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Is there a way to differentiate clean hydro and dirty hydro? In the US the most recent "green" standards exclude hydroelectricity as renewable energy.
by j_walter 5y ago
Is there a way to differentiate clean hydro and dirty hydro? In the US the most recent "green" standards exclude hydroelectricity as renewable energy.
- eikenberry 5y agoReally? That seems dumb. Have any references for why they made this decision?
- bujak300 5y agoDumb or not, hydroelectric has its own ecological problems and as the dams near the and of life, the costs associated with that will be most likely "externalized"
- j_walter 5y agoI don't have the details, but when my company went to purchase RECs for 2021 we were told that hydro is no longer considered to be in the level of REC we were targeting (extra green something or other). So the cost for this year was much higher than 2020.
- verdverm 5y agoIf you want to be nice to the environment, damming (damning?) rivers would intuitively seem like a bad thing for wildlife.
- 1ris 5y agoThe only truly green energy is the energy you don't use. All electric is dirty to some degree. Hyrdo is cleaner than almost anything else, but not a clean as not using it at all. On top of that "clean" is not a very well defined metric. Carbon emissions are not the only thing to consider. The exclusion of hydro from "green" is of tactical nature. It's mature technology and without spectacular learning curves.