6 ms·

Hydro isn't unfashionable. We just don't have reasonable places to keep daming, so there's little really to talk about. Nuclear is unfashionable, because there

Hydro isn't unfashionable. We just don't have reasonable places to keep daming, so there's little really to talk about. Nuclear is unfashionable, because there's huge growth potential among wealthy industrial countries, but because it's not "liked" there's very little actual growth.

ltbarcly3 4y ago
This is the answer, if there were places we could generate a lot of hydro power we already would be.
- idiotsecant 4y ago
  There are plenty of places we could make hydro power tomorrow if we weren't concerned with displacing people.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> Hydro isn't unfashionable. Its unfashionable for new capacity because much of the low-hanging fruit opportunities are plucked, and it has high upfront costs, and, while good from a climate and air pollution standpoint, it is still one of the most enviromentally destructive energy sources. Also, while it doesn’t induce climate change, it can be vulnerable to climate change.
- dmos62 4y ago
  > it doesn’t induce climate change You could make climate change worse through bad natural water management. E.g. you could create a desert, or something in between.
- sidewndr46 4y ago
  Creating artificial lakes is the definition of climate change. Taking what was a flowing river and converting it into a huge lake massively changes the climate of the area.
bpodgursky 4y ago
Actually the Yosemite valley has significant hydro potential.
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  Isn't that all protected wilderness though?
  - bpodgursky 4y ago
    Of course, I'm saying > We just don't have reasonable places to keep daming Isn't super true from an energy perspective.
- jhoechtl 4y ago
  Germany is anecdotally facing an Energy crisis Nuclear power:no. Wind energy: off shore out of sight yes, but not on my mountain. Russian gas: no (more). Coal instead? No! So eveyone will install mini PV systems and become self-sufficient? First this wont work during the cold season and how incredible inneficient is this going to be? I think we must stop to outsource providing cheap energy to poor countries and tap on our.shoulders how green we are. Lithium batteries? Fine, but no lithium mine round my corner!
  - hypertele-Xii 4y ago
    There is no lithium to mine around your corner. Half of all known deposits on Earth are in Bolivia and Argentina.
    - bpodgursky 4y ago
      Yeah but that's really just because of globalization and marginal cost. Lower-quality Lithium reserves are in a ton of places but most countries have punted the environmental cost and hassle to the cheapest places to mine it.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      Is France around the corner from Germany? Because France has lithium. https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/10/24/frances-massive-new-mithium-mine-could-supply-700000-electric-car-batteries-a-year https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/10/24/frances-massive-ne...
kkfx 4y ago
hydro and nuclear need the very same turbine tech, and actually turbine are the most hi-tech part of the game, reactors demand delicate construction and testing, but behind that are not much complex. Oh, sure, IF you have a vast set of mountains and much water, let's say Norway, developing hydro is obvious. Just a bit more populated countries, let's say Swiss do want both simply because one offer good power for most of the year but not enough safety to relay on and so having two systems is better than one. If you have no suitable areas, let's say Mongolia, and you do not have the tech for nuclear... Than they are both unfashionable. That's the practical "fashionable" or "unfashionable" part. Anything you can have, is fashionable if gives you something useful, anything who can gives you something useful but you can't have........
- pencilguin 4y ago
  Hydro power turbines and nukes' steam turbines are similar only in the name, and that just because both turn.
  - kkfx 4y ago
    They are both build with the same industrial process, demand similar alloys, similar CFD calculus etc. Witch means: if you can build one for hydro you can build one for nuclear. If you can't for nuclear than you can't equally for hydro and vice versa. That's why they are a big business for very few developed countries supply chain. Do NEVER forget that anything at a certain scale is a matter of know how, supply chain and raw materials. Formally knowledge is "open in science" but that's just PR, in the modern world almost without public research and public universities knowledge is power and is in private hands to a point of being a danger for the society at a whole.
    - pencilguin 4y ago
      They do not, in fact, demand similar alloys. A hydro power turbine operates with liquid water, a steam turbine with superheated, corrosive steam. A Pelton wheel is fundamentally different in every detail from a steam turbine. Useful Pelton wheels have been made in village smitheries. They are readily mass-produced, and last many decades without need for service.
muaytimbo 4y ago
It IS unfashionable, dams are actively being removed across the US in order to restore the ecosystems they shattered. Migratory fish and all predators higher up the trophic chain are devastated by any type of dam.
- jhoechtl 4y ago
  There are fish ladders, at least we have them in Europe along river dams. When I think about the giant five valley hydroplant in China, the giant Euphrat hydroplant or the giant Nile hydroplant of Aegypt, I think its more the abscence of political force which could move ten thousands of people out of the way.
  - muaytimbo 4y ago
    Fish ladders are completely ineffective [1]. [1] https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/conl.12000 https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/conl....
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  Mostly smaller dams that were built a long time ago. They would need to be replaced anyways, so just tearing them down and not replacing them is economical and ecological. But the big ones built in the last 100 years are going to stick around for awhile.
  - pencilguin 4y ago
    Not because they are less damaging, but because Big Ag has enough influence to keep them in place.
- kixiQu 4y ago
  I'm wondering if we should even accept the framing of that as "fashion" and not "large-scale action spurred by a rational shared reevaluation of impact"
  - 4y ago
jhoechtl 4y ago
Nuclear fell out of fashion because people do not understand statics and were unable to address peoples concern about their safety.
- kagakuninja 4y ago
  Conveniently ignoring the extreme cost of nuclear power. The power companies simply do not want to invest billions and then wait 7+ years, assuming there are no project delays or cost overruns (which there always are). Renewables and natural gas are much cheaper.
  - google234123 4y ago
    The extreme cost of nuclear power are partially the fault of scaremongers stopping all production of them in the west. China has 100s being built or planned and obviously they can't cost 10s of billions each. Thanks for blackouts when it's cloudy and not windy.
    - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
      China’s nuclear program is just getting started and is almost completely state funded. They only have 49 plants right now with 16 under construction, I’m not sure where your 100s came from. Their plan is to quadruple generating capacity (current at 50 Gw) to 200 Gw by 2035. France is still the model country when it comes to nuclear power. Even in 2035, nuclear will be less than 10% of its energy mix.
    - pencilguin 4y ago
      China routinely announces plans for things that it does not, in the end, build.
  - kennend3 4y ago
    "Renewables" cost our government here in Ontario. https://toronto.citynews.ca/2018/06/07/kathleen-wynne-ran-energy-ontario-voters/ https://toronto.citynews.ca/2018/06/07/kathleen-wynne-ran-en... They were in power for ~11 years, but thanks to their "green energy" programs they not only lost the election, they lost political party status and have yet to regain it. Renewables are not cheaper. "The FAO estimates that the renewable generation subsidy program will cost the Province a net $2.8 billion over the first three years of the program, from 2020-21 to 2022-23. The FAO's three-year cost estimate is significantly higher than the Province's cost estimate of $1.3 billion reported in the 2020 Ontario Budget." These long-term "green energy" programs were expensive, and the government knowingly lied about how much it would cost.
sien 4y ago
Fun fact, the Australian Green Party was born protesting renewable electricity. They stopped the development of the Franklin Dam in Tasmania. "In the late 1970s and 1980s, a public campaign to prevent the construction of the Franklin Dam in Tasmania saw environmentalist and activist Norm Sanders elected to the Tasmanian House of Assembly as an Australian Democrat. Brown, then director of the Wilderness Society, contested the election as an independent, but failed to win a seat.[3]" From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Australian_Greens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Australian_Gree... The founder of the Green, Bob Brown, now opposes wind farms in Tasmania. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Brown#Opposition_to_a_Tasmanian_wind_farm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Brown#Opposition_to_a_Tasm...

