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With the mention that Hydro is not at all environmental-friendly, quite the contrary. It helps with decreasing the quantity of CO2 we generate, but in many othe

With the mention that Hydro is not at all environmental-friendly, quite the contrary. It helps with decreasing the quantity of CO2 we generate, but in many other aspects is pretty bad (and in many cases an existential threat) when it comes to the local environment.

cpursley 4y ago
Yeah, Hydro is terrible for river ecosystems and one of the reasons they started removing them in the Pacific NW (USA) - trout migration.
timellis-smith 4y ago
They are pretty major producers of methane https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/nov/06/hydropower-hydroelectricity-methane-clean-climate-change-study https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/nov/06...
dghughes 4y ago
Hydro is bad for the environment especially those who live near it. A buildup of methylmercury in sediment is caused by hydro dams. There are lawsuits here in Canada by First Nations who live near dams.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Hydro has been superceded by battery storage and Green Hydrogen production, for economic reasons. Existing ones, particulalry those built for multiple functions (water supply, recreation) still have some use but mostly you just want to be rolling out solar and wind until you run out of fossil fuel generation to displace. Only then do you really need to start comparing whether building storage would cost less than more renewables and interconnects and hydro is unlikely to be the lowest cost option unless you're going to build the dam anyway for other reasons.
- ftth_finland 4y ago
  “Hydro has been superceded by battery storage and Green Hydrogen production, for economic reasons.” I’d be really, really be interested in primary sources for the above claim.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    It's mostly just costs. See Figure 1.2 Global weighted average LCOEs from newly commissioned, utility-scale renewable power generation technologies, 2010-2021 https://irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2022/Jul/IRENA_Renewable_Power_Generation_Costs_2021.pdf https://irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/202... Hydro costs are going up, solar and wind going down. Hydro is still less than fossil fuels, which is great, but that's not the target to beat anymore, and renewables are lower and trending even lower. And that's before the more extreme geographical constraints for siting, with good locations already used, the project sizes and the longer lead times and investment paybacks compared with renewables. But Hydro also has flexibility, which is really useful for balancing renewables and nuclear. It's important to switch existing Hydro into this mode to make the most of it. But again, for new build, since the raw power is more expensive than renewables, the flexibility would need to be cheaper than the equivalent flexibility provided by more renewables plus batteries to win back that lost ground. And it isn't. Same story for pumped storage. Here's a worked example for the Snowy 2 project: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/snowy-2-vs-battery-storage/ https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/snowy-2-vs-battery-stora... The key thing is, energy production is cheap these days. So storing energy has to compete against just building even more production and a small amount of storage. This applies to batteries as much as it does to hydro. But batteries scale down better.
    - ftth_finland 4y ago
      The links provided are neither primary sources nor do they support your original statement. ”The key thing is, energy production is cheap these days.” This is immaterial if cheap energy is unavailable when needed. See: winter (season) “So storing energy has to compete against just building even more production and a small amount of storage.” This is incorrect. More production is useless if the output is zero. Zero times a large number is still zero. Again, see: winter (season) ”This applies to batteries as much as it does to hydro. But batteries scale down better.” The problem with batteries is that they don’t scale up.

cpursley 4y ago

Yeah, Hydro is terrible for river ecosystems and one of the reasons they started removing them in the Pacific NW (USA) - trout migration.

timellis-smith 4y ago

They are pretty major producers of methane https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/nov/06/hydropower-hydroelectricity-methane-clean-climate-change-study https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/nov/06...

dghughes 4y ago

Hydro is bad for the environment especially those who live near it. A buildup of methylmercury in sediment is caused by hydro dams. There are lawsuits here in Canada by First Nations who live near dams.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

Hydro has been superceded by battery storage and Green Hydrogen production, for economic reasons. Existing ones, particulalry those built for multiple functions (water supply, recreation) still have some use but mostly you just want to be rolling out solar and wind until you run out of fossil fuel generation to displace. Only then do you really need to start comparing whether building storage would cost less than more renewables and interconnects and hydro is unlikely to be the lowest cost option unless you're going to build the dam anyway for other reasons.

ftth_finland 4y ago
“Hydro has been superceded by battery storage and Green Hydrogen production, for economic reasons.” I’d be really, really be interested in primary sources for the above claim.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  It's mostly just costs. See Figure 1.2 Global weighted average LCOEs from newly commissioned, utility-scale renewable power generation technologies, 2010-2021 https://irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2022/Jul/IRENA_Renewable_Power_Generation_Costs_2021.pdf https://irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/202... Hydro costs are going up, solar and wind going down. Hydro is still less than fossil fuels, which is great, but that's not the target to beat anymore, and renewables are lower and trending even lower. And that's before the more extreme geographical constraints for siting, with good locations already used, the project sizes and the longer lead times and investment paybacks compared with renewables. But Hydro also has flexibility, which is really useful for balancing renewables and nuclear. It's important to switch existing Hydro into this mode to make the most of it. But again, for new build, since the raw power is more expensive than renewables, the flexibility would need to be cheaper than the equivalent flexibility provided by more renewables plus batteries to win back that lost ground. And it isn't. Same story for pumped storage. Here's a worked example for the Snowy 2 project: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/snowy-2-vs-battery-storage/ https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/snowy-2-vs-battery-stora... The key thing is, energy production is cheap these days. So storing energy has to compete against just building even more production and a small amount of storage. This applies to batteries as much as it does to hydro. But batteries scale down better.
  - ftth_finland 4y ago
    The links provided are neither primary sources nor do they support your original statement. ”The key thing is, energy production is cheap these days.” This is immaterial if cheap energy is unavailable when needed. See: winter (season) “So storing energy has to compete against just building even more production and a small amount of storage.” This is incorrect. More production is useless if the output is zero. Zero times a large number is still zero. Again, see: winter (season) ”This applies to batteries as much as it does to hydro. But batteries scale down better.” The problem with batteries is that they don’t scale up.