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Readers may also find this review of methods of building salmon-friendly dams interesting: https://spo.nmfs.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/pdf-content/mfr8023.pd

Readers may also find this review of methods of building salmon-friendly dams interesting: https://spo.nmfs.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/pdf-content/mfr8023.pdf https://spo.nmfs.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/pdf-content/mf...

ed25519FUUU 6y ago
We must learn to live with hydro power and dams. It’s such an incredible and clean source of energy. It’s low maintenance and has a high duty cycle, with only nuclear being a more consistent. Dams are also how many parts of the US irrigate crops for our food.
- bb88 6y ago
  In Idaho we have Red Fish Lake, named after the sockeye salmon that would congregate there, often turning the lake red due to their numbers. In 2019, only 18 salmon returned to the lake. Further 4 dams in the Snake River are not used for hydro power, nor are they for flood control. They were used to try to make Idaho a major sea port -- despite the fact that Idaho is several hundred files from the ocean. https://discoversawtooth.org/what-happened-to-the-red-fish-of-redfish-lake https://discoversawtooth.org/what-happened-to-the-red-fish-o...
  - lumberingjack 6y ago
    Chop down 98% of american indigenous forests to make room for homes, drain all the wetlands in socal for gold miners. But all no we can't have clean power cus of some fishis that my tribe that originally owned that land didn't even care about.
    - oppenh3imer 6y ago
      We have programs for both reforestation and for wetland preservation. With any conservation proposal, one must weigh the pros and cons. In this case it is true that hydropower is cheap and clean. However, the negative externality of destroying the salmon run is much more than "some fishis" that some Indian tribes cared about. Aboriginal annual salmon catches have been estimated at over 10 million pounds for year. On top of that, the migration of pacific salmon upriver represents an enormous transfer of nutrients upstream. Salmon are a keystone species and are vitally important for the health of forests. Unfortunately, the salmon run cannot easily coexist with the dams. Yes, there is value in the hydropower. Yes, it is cheap, clean energy. But it is certainly not without cost. We could be reaping the benefits of one of the largest animal migrations on our planet in a sustainable way. Even disregarding the cultural importance to native peoples there is still enormous economic and ecological value in having a healthy salmon run.
      - soperj 6y ago
        It's not necessarily clean either. Depending on what was flooded, if there's any forest involved it can be much worse in terms of GHGs than the equivalent coal plant because of decaying plant matter.
      - rmah 6y ago
        10 mil pounds of salmon is about $30mil worth of salmon a year at today's retail prices. And more salmon would depress those prices. Economically speaking, the entire aboriginal catch is a drop in the bucket and not worth the benefit of a single dam. For comparison, the US alone currently harvests 100's of mil pounds of salmon a year. Alaska alone produces 500mil pounds last year (and this was the lowest in decades). Norway harvests around 3 BILLION pounds of salmon a year.
    - rmah 6y ago
      There is more forest cover now in the US than in 1900 [1]. While a lot of "old growth" is indeed gone, the idea that the US has been deforested is not really correct. Moreover, vast areas of the east coast has been returned to forest from what was farmland in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Overall, generally speaking, the ecological condition of the continental US is probably better today than at any time in the past century. [1] https://mff.forest.mtu.edu/TreeBasics/PICs/Trends03.jpg https://mff.forest.mtu.edu/TreeBasics/PICs/Trends03.jpg
- xenocyon 6y ago
  There are different kinds of hydropower. At the risk of oversimplifying, "big" hydro (such as conventional dams) inflicts massive environmental damage, while "little" hydro doesn't.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  Dams may become less reliable in coming years as climate change makes droughts more frequent and with worse severity.
- ghaff 6y ago
  A number of the big hydro dams in the West are very much a mixed bag. Glen Canyon should probably never have been built and fortunately the Redwall dam in the Grand Canyon was never built. Quite a few dams in New England have come down in recent years.

ed25519FUUU 6y ago

We must learn to live with hydro power and dams. It’s such an incredible and clean source of energy. It’s low maintenance and has a high duty cycle, with only nuclear being a more consistent. Dams are also how many parts of the US irrigate crops for our food.

bb88 6y ago
In Idaho we have Red Fish Lake, named after the sockeye salmon that would congregate there, often turning the lake red due to their numbers. In 2019, only 18 salmon returned to the lake. Further 4 dams in the Snake River are not used for hydro power, nor are they for flood control. They were used to try to make Idaho a major sea port -- despite the fact that Idaho is several hundred files from the ocean. https://discoversawtooth.org/what-happened-to-the-red-fish-of-redfish-lake https://discoversawtooth.org/what-happened-to-the-red-fish-o...
- lumberingjack 6y ago
  Chop down 98% of american indigenous forests to make room for homes, drain all the wetlands in socal for gold miners. But all no we can't have clean power cus of some fishis that my tribe that originally owned that land didn't even care about.
  - oppenh3imer 6y ago
    We have programs for both reforestation and for wetland preservation. With any conservation proposal, one must weigh the pros and cons. In this case it is true that hydropower is cheap and clean. However, the negative externality of destroying the salmon run is much more than "some fishis" that some Indian tribes cared about. Aboriginal annual salmon catches have been estimated at over 10 million pounds for year. On top of that, the migration of pacific salmon upriver represents an enormous transfer of nutrients upstream. Salmon are a keystone species and are vitally important for the health of forests. Unfortunately, the salmon run cannot easily coexist with the dams. Yes, there is value in the hydropower. Yes, it is cheap, clean energy. But it is certainly not without cost. We could be reaping the benefits of one of the largest animal migrations on our planet in a sustainable way. Even disregarding the cultural importance to native peoples there is still enormous economic and ecological value in having a healthy salmon run.
    - soperj 6y ago
      It's not necessarily clean either. Depending on what was flooded, if there's any forest involved it can be much worse in terms of GHGs than the equivalent coal plant because of decaying plant matter.
    - rmah 6y ago
      10 mil pounds of salmon is about $30mil worth of salmon a year at today's retail prices. And more salmon would depress those prices. Economically speaking, the entire aboriginal catch is a drop in the bucket and not worth the benefit of a single dam. For comparison, the US alone currently harvests 100's of mil pounds of salmon a year. Alaska alone produces 500mil pounds last year (and this was the lowest in decades). Norway harvests around 3 BILLION pounds of salmon a year.
  - rmah 6y ago
    There is more forest cover now in the US than in 1900 [1]. While a lot of "old growth" is indeed gone, the idea that the US has been deforested is not really correct. Moreover, vast areas of the east coast has been returned to forest from what was farmland in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Overall, generally speaking, the ecological condition of the continental US is probably better today than at any time in the past century. [1] https://mff.forest.mtu.edu/TreeBasics/PICs/Trends03.jpg https://mff.forest.mtu.edu/TreeBasics/PICs/Trends03.jpg
xenocyon 6y ago
There are different kinds of hydropower. At the risk of oversimplifying, "big" hydro (such as conventional dams) inflicts massive environmental damage, while "little" hydro doesn't.
bobthepanda 6y ago
Dams may become less reliable in coming years as climate change makes droughts more frequent and with worse severity.
ghaff 6y ago
A number of the big hydro dams in the West are very much a mixed bag. Glen Canyon should probably never have been built and fortunately the Redwall dam in the Grand Canyon was never built. Quite a few dams in New England have come down in recent years.