I think you are trying to say that landscape engineering is more harmful to the ecosphere than dismantling a single power plant. I guess that is right in a sens

I think you are trying to say that landscape engineering is more harmful to the ecosphere than dismantling a single power plant. I guess that is right in a sense. But you happen to neglect that power generation is a process with a long chain of steps. Coal for example has to come from somewhere. Take the Garzweiler, Inden or Hambach regions in Germany (FYI, these are coal mining areas). Through coincidence while doing some work for RWE I had the pleasure to get the long run-down on the project basics regarding the renaturalisation of these regions and the projects are on a massive scale, even if they are only a fraction of the size of the Grand Canyon. When they started exploiting the coal in the 1970s they planned very far ahead, including the renaturalisation starting in the 2030s (meaning it is all already approved). Garzweiler and Hambach are situated in one of the most densely populated areas in all of Europe. Since the 1970s whole cities and villages had to be resettled, infrastructure dismantled and rebuild, and over 100 square km of area have basically been turned into a desert. Currently Germany is preparing the first stage [1] of the renaturalisation and it is expected that it will be done around the turn of the next century. So, yes, dams are a massive intrusion in the ecosphere but let's not kid ourselves into thinking the resources we need to run coal, gas, nuclear or oil power plants just fall from the sky. I wonder why it's OK to wreak such massive havoc on our environment for coal, but not for hydropower. [1] The project page for Hambach https://www.rwe.com/forschung-und-entwicklung/projektvorhaben/rheinwassertransportleitung/projekt/ https://www.rwe.com/forschung-und-entwicklung/projektvorhabe... EDIT: I would oppose flooding the Grand Canyon either way ;)