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> As of July 2017, Columbia River Basin hydropower dams have a total nameplate capacity of 34,318 megawatts and produce, on average, 16,254 megawatts of electri

by cronix 7y ago

> As of July 2017, Columbia River Basin hydropower dams have a total nameplate capacity of 34,318 megawatts and produce, on average, 16,254 megawatts of electricity. This is 54.4 percent of the total generating capacity and 55.7 percent of the total average annual energy produced in the Northwest electricity supply.[1] There are also 7 hydro dams on the Snake [2]. I don't see anyone removing them any time soon, without first replacing these major power sources the northwest depends on. [1] https://www.nwcouncil.org/reports/columbia-river-history/damshistory https://www.nwcouncil.org/reports/columbia-river-history/dam... [2] http://www.cbr.washington.edu/hydro http://www.cbr.washington.edu/hydro

atourgates 7y ago
The Snake River dams only account for between 5-13% of that total. The NW Energy Coalition actually sponsored a study recently on what it would take to replace that with a combination of wind, solar, energy efficiency, and demand response. Here's the homepage for the study: https://nwenergy.org/featured/lsrdstudy/ https://nwenergy.org/featured/lsrdstudy/ Some of their findings: * It's doable. * It'd cost about $1/mo on the average residential power bill in the region. * Maintenance for the existing lower Snake River dams runs about $245 million/yr, whereas their proposal would cost around $464 million/yr. * They projected a doable timeline of within the next 10 years.