Hydro Power Generaation....

[Darian]

Should hydro power generation (dams, etc.) be classified as renewable energy??? Something to consider. Follow the link for a thought provoking article:

https://calmatters.org/commentary/my-turn/2020/08/reclassify-hydropower-now-as-renewable-energy/?fbclid=IwAR2w8lwqeH5ogQNY7VPqEeRMuvUyzv-u-cL5K1EIVNbfQeNjlop66E9EXdM

The decision to stop constructing or remove dams after they've been constructed is not an easy one. Lots of questions are involved and most have little to do with environmental issues even though environmental investigation/reports are required. Since all available water in this state has long been over committed, water is a commodity for sale. Development will increase over time (witness the governors goal to build 500,000 new affordable homes) and the current drive to house the state's homeless population. As a result demand for water/power generated by dams to supply those and other new developments will increase.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

I think we need to be constantly evolving solar, wind and battery storage but right now it is just not there yet.

Why did we get away from Hydro?

Some other countries are looking at Nuclear again......



If we are going to have more fires every summer some might think of moving from California?

The heat in the summer and the air quality already sucks in the Valley........my entire life.


Some are looking at being south in the winter (FL/TX) and north in the summer (ID/MT)?

Then you have good weather and good fishing year round.

[JasonB]

Hmmm, I don’t know about thought provoking. The article seemed to be deliberately misleading in several areas, or at the very least incomplete. For one thing, the continued assertion that Hydropower is “clean” isn’t really accurate at all. While it may be “clean” in the sense that the actual releasing of water through turbines doesn’t have the emissions that gas and coal plants generate; the construction of dams has severe and long lasting negative impacts. We definitely have an energy crisis, and a water crisis, and both will be put to further stress as the population grows (not to mention the increasing impacts of climate change). I am afraid that more and bigger dams will be considered the low hanging fruit to address the issue, but that’s hardly the most ideal solution in my mind. There is no free lunch here, our consumptive culture has impacts; as population increases, we really need to reassess our levels of consumption.

It was a big gap that there was zero mention about the level of energy consumption, and ways to be more sustainable and responsible users. Same with water consumption. That should be the first area to address in my opinion. A penny saved is a penny earned. Wind and solar technologies are already there, and have been for a while. The storage issue is the big limiting factor there, but even with the inefficiencies of current storage technologies it could still play a bigger role going forward. I think we are making progress in terms of how much of a role renewable energies play in our energy demands, but hopefully they will play a much more substantial role before we start building new dams.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

I personally talked to a customer with the Federal Energy Commission and he said we were about 30 years out on 100% renewables

like wind and solar......he said the battery storage was the weak link.

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/why-100-renewables-isnt-feasible-by-2050/560918/


I would love it to be practical right now.........

[Darian]

After re-reading my post, I may have lead everyone astray. The. article was written by a politician and I jumped from posing the question to making a brief discussion of dams. The original question was, should hydro power generation be classified as renewable?? it's a basic question. All we're talking about is whether to change the classification of hydro generation to renewable from whatever it was/is. To me, the answer is yes. The natural resources involved in power generation are air, sun and water. Each is used to generate power through a device designed to capture the natural resource it was designed to work with. Each is enduring in nature. Each has it's positives/negatives.

In the case of wind, it's a windmill generator capturing wind energy to turn propellers. In the case of solar, it's a matter of capturing the energy of the rays of the sun to convert to power through solar-voltaic panels. In the case of hydro-power, it's either a dam or tunnels leading to a power generating station (falling water).

In answering this question, IMO, there's no need to consider whether one method is more cost effective than the other. Nor is there a need to consider our consumptive habits or rates as those will only increase in volume and are issues for another discussion.

[JasonB]

I personally talked to a customer with the Federal Energy Commission and he said we were about 30 years out on 100% renewables

like wind and solar......he said the battery storage was the weak link.

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/why-100-renewables-isnt-feasible-by-2050/560918/


I would love it to be practical right now.........

