not green. It's not a matter of absolutes, but degrees. Between green and fossil fuels, even account for construction, the damn is "greener" in all scenarios I can think of off the top of my head.
- ghaff 7y ago
  You can't compare apples to apples but dams that have big negative ecological effects and don't actually produce much power would seem to be net negatives from an overall "green" perspective. There are also other effects including flood control, recreation, effect on local communities, water supply, etc. that can go in plus and minus columns but dams are absolutely not always net positives.
  - jimktrains2 7y ago
    Sure, I'm not saying damns have no consequences. I'm saying that it's silly to declare them "not green" because of the existence of environmental consequences because there are consequences to everything we do. Damns are not a perfect solution, but compared to the ecological costs of coal mining, gas extraction, and burning of Fossil fuels, I feel it's disingenuous to just dismiss them out of hand for not being "green".
    - mikeash 7y ago
      The comment wasn’t declaring them to be “not-green” because of the mere existence of environmental consequences. It was doing so because of the large magnitude of those consequences. There’s probably a good argument to be made that they’re worth it, but the original statement was fine too.
      - WorldMaker 7y ago
        "Not green by default" might have been a better phrasing? They can still be much more green compared to alternatives. "Green" isn't a binary, and that seems to be the crux of both arguments above.
      - AdamJacobMuller 7y ago
        > large magnitude Large magnitude in proportion to small return.
ghaff 7y ago
Absolutely fair. It's hard to argue that we shouldn't have done any of the big dams out west. But there's at least a good argument against the Glen Canyon. And, especially with the benefit of hindsight, the seriously proposed dam sites in the Grand Canyon would have been very not good. In the east the proposed Tocks Island Dam was pursued for a long time. Again, especially with the benefit of hindsight, this was also pretty clearly not good.
- smkellat 7y ago
  No dam at Boulder City in Nevada and the Los Angeles basin becomes a very different story in terms of habitability. The town of St. Thomas would rise again and we’d find that missing B-29 that ditched into what is currently the very artificial Lake Mead. The Colorado River would regain its natural flow. Silicon Valley would die, though. Where on earth does its water come from? Yes, 85% of the water from Lake Mead. The Los Angeles basin is built up far beyond its natural sustainable water capacity. Unless there is a great leap forward in desalination technology some dams remain a rather necessary evil.
  - dahinds 7y ago
    Silicon Valley gets no water from the Colorado River?
    - chrisdhoover 7y ago
      No it does not
      - nkurz 7y ago
        Confirming that chrisdhoover is correct, and none of the Bay Area uses water from the Colorado River: https://www.kqed.org/science/14623/bay-area-do-you-know-where-your-water-comes-from https://www.kqed.org/science/14623/bay-area-do-you-know-wher...
  - AlotOfReading 7y ago
WorldMaker 7y ago
We've also gotten as species rather better at understanding downstream repercussions in terms of erosion control and hatchery/vegetation safety since early 19th/20th century dams, such as Edwards. It's not entirely an either/or situation, and there are interesting, growing workarounds such as hatchery creeks and salmon cannons. But yes, building new hydro power should always have a strong ecological assessment done before proceeding, and taking the trade-offs into account. (Disclaimer: I've been working on stream restoration software, but am not a domain expert, don't speak for my employer, and mostly am only commenting because I find it really interesting stuff because I've been working adjacent to it and hearing cool stories about it. Always fun when it comes up on the HN front page.)
- erikpukinskis 7y ago
  What’s the software?
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    RIVERMorph http://www.rivermorph.com/ http://www.rivermorph.com/
AmericanChopper 7y ago
The problem with this line of reasoning is that no energy is green by these standards. The solar panel supply chain is not green, solar and wind farms kill birds, dams destroy habitat, nuclear produces waste... if you think any of those things are trivial, just google them and you’ll find plenty of people lobbying against them. If you accept that human are a part of the environment, and that we are going to have some level of impact on it, then as you said, you can look at the RoI/impact of decisions and their alternatives, and come a conclusion that reduces impact. But if your standard is green/not green, then you’re never going to be able to solve any problems.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- lkschubert8 7y ago
