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Warning - this is a source is from NetFlix streaming, so if you dont have an account you will have to find some other way to access. There are some trailers on YouTube to give you some flavor, but no whole feature that I can find.
I am of mixed feelings about this point of view. While I am a BIG advocate of hydro electric power, I am ALSO a big advocate of open space and natural environments. How do you have both? Reminds my of the long ongoing argument with my wife. She loves dogs. I hate them. Now what? No matter what the decision, someone is unhappy.
So should we dismantle a fair percentage of our dams in order to restore those natural fish runs that we destroyed over the last 100 years? Fishermen have one opinion. Other people have another. Now what?
PS in the documentary I loved the painting of the cracks on the various dams by Earth First. We need more art and humor in this country.
Reasonable cost electricity and/or mechanical power is a need. "Natural fish runs" is a want and, in many places, a luxury. Besides the pool behind many dams has provided a place for people to indulge in luxuries such as sport fishing and second homes.
Reasonable cost electricity and/or mechanical power is a need. "Natural fish runs" is a want and, in many places, a luxury. Besides the pool behind many dams has provided a place for people to indulge in luxuries such as sport fishing and second homes.
Sure but the big casualty has been the salmon and steel head population.
Is it bad enough that the industrial pollution of the late 19th century destroyed the inland midwestern fisheries? Is the pollution free hydro electric production worth the trade, particularly when we can have pollution free nukes as an alternative?
That's why I posted in the Great Debates forum. Cuz it's a Big Picture kind of thing. IMHO we are supposed to be stewards of this planet we call home. Yet do we act that way? As caretakers? Serving ourselves while at the same time serving this place we call home?
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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There is no "free lunch." All forms of energy have their price environmentally, even solar with hazardous materials/chemicals used in the manufacture of the panels. Hydro power, with the effects on fish are still much better than other forms such as coal plants which affect humans as well as wildlife. Solar is also much less practical in areas with little sun, such as here. I agree with some of the rivers being returned to wild such as was recently done on the Elwha River, and there are better designs to provide power with much less damage to fish runs for future hydro, but I can't see any way that we could eliminate very many of them and still have the power needed to power our major cities. For most people, even those with environmental sensitivity, the cost of destroying old dams building new ones and the resulting increases in cost per kWh would not be worth the benefits to the fish and other wildlife that eats them.
There is a big push here in the Pacific Northwest to do away with some of the dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers to allow better fish migration. Now the problem is this, most of the power that is supplied to the PNW is from BPA and the dams on these rivers, do away with the dams and what are we left with? More expensive power from nuclear and wind generation. These two sources were suppose to solve the power problem, however, what they did is create a more expensive source of energy. The PNW already tried the nuclear way and then shut down the Trojan nuclear plant, to expensive to operate when competing with hydro electric. True, we need to find a solution to the fish problem when dealing with dams, but cutting off the nose to spite the face isn't a solution.
Some of the dams in the Northwest are useless (silted in, etc). Those can be removed. But you have to have a trade-off somewhere. You want to remove the dams? Fine. Where are you going to get the power from? Sure isn't gonna be solar. Gonna build gas-fired generation plants? Then the greenies will lie down in front of the pipe layers if you can even get the pipeline approved. Then there is nuclear. Sure the greenies in the northwest will go for that.
So sure, tear up all the dams. Then set in the cold and wonder why the lights aren't working.
OK, dismantle the dams, then pay billions to clean up the filthy, contaminated silt that is laying in the original river bed.
Then, shut down the coal fired power plants due to particulate and CO2 "pollution".
Then, when my electric bill doubles, I (and quite a few of my neighbors) will dismantle the ground source heat pump or gas furnace under the house and install a wood fired heating system.
Then, we will buy a diesel generator to install in the back yard to furnish power to my house and the neighbor's house.
Right now, it is 4 below zero. Sorry, Charlie, but I WILL keep warm, and I WILL do it as economically as possible. If that means I have to generate a lot of pollution, so be it!
There is no "free lunch." All forms of energy have their price environmentally, even solar with hazardous materials/chemicals used in the manufacture of the panels. Hydro power, with the effects on fish are still much better than other forms such as coal plants which affect humans as well as wildlife. Solar is also much less practical in areas with little sun, such as here. I agree with some of the rivers being returned to wild such as was recently done on the Elwha River, and there are better designs to provide power with much less damage to fish runs for future hydro, but I can't see any way that we could eliminate very many of them and still have the power needed to power our major cities. For most people, even those with environmental sensitivity, the cost of destroying old dams building new ones and the resulting increases in cost per kWh would not be worth the benefits to the fish and other wildlife that eats them.
No; to count what finances their cost. The Op wants to covert to energy called alterntive which no single one makes up 1% needed.The closest is wood and we saw in the past that does;might as well burn coal.
The fact that man and nature are on a collision course seems to be a thing ignored by most. This inevitable showdown will be manifest in the years to come when the supply of natural resources are no longer able to sustain our lifestyle and the latter day attempts to supplant the old fuels with alt ones becomes a clear vision of failure, we should have begun a new wave of energy technology years ago.
The damming of our rivers has shown to be a wonderful way to get supposedly cheap electricity, but the true cost of that power isn't really known until all the ecological impacts are added in. Added to that cost is the fact that all dams aren't going to last for thousands of years and will need to be replaced at a time when the funding needed for infrastructure replacement will become a political football reminiscent of the recent attempts to replace the I-5 bridge on the Columbia river, it's still standing in it's decrepit form while the states argue over money.
Political bickering has accompanied every attempt to remove the older dams to date, environmentalists arguing against those who want to see a growth of the electric grid by any means possible. Humans as well as wildlife have been impacted by most of the public projects built for the purpose of sustaining our modern lifestyle, energy conservation is still lagging behind the notion of endless resource capability and that will be part of our awakening to a very different reality in a not too distant future. The tax dollars needed for new infrastructure will be in direct competition with retail business realities, and that will be just one more problem for us in the days ahead.
For profit energy production is at the core of much of the debate over cost, just as the dams were a governmental construct the future of energy production may need to be a consortium of government and private industry in order to supply the power to cities on a cost sharing plan that may allow for the amortization of new energy infrastructure. As it stands today we should be looking at all dams as a potential threat, aging structures of any other type are seldom regarded as a danger. Humans, not fish, should feel threatened by these behemoths built in an era of limited vision. Each dam will need to be looked at someday in an individual scenario that speaks to it's age, necessity, and environmental impact, there is no simple "one shoe fits all" answer to our energy/environmental dilemmas.
Last edited by jertheber; 12-30-2014 at 10:30 AM..
Unlike most human machinery the large concrete dam gets stronger with age. The generation machinery can be replaced after it becomes worn. Siltation only lessens storage capacity. A silted reservoir can be operated as a run of river hydro power plant.
Removing productive structures like this in order to possibly improve salmon runs is absurd. Besides most of the salmon mortality is caused by mega fishing by foreign factory ships far beyond our control. It is not caused by fish being blocked by dams.
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