Definitely the battery storage is the big limitation. In order to go full on 100% wind and solar, with current storage technology, it would be both cost prohibitive as well as environmentally not the best. Even with current technology we could definitely make a bigger difference in the total energy provided by clean renewable sources. In all honesty, I’m not sure if going for 100% is the best idea for any energy sources; as those last few percentage points start getting much harder to supply efficiently. Heat wave events like this last week are pretty tough to handle without massive storage. Hydropower is very effective at dealing with major energy demand spikes in such situations, but I’d hate to see more dams built as the primary means to address an overall higher energy demand. There is an older documentary called “Fuel” that proposed that ideally we should be looking to diversify our potential energy sources more and more in the future. There are some compelling merits to not putting all your eggs in one basket.

[JasonB]

After re-reading my post, I may have lead everyone astray. The. article was written by a politician and I jumped from posing the question to making a brief discussion of dams. The original question was, should hydro power generation be classified as renewable?? it's a basic question. All we're talking about is whether to change the classification of hydro generation to renewable from whatever it was/is. To me, the answer is yes. The natural resources involved in power generation are air, sun and water. Each is used to generate power through a device designed to capture the natural resource it was designed to work with. Each is enduring in nature. Each has it's positives/negatives.

In the case of wind, it's a windmill generator capturing wind energy to turn propellers. In the case of solar, it's a matter of capturing the energy of the rays of the sun to convert to power through solar-voltaic panels. In the case of hydro-power, it's either a dam or tunnels leading to a power generating station (falling water).

In answering this question, IMO, there's no need to consider whether one method is more cost effective than the other. Nor is there a need to consider our consumptive habits or rates as those will only increase in volume and are issues for another discussion.

I guess that question kind of begs a much more robust discussion of energy to my mind. As you said, there are a lot of complex issues to address. To keep it as simple as possible, I’ll say that I have always found it to be misleading when hydropower is included under “renewable energy”, because it gives a false impression about how “clean” it is as an energy source. If we are talking just purely theoretical, then yes it is technically “renewable” in the sense that more water will presumably fill those reservoirs to provide us with the fuel to generate energy. But in terms of meeting environmental goals behind renewable energy power generation, including hydroelectric with PV and Wind kind of skews those numbers to suggest something different than reality.

Perhaps the very choice of words “renewable energy” wasn’t the best to begin with? From an environmental standpoint there are big differences between wind/PV vs Hydro, and also from a practical application perspective they are also pretty different. So whatever we call them, I see them as being distinct from one another.

[RSK]

I work in local hydro generation. The way clean energy and renewable energy is sold to the public by the state is very misleading in my opinion. I am not an expert at the politics but I do know that we end up having to pay to generate durring the day with negative pricing due to solar power. We have to do this to move water that is contracted from us. This is a shame since the power we are generating is clean energy. It is causing the cost to operate the generation not affordable and we are closing plants. Also the state classifies green energy based on megawatts at a plant. Many of CA's hydro generation is not able to be classed as green energy by the state.

We have way more solar power on the grid than anyone can use at this point but as soon as the sun goes down you find out we are lacking in generation for the demand. Demonstrated by the recent brownouts. Also the grids stability at 60hz is held up by large generation revolving mass like our hydro and nuclear power. As the solar and wind power continue to increase and the other generation having to decrease there will also be problems with grid stability. Diablo canyon nuclear is scheduled to be offline by 2025. This is major supplier of our power. From Wiki "Together, the twin 1100 MWe reactors produce about 18,000 GW·h of electricity annually (8.6% of total California generation and 23% of carbon-free generation)" Where will we be making up that power outside of solar hours.

Every type of power is definitely a give and take with the environment but In my opinion the state of CA has created most of the energy problems due to their policies driven by politicians that do not know or care about the whole picture and how best to reach its goals.

