8 ms·

How much water does generating electric power waste? Or does the system suck everything dry?

• Denvercoder9 4y ago
  Power generation doesn't generally waste water, it just extracts the potential energy from discharges that would've happened anyway.
  • hinkley 4y ago
    It does however increase the carbon footprint of the river. Submerging forests to create reservoirs has created huge methane releases that nobody who thinks hydro is green power wants to talk about. As someone living in the West, we have another reason to dislike dams: loss of salmon breeding grounds.
    • pvaldes 4y ago
      > loss of salmon breeding grounds. There are technology available to alleviate this problem. Not easy, but solvable
  • googlryas 4y ago
    The angel's share might account for a fair bit, most importantly if people are expecting water downstream. eg 20 kAF yearly at Lake Mojave with expectations in Mexico for the water.