Largest Dam Demolition in U.S. History

[Pauls' Revere]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/apnewsbreak-deal-revives-plan-largest-213326069.html

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An agreement announced Tuesday paves the way for the largest dam demolition in U.S. history, a project that promises to reopen hundreds of miles of waterway along the Oregon-California border to salmon that are critical to tribes but have dwindled to almost nothing in recent years.

If approved, the deal would revive plans to remove four massive hydroelectric dams on the lower Klamath River, creating the foundation for the most ambitious salmon restoration effort in history. The project on California's second-largest river would be at the vanguard of a trend toward dam demolitions in the U.S. as the structures age and become less economically viable amid growing environmental concerns about the health of native fish.

Previous efforts to address problems in the Klamath Basin have fallen apart amid years of legal sparring that generated distrust among tribes, fishing groups, farmers and environmentalists, and the new agreement could face more legal challenges. Some state and federal lawmakers criticized it as a financially irresponsible overreach by leaders in Oregon and California.

“This dam removal is more than just a concrete project coming down. It’s a new day and a new era,” Yurok Tribe chairman Joseph James said. “To me, this is who we are, to have a free-flowing river just as those who have come before us. ... Our way of life will thrive with these dams being out.”

A half-dozen tribes across Oregon and California, fishing groups and environmentalists had hoped to see demolition work begin as soon as 2022. But those plans stalled in July, when U.S. regulators questioned whether the nonprofit entity formed to oversee the project could adequately respond to any cost overruns or accidents.

The new plan makes Oregon and California equal partners in the demolition with the nonprofit entity, called the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, and adds $45 million to the project’s $450 million budget to ease those concerns. Oregon, California and the utility PacifiCorp, which operates the hydroelectric dams and is owned by billionaire Warren Buffett’s company Berkshire Hathaway, will each provide one-third of the additional funds.


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Merged with:

Mid-drought, Mid-Energy Crisis, California to Begin Removing Hydroelectric Dams on Klamath River

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/...removing-hydroelectric-dams-on-klamath-river/

JOEL B. POLLAK 22 May 2022

The State of California is about to begin removing the first of four dams on the Klamath River — despite an extreme drought and a looming electricity generation crisis — to improve habitat for migratory salmon and satisfy Native American groups.

As the Associated Press (via Breitbart News) noted earlier this year, President Joe Biden’s administration reversed course after President Donald Trump’s administration blocked the dam removal on California’s second-largest river, which was planned in 2016 after California and Oregon signed an agreement to demolish the dams but still required federal approval.

Now, the demolition has been scheduled for 2023, awaiting only confirmation that dam removal itself would not harm fish.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday:

The first of four aging dams on the Klamath River, the 250-mile waterway that originates in southern Oregon’s towering Cascades and empties along the rugged Northern California coast, is on track to come down in fall 2023. Two others nearby and one across the state line will follow.

The nearly half-billion dollars needed for the joint state, tribal and corporate undertaking has been secured. The demolition plans are drafted. The contractor is in place. Final approval could come by December.

Now, among the last acts of preparation, scientists are trying to make sure the fish and wildlife that are intended to benefit from the emergence of a newly wild river will thrive. While the decision to remove the hydroelectric dams was financial, it was urged —and enabled — by those hoping to see a revival of plants and animals in the Klamath Basin.

The state has not built new reservoir capacity in four decades, while California’s population has continued to grow, making the ongoing three-year drought even more onerous.

Moreover, the state has suffered blackouts in heat waves due to the lack of sufficient energy, as fossil fuel power plants are phased out, along with nuclear power plants. Solar and wind power are not yet able to make up the missing power supply because they are unreliable in calm conditions and in overcast weather.

Earlier this month, the California Coastal Commission rejected a plan to build a desalination plant in Orange County that would alleviate water shortages, as desalination has successful done in San Diego County and in Santa Barbara.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

Get rid of coal, gas, nuclear and hydro, what’s left? Solar? Good luck with that.

 

[Origanalist]

as the structures age and become less economically viable

Compared to what? Is this a joke?

 

[CaptUSA]

Funny how these progressives want to remove physical dams because of the damage they see to the natural environment, but at the same time, they want to build more and more socioeconomic dams in every other aspect of life.

 

[Matt4Liberty]

Get rid of coal, gas, nuclear and hydro, what’s left? Solar? Good luck with that.

One of the things not being noticed is all the critical infrastructure that's being destroyed. Not only are we as a society not able to create new projects, but we are destroying old infrastructure. Look at how they always find a problem, even with the most green forms of energy. The Pacific Northwest has many of these dams, and therefore the most clean, cheap energy in the country. If your goal was to be more "carbon neutral" you certainly wouldn't be destroying these. Instead we are destroying infrastructure at a troubling rate even while the need grows.

