Do you like electricity? Turn on your lights when you wake in the morning? Brew a pot of coffee? Take a hot shower? Plug in your electric car for a recharge?
With more and more electric cars coming out, and the increased demand for electricity, we need approx. 28% more electricity production AND need to REPLACE in excess of 50% of our current production from the grid to attain zero fossil fuel electricity production.
So what is with the push for continuing to remove our dams, one of our cleanest sources of vast amounts of energy?
I get it, salmon runs.....but, must we all be forced into a 3rd world country-like future of rolling blackouts and energy shortages?
“The clean, renewable power generated by the dams along the Columbia and Snake Rivers supplies half of the Pacific Northwest’s energy and is critical for a reliable power grid. Without it, life as we know it in our region would cease to exist.”
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/20...-to-remove-sn/
A trend I have noticed, being I actually remain in the town I was born in and now have 40+ years of memories, is that we are having drier warmer summers and heavier wetter falls and winters. The rivers run dangerously low in the dry season, such that the salmon school up at their mouth's waiting for rains to come before they head up to spawn. Water shortages ensue. Then in the fall, heavy rains wash out the spawning grounds and flood the lowlands, in addition the erosion introduces millions of tons of silt into the rivers and bays. Holding back
more water behind dams and installing more dams, with fish bypasses of course, would be optimal for salmon and people, maintaining better average river levels, and of course producing more clean energy.
Lastly, the PNW's seal and sea lion population continues to grow, mostly unchecked by predators, and in a university study done several years ago were concluded to be consuming more salmon than all other fisheries combined. Other countries have smartened up and have bounty's on these fur bags to keep populations in check......
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