ltbarcly3 4y ago

This is the answer, if there were places we could generate a lot of hydro power we already would be.

idiotsecant 4y ago
There are plenty of places we could make hydro power tomorrow if we weren't concerned with displacing people.

dragonwriter 4y ago

> Hydro isn't unfashionable. Its unfashionable for new capacity because much of the low-hanging fruit opportunities are plucked, and it has high upfront costs, and, while good from a climate and air pollution standpoint, it is still one of the most enviromentally destructive energy sources. Also, while it doesn’t induce climate change, it can be vulnerable to climate change.

dmos62 4y ago
> it doesn’t induce climate change You could make climate change worse through bad natural water management. E.g. you could create a desert, or something in between.
sidewndr46 4y ago
Creating artificial lakes is the definition of climate change. Taking what was a flowing river and converting it into a huge lake massively changes the climate of the area.

bpodgursky 4y ago

Actually the Yosemite valley has significant hydro potential.

stjohnswarts 4y ago
Isn't that all protected wilderness though?
- bpodgursky 4y ago
  Of course, I'm saying > We just don't have reasonable places to keep daming Isn't super true from an energy perspective.
jhoechtl 4y ago
Germany is anecdotally facing an Energy crisis Nuclear power:no. Wind energy: off shore out of sight yes, but not on my mountain. Russian gas: no (more). Coal instead? No! So eveyone will install mini PV systems and become self-sufficient? First this wont work during the cold season and how incredible inneficient is this going to be? I think we must stop to outsource providing cheap energy to poor countries and tap on our.shoulders how green we are. Lithium batteries? Fine, but no lithium mine round my corner!
- hypertele-Xii 4y ago
  There is no lithium to mine around your corner. Half of all known deposits on Earth are in Bolivia and Argentina.
  - bpodgursky 4y ago
    Yeah but that's really just because of globalization and marginal cost. Lower-quality Lithium reserves are in a ton of places but most countries have punted the environmental cost and hassle to the cheapest places to mine it.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    Is France around the corner from Germany? Because France has lithium. https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/10/24/frances-massive-new-mithium-mine-could-supply-700000-electric-car-batteries-a-year https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/10/24/frances-massive-ne...