They're intentionally making traffic worse, not only by refusing to make new roads and bridges, but destroying the old. In Seattle they replaced a viaduct with three lanes in each direction and downtown exits to a tunnel with two lanes in each direction and no downtown exits. In Portland they want to eliminate the downtown I-5 freeway section. In Detroit I-375. None of this makes sense.

 

[jmdrake]

Get rid of coal, gas, nuclear and hydro, what’s left? Solar? Good luck with that.

Muh dams.

https://www.enterrasolutions.com/blog/generating-hydr/

Generating Hydroelectricity without Dams
Stephen DeAngelis
May 29, 2008

With energy prices continuing to skyrocket and concerns about climate change grabbing headlines and Nobel Peace prizes, you would think that potential breakthroughs in alternative energy technologies would get more notice. According to an article in The Economist [“End of a dammed nuisance,” 8 March 2008 print edition], “A new generation of free-standing turbines promises to liberate hydroelectric power from its dependence on dams.” That’s good news for both developed and developing countries.

“Even in today’s more environmentally conscious times, hydroelectric dams are often unwelcome. Although the power they generate is renewable and appears not to produce greenhouse-gas emissions, there are lots of bad things about them. Blocking a river with a dam blocks the movement both of fish upstream to spawn and of silt downstream to fertilise fields. The vegetation overwhelmed by the rising waters decays to form methane—a far worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The capital cost is huge. And people are often displaced to make way for the new lake. The question, therefore, is whether there is a way to get the advantages of hydropower without the drawbacks. And the answer is that there may be.”

China’s Three Gorges Dam is an interesting case to look at when discussing the benefits and drawbacks of building dams to generate hydroelectric power. When completed and in full operation, the dam is expected to generate nearly 85 billion kilowatt hours of electricity. That energy is equivalent to burning 50 million tons of coal or 25 million tons of crude oil. It will annually keep 100 million tons of carbon dioxide, nearly two million tons of sulfur dioxide, ten thousand tons of carbon monoxide, 370, 0000 tons of nitrogen oxide and 150,000 tons of dust out of the atmosphere. The cost savings (even before oil and coal prices started to rise dramatically) were estimated to equal the costs of the project within three years of full operation. Additionally, the availability of all that power was expected to create millions of desperately needed jobs. That’s the up side. The down side includes the fact that hundreds of factories (built on land that has been covered by the lake created by the dam) either closed permanently or had to be rebuilt elsewhere. Over a million people had to be relocated and hundreds of towns, some historically significant, were buried under water. Additionally, nearly 31,000 hectares of farmland was lost to the reservoir in a country already suffering from a severe shortage of arable land. [see TED Case Studies: The Grand Canal and the Three Gorges Dam: A Historical Comparison]

Wouldn’t it be grand, innovators thought, if one could achieve the benefits of hydroelectric power without the drawbacks of having to build a dam and create an artificial lake.

“The purpose of a dam is twofold: to house the turbines that create the electricity and to provide a sufficient head of water pressure to drive them efficiently. If it were possible to develop a turbine that did not need such a water-head to operate, and that could sit in the riverbed, then a dam would be unnecessary. Such turbines could also be put in places that could not be dammed—the bottom of the sea, for example. And that is what is starting to happen, with the deployment of free-standing underwater turbines.”

Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it. Well, in some ways it is.

“The big disadvantage of free-standing turbines is that they are less efficient than turbines in dams at turning the kinetic energy of moving water into electricity. They are also subject to more wear and tear than turbines protected by huge amounts of concrete. They can be hard to reach for repairs and maintenance. And their generators, being electrical machines, must be protected from the water that surrounds the rest of the turbine. A discouraging list. But in the past three decades computing power has became cheaper, helping developers to simulate the behaviour of water and turbine blades—something that is hard to do with paper, pen and formulas. Moreover, prototypes can be built directly from the computer models. All this has helped scientists and industry to solve the inherent problems of free-standing turbines.”

The article then goes on to describe three different models of free-standing turbines that are getting attention. Each tackles the problems mentioned above in a slightly different way.

“The first new design was by Alexander Gorlov, a Russian civil engineer who worked on the Aswan High Dam in Egypt. He later moved to America where, with the financial assistance of the Department of Energy, he produced the first prototype of a turbine that could extract power from free-flowing currents ‘without building any dam’. The Gorlov Helical Turbine, as it is known, Gorlov_helical_turbineallows you to use any stream, whatever the direction of its flow. The vertical helical structure, which gives the device its name, provides a stability that previous designs lacked. It is also relatively efficient, extracting 35% of the energy from a stream. In addition, since the shaft is vertical, the electric generator can be installed at the top, above the water—so there is no need for any waterproof boxes. In 2001 Mr Gorlov won the Edison patent award for his invention, and his turbines have now been commercialised by Lucid Energy Technologies, an American company. They are being tested in pilot projects in both South Korea and North America.”

