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Hydroelectric dams typically cause even more damage when they fail, but I rarely see people worrying about whether using them for power will lead to war-time is

Hydroelectric dams typically cause even more damage when they fail, but I rarely see people worrying about whether using them for power will lead to war-time issues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure Of course, the Geneva Convention bans attacking dams, just like it bans attacking nuclear power plants. The pollution from burning coal has already killed more people than nuclear disasters conceivably could. If we could use only wind and solar power to fully replace fossil fuels and hydro, that could be a reasonable argument... But it seems unrealistic to get enough energy without using some higher-density sources of energy, whether that's hydro or nuclear or oil, and if we're picking based on which one causes the least death, even accounting for wars and failures, nuclear seems to be a head and shoulder above the rest. The primary thing that seems to be driving using coal plants and not using nuclear is purely monetary cost: nuclear plants take a huge up-front investment, coal plants already exist, and wind/solar can be transitioned to gradually with less up-front cost. The talk about nuclear's "danger" to me seems, quite plausibly, to be a post-facto justification based on not wanting to put up the money.

timr 4y ago
You should note that this is more than a theoretical concern. The world spent months fretting about Mosul dam in Iraq, not that many years ago: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2016/12/11/mosul-dam-collapse-will-be-worse-than-a-nuclear-bomb https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2016/12/11/mosul-dam-coll... https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/02/a-bigger-problem-than-isis https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/02/a-bigger-probl... Until we live in a world where we can micro-generate terawatts of power on a fully distributed, dynamic electrical grid -- if that's even possible -- the only practical technologies we have for satisfying our hunger for energy involve concentrated areas of high potential energy. Big energy, big target.
thatfrenchguy 4y ago
The other issue with solar/wind of course being that it’s not a suitable electricity source for base load on a grid :-/
- desindol 4y ago
  If one more reactor goes down nuclear isn’t either in your country. Germany has to run their load balancing gas plants right now to fix your nuclear fever dreams.
  - MisterMower 4y ago
    And what is the probability of a reactor going down unexpectedly versus a weather event that causes renewable sources to stop producing? I think we learned the answer to that question last winter down in Texas.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      You back up the renewables with hydrogen-burning combined cycle plants. A combined cycle plant costs around $1/W. A nuclear power plant costs around $10/W. Why do you want to spend so much more money than you have to, just so you can split atoms?
    - cycomanic 4y ago
      France currently runs its nuclear plants at 60% due to maintanance and heat. In the last years the amount of times they had to shut down a nuclear power plant due to to warm cooling water has increased. Given where global warming is going that will happen more and more.
    - throwawaycuriou 4y ago
      Texan politicians didn't miss a chance to blame wind power for the outages. Unfortunately, those initial lies are still circulating. The primary cause was that the pipes supplying natural gas froze. https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/texas-wind-turbines-frozen/ https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/texas-wind-turbines-...
      - MisterMower 4y ago
        The frozen pipes were a problem specifically because the wind farms weren’t producing. Replace the wind farms with nuclear power and the problem goes away.
cesarb 4y ago
> Hydroelectric dams typically cause even more damage when they fail, but I rarely see people worrying about whether using them for power will lead to war-time issues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure I believe the reason people worry less about hydroelectric dam failures is because, if they fail, they do not leave behind a contaminated area. Besides, it's just water; many people are used to floods caused by heavy rain, and the danger feels similar. In fact, hydroelectric dams can even help prevent (or contain) flooding, so it's the opposite of causing damage in that case. Of course, we're not talking about tailings dams, which do leave behind a trail of contamination when they fail. (An interesting case is the failure of a tailings dam many years ago which flooded the Rio Doce with pollution, with that flood being mostly stopped by a hydroelectric dam downriver. The hydroelectric dam contained the damage instead of causing it.)
- lstodd 4y ago
  Rio Doce was 43.7 million cubic metres and 18 deaths. If someone blows up Kakhovka dam in Ukraine, it'll be about 18e9 m3, hundreds of thousands dead, wholesale destruction of everything downstream, shutdown of every energy plant that uses the resevoir for cooling, not to mention the hydroelectic station, and untold damage when winds blow the exposed sediment all over the steppe. Which is one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world. So? This Kakhovka dam is a legitimate military target as the last remaining supply route for russian troops in/around Kherson.
  - bobthepanda 4y ago
    Not a dam, but such a military strategy has already happened and was extremely foolish. Intentionally breaching the dikes of the Yellow River killed nearly a million people, displaced several million more, and was a contributing factor to people turning towards the Chinese Communists and away from the KMT.
  - jefftk 4y ago
    > This Kakhovka dam is a legitimate military target Not under the Geneva Convention "Works and installations containing dangerous forces, namely dams, dykes and nuclear electrical generating stations, shall not be made the object of attack, even where these objects are military objectives, if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population." https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v2_rul_rule42_sectiona https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v2_rul...
Retric 4y ago
Hydroelectric dams actively save lives by reducing flooding. It’s the only power source with net negative death rates and as such doesn’t see the same kind of pushback from disasters.
- cowtools 4y ago
  Okay, but wouldn't a hydroelectric dam encourage people to build in areas that would be otherwise unsafe, thus putting them at risk of a terrorist attack on the dam?
  - Retric 4y ago
    That’s tricky as people have a shocking propensity to build in flood plains either way and dams only mitigate flooding rather than prevent it. I personally doubt that many people are going to change their mind because the location they want to build their home likely floods every 90 years vs every 30. Bill a friend of mine built a large addition on a house which had flooded twice while he had been living there, once actually reaching the second story. In his mind it’s picture perfect 99.9% of the time so what’s an inconvenience every few decades. In the end he died before the next flood, but now there is a nice house in a flood plain. This isn’t reserved to individuals, companies didn’t abandon large areas of NYC after the last flood. https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/data-maps/flood-hazard-mapper.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/data-maps/flood-hazard-ma...
    - cowtools 4y ago
      I think the economic decision making eventually trickles down from banks and insurance companies who actually do the math themselves and charge building-owners/mortgage-owners competitively. It's sort of an continuous invisible hand.
      - Retric 4y ago
        At least for Bill he didn’t get a loan to build the addition or any insurance to cover flood damage. So such trickle down just shifts who builds in such areas but it doesn’t prevent people from living or building in them.

