Hoover Dams For Lilliput: Does Small Hydroelectric Power Have a Future? 302
New submitter MatthewVD writes "Boing Boing's Maggie Koerth-Baker, author of Before The Lights Go Out, writes that the era of giant hydroelectric projects like the Hoover Dam has passed. But the Department of Energy has identified 5,400 potential sites for small hydro projects of 30 MWs or less. The sites, in states as dry as Kansas, represent a total 18,000 MW of power — enough to increase by 50 percent America's hydro power. Even New York City's East River has pilot projects to produce power from underwater turbines. As we stare down global warming and peak oil, could small hydroelectric power be a key solution?"
I know of existing dams... (Score:3, Informative)
I know of existing dams in the US - several on the Rock River (north-central Illinois, U.S.A.) - Rockton, Rockford, Dixon, Byron, Sterling/Rock Falls, etc. that were built years ago by Commonwealth Edison for min-hydro power. The dams are still there to provide floodwater control, but have been decom'd for electrical generation.
Last time I looked, the dam in Dixon station still had generators in operation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_River_(Mississippi_River) [wikipedia.org]
Now, I'm no civil engineer.. but if you already have a dam, and the environmental impact associated with it, why not us the head you have to generate some? Yea, your not getting the 200-300' head that you would like, but there is still a lot of potential energy to be captured out of the 20' 30' head out of one of these.
Stop DHMO (Score:2, Informative)
Hydro dams use a lot of DHMO which causes ecological disaster and is extremely dangerous if it spills.
STOP DHMO NOW!!!
A future but it's not the future (Score:5, Informative)
Here in Norway we got more mountains and rain per square kilometer or per person the US could dream about - okay we have a cold climate too - but not even we are self-sufficient on hydro power or for that matter renewable power. Sure as fossil fuels run out they'll surely be built - just like wind, water, solar, geothermal, biofuel and everything else you can think of - but they won't add up to the current energy usage. This figure [wikipedia.org] pretty much says it all.
Scarce? Where? (Score:4, Informative)
I suspect that, in a situation where fossil fuels are becoming scarce,
Nice fiction Asimov.
In real life we have hundreds of years of fossil fuels left.
The problem with your assertion is that just like technology help us fend off anything like "peak population", technology also finds new ways to get at and find oil.
So in the U.S. alone we have way more than enough fossil fuel to last us until really good nuclear / solar sources become viable.
Like wind turbines, hydro power is kind of a dead end. It requires a lot of effort to maintain and only really makes much sense on the scale where you are really harming the environment around it.
Look at the history of any large dam and you'll see a trail of destruction behind it. How funny that more dams are being proposed as green...
Re:Stop DHMO (Score:4, Informative)
Indeed. Far more people have been killed by accidental release of DHMO from hydro schemes than accidental release of radiation from nuclear plants.
Re:Contained Hydro (Score:5, Informative)
There are many places such as irrigation channels where you can place micro turbines that will have no ill environmental effect as these do not support aquatic life. It looks like this was not included in the report.
Irrigation canals DO support aquatic life. Where do you think they get the water from? Rivers.
It isn't necessarily vital aquatic life, but then where do you draw the line on vital vs. non-vital life?
The canals in Eastern Washington provide me with some of the best bow-fishing for carp in the region. Even the wasteways (surplus water from agricultural processes) have plentiful fish. And not just carp.
They're basically diverted rivers. That being said, turbines placed in irrigation canals will have less impact than those placed in full rivers. But even the impact of a full hydroelectric facility is manageable. Take the Columbia River, we still have record salmon runs from time to time.
One other hurdle with hydroelectric is that it is not considered renewable, so if there are mandates to require x% of electricity from renewable sources, hydro ain't gonna fit the bill due to lame liberals that deem is non-renewable.
Being a fan of hydroelectric power, I'm well aware of the issues on both sides of the argument, and still favor it. But I think what you pointed out on the latter portion of your post needs to be made more public, as it is an even better solution.
Re:Scarce? Where? (Score:5, Informative)
In real life we have hundreds of years of fossil fuels left.
Sort of true. There certainly will be oil in the ground 200 years from now. It won't be easy to get, nor will it be inexpensive. The global taste for fossil fuels, especially liquid fossil fuels is truly enormous and growing (think China and India who are attempting to get to US per capita energy expenditures). The supply of fossil fuels isn't growing much at all (happy words from various US politicians notwithstanding).
What we have hear is a failure to communicate [theoildrum.com]. Nice writeup on the concept of Peak oil and how we need to change a few things.....
Re:Economies of scale (Score:4, Informative)
DO THE MATH! (Score:5, Informative)
The answer is a solid NO [ucsd.edu] .