  They are doing exactly what you are saying though. The point is that the ratio of damage to power for a dam that produces so little power is too high.
  - AmericanChopper 7y ago
    Absolutely, I think this instance is perfectly reasonable. But then you also have people demanding that something be done about birds dying over solar farms (the only thing that could be done about that is to shut down the plant). That’s why I think the “it’s not green” assessment is never productive. “It’s more green than other things” is reasonable and productive, but “it’s not green enough” is an endless rabbit hole.
    - lkschubert8 7y ago
      I mean isn't the logical route to evaluate everything in terms of measurable ecological and climate damage to power produced and try to minimize?
      - AmericanChopper 7y ago
acidburnNSA 7y ago
People need to keep this kind of thing in mind when major energy policy proposals like the Green New Deal rely on studies by the likes of M. Jacobsen (the guy who sued his scientific critics), whose 100% renewable scenarios all rely on at least 10x expansion of hydro power in the USA.
- specialist 7y ago
  TLDR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality I served on an endorsement committee. We made recommendations (or note) to the membership to support candidates, initiatives, referendum, etc. The last big internal food fight was over a levy to renew K-12 school funding. These are usually narrowly won ballot measures. Because some people think taxes is theft, government is evil, yadda yadda. This time something like $100m / year was at stake. Three board members strenuously argued against endorsement. They are local leaders in education policy. Our usual "go to" experts. Committed, knowledgeable, experienced, in the fight. The biggest education boosters you can imagine. The sticking point was ~$55k / year that could potentially be used by charter schools. For something like vans to transport kids to after school care. I don't remember the exact details, but you get the gist. -- I had no idea who Mark Jacobsen is. Okay, he's an influential expert. Being called to task for a report first written in 2009. His cohort is in a pissing match with another led by Ken Caldeira. Some fun. Going out on a limb here: There will be no new dam construction in North America in my life time. Like our current nuclear tech, the (financial) costs are too high, and the timelines are too long. (Wikipedia says we could maybe add power generation to existing unpowered dams, which could be cool.) New Green Deal, or something like it, has to happen. Spoiler alert: You're not going to like most of it. Focus on the positive. Please. If you have to trade support for building some dams (that will never happen) in order to get the programs you support, please just do it.
  - acidburnNSA 7y ago
    I'm a pragmatist. I like plans that make sense. Wishful thinking based on impossible plans is not a useful path forward. Understanding trade-offs and making them is productive and useful. Discussing facts is an important step in this process. To decarbonize at scale we need large scale new installations of dams, nukes, wind, solar, and geothermal. Spoiler alert: many will protest against all of these for a wide variety of reasons. Still, we must find a way to proceed with low carbon energy. We don't have the luxury of choosing which low carbon energy we like best. We need it all. For greens, start liking nukes more. For conservatives, start liking wind and solar more.
ak217 7y ago
There are plenty of dams, such as run-of-river dams and specific locations with no fauna, where they do not have a significant negative environmental impact, and may create new habitat where previously there was none.
- ahi 7y ago
  My community is currently trying to remove its run of river dam. It has mostly come down to removal is cheaper than maintenance. There is added benefits of one less portage and I am not convinced of the upstream habitat argument. It is mostly a stagnant dead zone for most of the summer.
arethuza 7y ago
Fun trivia fact: Ranulph Fiennes was thrown out of the SAS for blowing up a dam that offended him using "spare" explosives from training exercises. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranulph_Fiennes#Officer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranulph_Fiennes#Officer