timr 4y ago

You should note that this is more than a theoretical concern. The world spent months fretting about Mosul dam in Iraq, not that many years ago: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2016/12/11/mosul-dam-collapse-will-be-worse-than-a-nuclear-bomb https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2016/12/11/mosul-dam-coll... https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/02/a-bigger-problem-than-isis https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/02/a-bigger-probl... Until we live in a world where we can micro-generate terawatts of power on a fully distributed, dynamic electrical grid -- if that's even possible -- the only practical technologies we have for satisfying our hunger for energy involve concentrated areas of high potential energy. Big energy, big target.

thatfrenchguy 4y ago

The other issue with solar/wind of course being that it’s not a suitable electricity source for base load on a grid :-/

desindol 4y ago
If one more reactor goes down nuclear isn’t either in your country. Germany has to run their load balancing gas plants right now to fix your nuclear fever dreams.
- MisterMower 4y ago
  And what is the probability of a reactor going down unexpectedly versus a weather event that causes renewable sources to stop producing? I think we learned the answer to that question last winter down in Texas.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    You back up the renewables with hydrogen-burning combined cycle plants. A combined cycle plant costs around $1/W. A nuclear power plant costs around $10/W. Why do you want to spend so much more money than you have to, just so you can split atoms?
  - cycomanic 4y ago
    France currently runs its nuclear plants at 60% due to maintanance and heat. In the last years the amount of times they had to shut down a nuclear power plant due to to warm cooling water has increased. Given where global warming is going that will happen more and more.
  - throwawaycuriou 4y ago
    Texan politicians didn't miss a chance to blame wind power for the outages. Unfortunately, those initial lies are still circulating. The primary cause was that the pipes supplying natural gas froze. https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/texas-wind-turbines-frozen/ https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/texas-wind-turbines-...
    - MisterMower 4y ago
      The frozen pipes were a problem specifically because the wind farms weren’t producing. Replace the wind farms with nuclear power and the problem goes away.

cesarb 4y ago

> Hydroelectric dams typically cause even more damage when they fail, but I rarely see people worrying about whether using them for power will lead to war-time issues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure I believe the reason people worry less about hydroelectric dam failures is because, if they fail, they do not leave behind a contaminated area. Besides, it's just water; many people are used to floods caused by heavy rain, and the danger feels similar. In fact, hydroelectric dams can even help prevent (or contain) flooding, so it's the opposite of causing damage in that case. Of course, we're not talking about tailings dams, which do leave behind a trail of contamination when they fail. (An interesting case is the failure of a tailings dam many years ago which flooded the Rio Doce with pollution, with that flood being mostly stopped by a hydroelectric dam downriver. The hydroelectric dam contained the damage instead of causing it.)

lstodd 4y ago
Rio Doce was 43.7 million cubic metres and 18 deaths. If someone blows up Kakhovka dam in Ukraine, it'll be about 18e9 m3, hundreds of thousands dead, wholesale destruction of everything downstream, shutdown of every energy plant that uses the resevoir for cooling, not to mention the hydroelectic station, and untold damage when winds blow the exposed sediment all over the steppe. Which is one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world. So? This Kakhovka dam is a legitimate military target as the last remaining supply route for russian troops in/around Kherson.
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  Not a dam, but such a military strategy has already happened and was extremely foolish. Intentionally breaching the dikes of the Yellow River killed nearly a million people, displaced several million more, and was a contributing factor to people turning towards the Chinese Communists and away from the KMT.
- jefftk 4y ago
  > This Kakhovka dam is a legitimate military target Not under the Geneva Convention "Works and installations containing dangerous forces, namely dams, dykes and nuclear electrical generating stations, shall not be made the object of attack, even where these objects are military objectives, if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population." https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v2_rul_rule42_sectiona https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v2_rul...

Retric 4y ago

Hydroelectric dams actively save lives by reducing flooding. It’s the only power source with net negative death rates and as such doesn’t see the same kind of pushback from disasters.

cowtools 4y ago
Okay, but wouldn't a hydroelectric dam encourage people to build in areas that would be otherwise unsafe, thus putting them at risk of a terrorist attack on the dam?
- Retric 4y ago
  That’s tricky as people have a shocking propensity to build in flood plains either way and dams only mitigate flooding rather than prevent it. I personally doubt that many people are going to change their mind because the location they want to build their home likely floods every 90 years vs every 30. Bill a friend of mine built a large addition on a house which had flooded twice while he had been living there, once actually reaching the second story. In his mind it’s picture perfect 99.9% of the time so what’s an inconvenience every few decades. In the end he died before the next flood, but now there is a nice house in a flood plain. This isn’t reserved to individuals, companies didn’t abandon large areas of NYC after the last flood. https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/data-maps/flood-hazard-mapper.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/data-maps/flood-hazard-ma...
  - cowtools 4y ago
    I think the economic decision making eventually trickles down from banks and insurance companies who actually do the math themselves and charge building-owners/mortgage-owners competitively. It's sort of an continuous invisible hand.
    - Retric 4y ago
      At least for Bill he didn’t get a loan to build the addition or any insurance to cover flood damage. So such trickle down just shifts who builds in such areas but it doesn’t prevent people from living or building in them.