kkfx 4y ago

hydro and nuclear need the very same turbine tech, and actually turbine are the most hi-tech part of the game, reactors demand delicate construction and testing, but behind that are not much complex. Oh, sure, IF you have a vast set of mountains and much water, let's say Norway, developing hydro is obvious. Just a bit more populated countries, let's say Swiss do want both simply because one offer good power for most of the year but not enough safety to relay on and so having two systems is better than one. If you have no suitable areas, let's say Mongolia, and you do not have the tech for nuclear... Than they are both unfashionable. That's the practical "fashionable" or "unfashionable" part. Anything you can have, is fashionable if gives you something useful, anything who can gives you something useful but you can't have........

pencilguin 4y ago
Hydro power turbines and nukes' steam turbines are similar only in the name, and that just because both turn.
- kkfx 4y ago
  They are both build with the same industrial process, demand similar alloys, similar CFD calculus etc. Witch means: if you can build one for hydro you can build one for nuclear. If you can't for nuclear than you can't equally for hydro and vice versa. That's why they are a big business for very few developed countries supply chain. Do NEVER forget that anything at a certain scale is a matter of know how, supply chain and raw materials. Formally knowledge is "open in science" but that's just PR, in the modern world almost without public research and public universities knowledge is power and is in private hands to a point of being a danger for the society at a whole.
  - pencilguin 4y ago
    They do not, in fact, demand similar alloys. A hydro power turbine operates with liquid water, a steam turbine with superheated, corrosive steam. A Pelton wheel is fundamentally different in every detail from a steam turbine. Useful Pelton wheels have been made in village smitheries. They are readily mass-produced, and last many decades without need for service.

muaytimbo 4y ago

It IS unfashionable, dams are actively being removed across the US in order to restore the ecosystems they shattered. Migratory fish and all predators higher up the trophic chain are devastated by any type of dam.

jhoechtl 4y ago
There are fish ladders, at least we have them in Europe along river dams. When I think about the giant five valley hydroplant in China, the giant Euphrat hydroplant or the giant Nile hydroplant of Aegypt, I think its more the abscence of political force which could move ten thousands of people out of the way.
- muaytimbo 4y ago
  Fish ladders are completely ineffective [1]. [1] https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/conl.12000 https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/conl....
seanmcdirmid 4y ago
Mostly smaller dams that were built a long time ago. They would need to be replaced anyways, so just tearing them down and not replacing them is economical and ecological. But the big ones built in the last 100 years are going to stick around for awhile.
- pencilguin 4y ago
  Not because they are less damaging, but because Big Ag has enough influence to keep them in place.
kixiQu 4y ago
I'm wondering if we should even accept the framing of that as "fashion" and not "large-scale action spurred by a rational shared reevaluation of impact"
- 4y ago

jhoechtl 4y ago

Nuclear fell out of fashion because people do not understand statics and were unable to address peoples concern about their safety.

kagakuninja 4y ago
Conveniently ignoring the extreme cost of nuclear power. The power companies simply do not want to invest billions and then wait 7+ years, assuming there are no project delays or cost overruns (which there always are). Renewables and natural gas are much cheaper.
- google234123 4y ago
  The extreme cost of nuclear power are partially the fault of scaremongers stopping all production of them in the west. China has 100s being built or planned and obviously they can't cost 10s of billions each. Thanks for blackouts when it's cloudy and not windy.
  - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    China’s nuclear program is just getting started and is almost completely state funded. They only have 49 plants right now with 16 under construction, I’m not sure where your 100s came from. Their plan is to quadruple generating capacity (current at 50 Gw) to 200 Gw by 2035. France is still the model country when it comes to nuclear power. Even in 2035, nuclear will be less than 10% of its energy mix.
  - pencilguin 4y ago
    China routinely announces plans for things that it does not, in the end, build.
- kennend3 4y ago
  "Renewables" cost our government here in Ontario. https://toronto.citynews.ca/2018/06/07/kathleen-wynne-ran-energy-ontario-voters/ https://toronto.citynews.ca/2018/06/07/kathleen-wynne-ran-en... They were in power for ~11 years, but thanks to their "green energy" programs they not only lost the election, they lost political party status and have yet to regain it. Renewables are not cheaper. "The FAO estimates that the renewable generation subsidy program will cost the Province a net $2.8 billion over the first three years of the program, from 2020-21 to 2022-23. The FAO's three-year cost estimate is significantly higher than the Province's cost estimate of $1.3 billion reported in the 2020 Ontario Budget." These long-term "green energy" programs were expensive, and the government knowingly lied about how much it would cost.

sien 4y ago

Fun fact, the Australian Green Party was born protesting renewable electricity. They stopped the development of the Franklin Dam in Tasmania. "In the late 1970s and 1980s, a public campaign to prevent the construction of the Franklin Dam in Tasmania saw environmentalist and activist Norm Sanders elected to the Tasmanian House of Assembly as an Australian Democrat. Brown, then director of the Wilderness Society, contested the election as an independent, but failed to win a seat.[3]" From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Australian_Greens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Australian_Gree... The founder of the Green, Bob Brown, now opposes wind farms in Tasmania. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Brown#Opposition_to_a_Tasmanian_wind_farm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Brown#Opposition_to_a_Tasm...