switchbak 7y ago

An opinionated, yet very educational documentary on the subject being Damnation: http://damnationfilm.com/ http://damnationfilm.com/

AdamJacobMuller 7y ago
Interesting, thank you!
justinator 7y ago
A good, fictional account of blowing up a dam (that's not The Monkey Wrench Gang) is Night Moves. One of the eco-warriors was critiqued by his boss at an organic farm (before he put 2 and 2 together...) that taking down one damn isn't enough - there were 10 more dams on that same river. I guess it's also sobering to think that most all major rivers in the USA are damned up. I think, without looking, save the Yellowstone River. That's it.

jimktrains2 7y ago

By your definition simply existing is not green. It's not a matter of absolutes, but degrees. Between green and fossil fuels, even account for construction, the damn is "greener" in all scenarios I can think of off the top of my head.

ghaff 7y ago
You can't compare apples to apples but dams that have big negative ecological effects and don't actually produce much power would seem to be net negatives from an overall "green" perspective. There are also other effects including flood control, recreation, effect on local communities, water supply, etc. that can go in plus and minus columns but dams are absolutely not always net positives.
- jimktrains2 7y ago
  Sure, I'm not saying damns have no consequences. I'm saying that it's silly to declare them "not green" because of the existence of environmental consequences because there are consequences to everything we do. Damns are not a perfect solution, but compared to the ecological costs of coal mining, gas extraction, and burning of Fossil fuels, I feel it's disingenuous to just dismiss them out of hand for not being "green".
  - mikeash 7y ago
    The comment wasn’t declaring them to be “not-green” because of the mere existence of environmental consequences. It was doing so because of the large magnitude of those consequences. There’s probably a good argument to be made that they’re worth it, but the original statement was fine too.
    - WorldMaker 7y ago
      "Not green by default" might have been a better phrasing? They can still be much more green compared to alternatives. "Green" isn't a binary, and that seems to be the crux of both arguments above.
    - AdamJacobMuller 7y ago
      > large magnitude Large magnitude in proportion to small return.

ghaff 7y ago

Absolutely fair. It's hard to argue that we shouldn't have done any of the big dams out west. But there's at least a good argument against the Glen Canyon. And, especially with the benefit of hindsight, the seriously proposed dam sites in the Grand Canyon would have been very not good. In the east the proposed Tocks Island Dam was pursued for a long time. Again, especially with the benefit of hindsight, this was also pretty clearly not good.

smkellat 7y ago
No dam at Boulder City in Nevada and the Los Angeles basin becomes a very different story in terms of habitability. The town of St. Thomas would rise again and we’d find that missing B-29 that ditched into what is currently the very artificial Lake Mead. The Colorado River would regain its natural flow. Silicon Valley would die, though. Where on earth does its water come from? Yes, 85% of the water from Lake Mead. The Los Angeles basin is built up far beyond its natural sustainable water capacity. Unless there is a great leap forward in desalination technology some dams remain a rather necessary evil.
- dahinds 7y ago
  Silicon Valley gets no water from the Colorado River?
  - chrisdhoover 7y ago
    No it does not
    - nkurz 7y ago
      Confirming that chrisdhoover is correct, and none of the Bay Area uses water from the Colorado River: https://www.kqed.org/science/14623/bay-area-do-you-know-where-your-water-comes-from https://www.kqed.org/science/14623/bay-area-do-you-know-wher...
- AlotOfReading 7y ago

WorldMaker 7y ago

We've also gotten as species rather better at understanding downstream repercussions in terms of erosion control and hatchery/vegetation safety since early 19th/20th century dams, such as Edwards. It's not entirely an either/or situation, and there are interesting, growing workarounds such as hatchery creeks and salmon cannons. But yes, building new hydro power should always have a strong ecological assessment done before proceeding, and taking the trade-offs into account. (Disclaimer: I've been working on stream restoration software, but am not a domain expert, don't speak for my employer, and mostly am only commenting because I find it really interesting stuff because I've been working adjacent to it and hearing cool stories about it. Always fun when it comes up on the HN front page.)

erikpukinskis 7y ago
What’s the software?
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  RIVERMorph http://www.rivermorph.com/ http://www.rivermorph.com/