Small Scale Hydro makes sense (Score:5, Informative)
Small scale hydro can make a heck of a lot of sense. I work with a small community high in the mountains of Washington State, where the primary power supply is a small scale hydro-electric generation system. The funny part is that this technology isn't "new"... The turbines and generators they're using have patent plates on them that read 10-04-86, and that's not 1986. Despite being easily 100 years old, the technology is still easy to maintain, and efficient. Based on the electrical output compared to the water flow, we figure this plant is about 80% efficient, which is pretty good.
In the summer, the system will generate upwards of 250kW of power, which is more than adequate for the community. In the winter, this does drop down to 30kW or so, but that is still more or less sufficient for the lower winter population.
The water supply for this system comes off a small creek flowing down the mountain, about 300' up there is a small diversion dam that the creek flows into. Water will either flow into the penstock, or continue down the creek depending on demand. As a side note, the water pressure is sufficient to push some of the water through the entire water treatment plant, and then into a storage tank, to supply the community's drinking water without the use of a single pump.
Re:Economies of scale (Score:4, Informative)
If you look at global population statistics [wrsc.org], there's an inverse correlation between industrialization and population growth. The vast majority of population growth is happening in undeveloped countries, while economically developed countries have close to zero and in some cases negative population growth (they are shrinking in population).
So what you're describing is a symptom, not the problem in itself. Economic development seems to take care of the population growth problem all by itself, without any need for forced sterilization or one child per couple rules.
Re:Scarce? Where? (Score:3, Informative)
In general I agree with your point, but in fact hydroelectric ties with nuclear for currently having the lowest cost per delivered watt of power of all the extant methods of power generation. Wind is, as you point out, a dead end except for (possibly) solar updraft that is really a variant of solar, not a hillside of windmills. Solar PV has a Moore's Law that appears applicable, which predicts that by the end of this decade it will likely be break even compared to e.g. coal in amortized cost per delivered watt, without subsidy, and thereafter will become ever more economically profitable on a comparative basis.
On the surface, it looks like he knows what he's talking about. However, ask a subject matter expert [myself] and it's clear he's spouting nonsense. Maybe some collection of facts that were true at some time... But let's examine them now.
1. Wind is a dead end?
Except for having the largest project pipeline of any energy conversion technology. FYI, it will remain the largest pipeline until solar eclipses it. These industries will grow to 10 - 100x at current economics without hitting storage walls and without improving economics. I can not consider how a 10 - 100 fold increase in production and 6 - 13% of global production (at the storage wall) can be considered a dead end
2. The application of Moore's law to PV
No. The barriers to PV production have been varied, most reasons are are not related to semiconductor production. Historically it was the cost of production of high purity polysilicon because they competed with semiconductor industry (nothing to do with transistor count). We can make cheap solar grade 6-9N poly now. Slow technological advances have decreased wafer costs and increased wafer efficiency. Cell/Module production costs have scaled well with production capacity (standard manufacturing learning curve). Equipment costs are cheap enough to compete with coal / nuclear. We might see another 50% drop in silicon module asp (due to ~19-21% quasi-mono cells displacing mono) PV in the next few years, but for all intents and purposes they are cheap enough. BOS will go down by a factor of 2 - 3 with cheaper inverters from China or microinverters. All that's left are to tackle ridiculously disproportionate installation costs, which are a relic of the tortuous development of the industry. Large firms will swallow up the crappy downstream industry we now have, prices will/are drop/dropping and install costs will find a home at less than 1 $/Wp. Again, nothing to do with Moore's law or anything like it... Utility scale projects are already approaching $3/Wp installed ! because they can efficiently minimize these ridiculous human costs. There will be utility installs at 1.50 $/Wp in 2012. These utilities will run these plants for 30-40 years and produce electricity at 0.03-0.04 $/kWh. Nothing will come close except high capacity factor natural gas.
3.break even with coal by 2020
There is no magic coal/solar price point. Historically $1/Wp module ASP has been a target that approximates coal grid parity. We achieved this in Q2 2011. Otherwise solar beats coal in some places and solar will never beat coal in other places. Presently, module ASPs are less than 0.9 $/Wp and will probably be less than 0.8$/Wp by the end of 2012. Furthermore, coal is no longer the target. Coals prices have been steadily increasing for 15 years, while quality steadily decreasing for decades. Natural gas is the cost leader at present day prices, mainly due to fracking. Solar may never catch up to gas, but a solar / gas grid is already more flexible and cheaper than nuclear or coal.
4. nuclear and coal are the cheapest
Yeah yeah, let's stop comparing the cost of generating fully-depreciated 40 year old equipment with new solar plants. Solar is cheaper than both today. There are plenty of issues with solar (e.g. less than 0.25 capacity factor), but raw economics is no longer one of them. W'ere pr