Mooney, C (2016, July 26) The surprisingly bright future of America’s forgotten renewable energy source: water. Retrieved November 20th, 2016 from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/07/26/the-surprisingly-bright-future-of-americas-overlooked-renewable-energy-source-water/?utm_term=.ea9503691f07
Our nation’s dam power could grow by 50% by 2050, which is great news for the renewable energy front. Of our 80,000 + dams, only 2,000 have power production, so if the older dams were to be equipped with power production and the old ones updated, our dam power production could skyrocket.
The increase in power produced by dams really would be a win for everyone, because it would mean that we would have a smaller reliance on fossil fuels, and therefore a relatively smaller usage of them, so less greenhouse gasses, etc.. The best part is that we don’t have to disrupt any more bodies of water by building more dams, we just need to upgrade and update the ones we already have!
I have to say, at first I was skeptical with increasing our hydropower by 50%. But if we can do it without damming new rivers, that does seem like a big win. Not just burning coal spins a turbine… the trick will be with creating the infrastructure to do it… connecting the dams to the power grid, etc. How do you think they would decide if it’s worth the expense for the updates… would they do it even if it isn’t cost competitive with cheap coal and gas. Interesting article.
Would it be hard to update the older dams, in other words would there be any complications with this process?
how much would it cost to equip those 78,000 ? Could that money be put to better use by researching other ways of producing power?