3 ms·
According to the article, not that effective: > Evaluations concluded that their electricity production had become unprofitable for the power plant owners – es
by arp242 3y ago
According to the article, not that effective:
> Evaluations concluded that their electricity production had become unprofitable for the power plant owners – especially when the costs of maintenance and mandatory environmental protections, such as fish-ladder introductions, were taken into account, Ollikainen says. So the dams were sold and dismantled. [..] Across Europe, many dams are either approaching the end of their operational life, or the costs of their maintenance are outweighing the benefits they provide.
Aside from various other problems mentioned in the article, which really don't seem that easy to work around, and doing so would make them even less cost-efficient. Never mind all of this takes energy so would reduce the efficiency (although I don't know by what amount, but it does need to be factored in).
- doctoboggan 3y ago> So the dams were sold and dismantled. Sold to who? Who would buy it just to dismantle it?
- throwaway894345 3y agoMy guess would be "governments"
- dessimus 3y agoThe buyers of a certain bridge in Brooklyn, clearly.
- habinero 3y agoLocal governments or consortiums. You usually need to own something before you can destroy it. Besides, the government has a vested interest in acting before the dams fail and kill people.
- bell-cot 3y agoI'd guess it's often the owner of the dam's surrounding property, or the property surrounding the reservoir. That'd make it easier to make sensible use of the "new" land, after the dam is removed.
- paulsutter 3y agoWere the dams ineffective or is the regulation ineffective?
- habinero 3y agoNeither. Almost all of the dams involved were built before 1920 and before we had powergrids. They were usually originally intended for some local industrial use and put out a (now) negligible amount of power. They're also at the end of their service life. You can't leave them, they will eventually burst and kill people. Replacing them is useless, they don't do anything useful. The best solution is to remove them, which has the huge added bonus of unclogging the rivers and restoring the ecosystem and fish habitat.
- bobthepanda 3y agoAlso, the dams silt up over time anyways, so unless you dredge them they are not very good at generating power if the river generates enough silt. Pumped hydro is more promising in this regard; they don't have to be in the river course itself, so do not run into silting issues, or block fish migration, or any of many other negatives. And because they are basically only required to be battery storage in hours, days or weeks rather than a main source of power generation, they can also be much smaller.