AmericanChopper 7y ago

The problem with this line of reasoning is that no energy is green by these standards. The solar panel supply chain is not green, solar and wind farms kill birds, dams destroy habitat, nuclear produces waste... if you think any of those things are trivial, just google them and you’ll find plenty of people lobbying against them. If you accept that human are a part of the environment, and that we are going to have some level of impact on it, then as you said, you can look at the RoI/impact of decisions and their alternatives, and come a conclusion that reduces impact. But if your standard is green/not green, then you’re never going to be able to solve any problems.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lkschubert8 7y ago
They are doing exactly what you are saying though. The point is that the ratio of damage to power for a dam that produces so little power is too high.
- AmericanChopper 7y ago
  Absolutely, I think this instance is perfectly reasonable. But then you also have people demanding that something be done about birds dying over solar farms (the only thing that could be done about that is to shut down the plant). That’s why I think the “it’s not green” assessment is never productive. “It’s more green than other things” is reasonable and productive, but “it’s not green enough” is an endless rabbit hole.
  - lkschubert8 7y ago
    I mean isn't the logical route to evaluate everything in terms of measurable ecological and climate damage to power produced and try to minimize?
    - AmericanChopper 7y ago

acidburnNSA 7y ago

People need to keep this kind of thing in mind when major energy policy proposals like the Green New Deal rely on studies by the likes of M. Jacobsen (the guy who sued his scientific critics), whose 100% renewable scenarios all rely on at least 10x expansion of hydro power in the USA.

specialist 7y ago
TLDR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality I served on an endorsement committee. We made recommendations (or note) to the membership to support candidates, initiatives, referendum, etc. The last big internal food fight was over a levy to renew K-12 school funding. These are usually narrowly won ballot measures. Because some people think taxes is theft, government is evil, yadda yadda. This time something like $100m / year was at stake. Three board members strenuously argued against endorsement. They are local leaders in education policy. Our usual "go to" experts. Committed, knowledgeable, experienced, in the fight. The biggest education boosters you can imagine. The sticking point was ~$55k / year that could potentially be used by charter schools. For something like vans to transport kids to after school care. I don't remember the exact details, but you get the gist. -- I had no idea who Mark Jacobsen is. Okay, he's an influential expert. Being called to task for a report first written in 2009. His cohort is in a pissing match with another led by Ken Caldeira. Some fun. Going out on a limb here: There will be no new dam construction in North America in my life time. Like our current nuclear tech, the (financial) costs are too high, and the timelines are too long. (Wikipedia says we could maybe add power generation to existing unpowered dams, which could be cool.) New Green Deal, or something like it, has to happen. Spoiler alert: You're not going to like most of it. Focus on the positive. Please. If you have to trade support for building some dams (that will never happen) in order to get the programs you support, please just do it.
- acidburnNSA 7y ago
  I'm a pragmatist. I like plans that make sense. Wishful thinking based on impossible plans is not a useful path forward. Understanding trade-offs and making them is productive and useful. Discussing facts is an important step in this process. To decarbonize at scale we need large scale new installations of dams, nukes, wind, solar, and geothermal. Spoiler alert: many will protest against all of these for a wide variety of reasons. Still, we must find a way to proceed with low carbon energy. We don't have the luxury of choosing which low carbon energy we like best. We need it all. For greens, start liking nukes more. For conservatives, start liking wind and solar more.

ak217 7y ago

There are plenty of dams, such as run-of-river dams and specific locations with no fauna, where they do not have a significant negative environmental impact, and may create new habitat where previously there was none.

ahi 7y ago
My community is currently trying to remove its run of river dam. It has mostly come down to removal is cheaper than maintenance. There is added benefits of one less portage and I am not convinced of the upstream habitat argument. It is mostly a stagnant dead zone for most of the summer.

arethuza 7y ago

Fun trivia fact: Ranulph Fiennes was thrown out of the SAS for blowing up a dam that offended him using "spare" explosives from training exercises. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranulph_Fiennes#Officer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranulph_Fiennes#Officer