Hydroelectric has two issues: you have to have access to appropriate rivers, and those rivers tend to be major parts of the ecosystem in their own right. For e

Hydroelectric has two issues: you have to have access to appropriate rivers, and those rivers tend to be major parts of the ecosystem in their own right. For example, Seattle is largely hydroelectric powered. The city's public utility even owns the dams, so whatever energy that isn't used in Seattle they sell to California at market rates, which makes energy conservation a profit center for them. Washington also has major mountain ranges plus the Columbia river. Kansas, on the other hand, is short on anywhere to get falling water. On the other hand, salmon are a crucial species to the ecosystem out here. They're the primary food source of the local orca population. They're a major commercial fishery. They're one of the major sources of nutrients along the rivers going into the interior. Isotope analysis of trees along the rivers out here shows that a large amount of their growth is driven by decaying salmon. Ross Dam and its kin that Seattle's power comes from are high enough up where we don't think there was historically much salmon run. There's a study going on now rechecking that. We've removed the Elwa River dam on the Olympic Peninsula, though. It was egregious: the requirements for salmon access were already in place when it was built, and they just ignored it and then refused to pay the fines. The Snake River dams up the Columbia are similarly problematic, and need to be removed. This is different from, say, Switzerland, where their high dams like Grande Dixence don't have a comparable environmental effect.