Also today solar is subsidized and added to the wealthier peoples homes. Who do you think is paying for this? The Utilities are forced to buy power back during the day when the grid is already saturated with power. They pay these homeowners a premium while they have to pay to move water. The lower poorer class has to pay for this as it drives the cost to operate up. Wind turbines kill tons of raptors and migrating birds.

Batteries right now will hold up a section of grid for a few minutes and cause unknown pollution, not talked about by politicians, in the making and disposing of Batteries.

Things will get worse before it gets better I believe.
Sorry about the ramble, I didn't even read the article. Post just hit home.
Maybe things should be looked at in more of a case by case basis instead of the blanket policies.

Russell

[Darian]

Russel,.... Since we seem to've answered the original question, your post expands on that answer/subject. Thanks for your insight.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

If we are going to have more fires every summer and more brown outs too maybe some might want to move from California?


High heat and air quality in the Valley in the summer sucks too.



We have noticed our roads are very bad too. We drive 60 mph in cruise control in the right lane in our motor home.

The freeways in the right lane are tore up by trucks now....it is terrible.


We will always have a water problem due to the huge population of Southern California.

[Darian]

"We will always have a water problem due to the huge population of Southern California."

A bit off topic but, agreed, California will always have water problems. However, it has been clearly shown that the single largest consumer/user of water from SWP/CVP is agriculture, not the huge population of SoCal and this does not include industrial use of potable water by Info Tech, etc. SoCal water agencies and local governments have combined to recover water through recharging aquifers and constructing DeSal facilities in various locations and sizes over time. In truth, they're doing a better job of conserving water than we are.

[JayDubP]

"We will always have a water problem due to the huge population of Southern California."

A bit off topic but, agreed, California will always have water problems. However, it has been clearly shown that the single largest consumer/user of water from SWP/CVP is agriculture, not the huge population of SoCal and this does not include industrial use of potable water by Info Tech, etc. SoCal water agencies and local governments have combined to recover water through recharging aquifers and constructing DeSal facilities in various locations and sizes over time. In truth, they're doing a better job of conserving water than we are.

Darian, if I am misinformed, please correct me.

It is my understanding that the State of California does not have mandatory reporting requirements on the acquisition or resale of water. Water districts have refused to provide the information and the water lobby has convinced the Legislature it is not necessary.

Meaning: public knows only who first "receives" the water on paper. We do not have any record of how much water is sold to users (and what type of users) versus how much is resold to other water districts or to water resellers (who do not have any users)--- and how much profit is made from reselling water.

Example: Kern Water has rights to water coming out of the Delta-- and that water is earmarked for "agriculture" but a lot of the water never gets to Kern. East Bay Muni Water District purchases a large amount of the water for resale to consumers and industry in Contra Costa & Alameda Counties -- and on occasion, for resale to other districts.

Why can't the public see the truth about who and where water is actually being used and who is making money by reselling water?

Jim

[Darian]

You're not entirely incorrect. As far as I'm aware, there is a requirement to report distribution of surface water here and one of former Governor Brown's acts was signing legislation that required reporting of groundwater pumped (not effective until 2022 if I recall correctly). Tracking of water sales/usage in CA requires putting together information from a bunch of sources (lots of time required). While it's a bit difficult to get specific information about sales from places like the Kern water bank, there're several on-line sources (private/public education/government, media, public interest organizations) where water use may be found. Also, water contracts/sales to water agencies are recorded by BuRec/DWR. Even sales of water rights are reported (e.g. the partial sale of water rights by Sandridge Partners and those acquired by MWD in Yolo County, etc.). Helps to know the names of all the private/public water agencies/users, too.

It's good to hear that someone out there is interested in trying to find this stuff out. In answer to your last question, I don't have any idea about why it's so difficult for us to find this information. Chalk it up to dealing with bureaucracies. At this point, I'm no longer interested in investing the time/effort to research it. I've filled several reporters notebooks with information about this and related matters; more than enough for me.

I realize this is a very general response to your questions. Hopefully, someone else with knowledge of this will chime in....