Output, of course, depends on the size of the turbine and the amount of potential energy in the “stream.” Normally, one doesn’t think of “streams” as having much potential — one thinks of fast-flowing “rivers.” For small villages situated along “streams,” a few of these turbines might produce enough energy to satisfy their needs. At least that is the implication I get from the article’s use of the word “stream.”

“A second design is by Philippe Vauthier, another immigrant to America, who was originally a Swiss jeweller. The turbines made by his company, UEK, are anchored on a submerged platform. UekThey are able to align themselves in the current like windsocks at an aerodrome, so that they find the best position for power generation. Being easy to install and maintain, they are being used in remote areas of developing countries.”

UEK (which stands for Underwater Electric Kite) admits that its turbine requires a river (or ocean currents or a significant tidal flow) to generate electricity. Since it can swivel, the UEK turbine can take advantage of both ebbing and flowing tidal currents.

“Finally, a design by OpenHydro, an Irish company, is not just a new kind of turbine but also a new design of underwater electric generator. Generators (roughly speaking) consist of magnets Openhydromoving relative to coils. So why not attach the magnets directly to the external, rotating parts of the turbine? The coils are then housed in an outer rim that encloses the rotating blades. And there is a large circular gap at the centre of the blades, which is safer for marine life. In addition, OpenHydro’s generators do not need lubricant, which considerably reduces the need for maintenance.”

OpenHydro’s turbines are quite large and, according to company’s web site, are designed to be deployed directly on the seabed (no mention of riverbeds). The article concludes:

“These new designs, combined with growing interest in renewable-energy technologies among investors, mean that funding is now flowing into a previously neglected field. According to New Energy Finance, a specialist consultancy, investments in companies planning to build or deploy free-standing turbines have increased from $13m in 2004 to $156m in 2007. Projects already under way include the installation by American Verdant Power of a tidal turbine in the East River in New York, and UEK, OpenHydro and Canadian Clean Current are operating pilot projects in Nova Scotia. And that, proponents of the technology believe, will just be the beginning. Soon, they hope, many more investors will be searching for treasures buried on the seabed—or, to be precise, in the water flowing just above it.”

One of the advantages of these systems is that they can be situated close to the populations or businesses they serve; dramatically cutting down on the expense of building distribution systems. This is particularly important for remote areas near fast flowing bodies of water. A quick perusal of the businesses’ web sites reveals that the industry remains in its infancy. It will be an interesting sector to watch as it matures. It also underscores the fact that science and technology remain extremely important if we are to meet current and future challenges in a responsible way.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

One of the things not being noticed is all the critical infrastructure that's being destroyed. Not only are we as a society not able to create new projects, but we are destroying old infrastructure. Look at how they always find a problem, even with the most green forms of energy. The Pacific Northwest has many of these dams, and therefore the most clean, cheap energy in the country. If your goal was to be more "carbon neutral" you certainly wouldn't be destroying these. Instead we are destroying infrastructure at a troubling rate even while the need grows.

They're intentionally making traffic worse, not only by refusing to make new roads and bridges, but destroying the old. In Seattle they replaced a viaduct with three lanes in each direction and downtown exits to a tunnel with two lanes in each direction and no downtown exits. In Portland they want to eliminate the downtown I-5 freeway section. In Detroit I-375. None of this makes sense.

Yep, it's insanity.

Two related threads:

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?539295-They-have-a-plan-to-make-traffic-worse
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?549293-BLM-wants-highways-torn-down

 

[Brian4Liberty]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/apnewsbreak-deal-revives-plan-largest-213326069.html
...
the most ambitious salmon restoration effort in history.
...

They call these projects environmentally friendly. Yet they want to destroy entire ecosystems that have been in place since these dams were built, some 100 years ago. How cares about all of the wildlife that depends upon these reservoirs?

Fish ladders are supposed to be in place for the salmon. Are they not working?

 

[Brian4Liberty]

Muh dams.

https://www.enterrasolutions.com/blog/generating-hydr/

Generating Hydroelectricity without Dams
Stephen DeAngelis
...

Dams are also water storage.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

Compared to what? Is this a joke?

Total joke. Has the price of electricity dropped so much that they are no longer "economically viable"?

 

[jmdrake]

Dams are also water storage.

And the libertarian alternative is...

 

[Brian4Liberty]

And the libertarian alternative is...

Requires rain at your specific location. Also requires a lot of work.

 

[jmdrake]

Requires rain at your specific location. Also requires a lot of work.

*Gasp* You mean I have to actually think about where I want to live and adjust my building plans accordingly? Rain catchment systems are built into EarthShips that are constructed in the desert.



But yeah. It's easier to have some big government construction project to build muh infrastructure and divert river water that would naturally flow to country people downstream and instead siphon it off to big city folks that love socialism and all that. Like [MENTION=3169]Anti Federalist[/MENTION] says, freedom isn't popular.

 

[Pauls' Revere]

Nuke power will return unless they go fusion reactor.

 

[Pauls' Revere]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klamath_Basin

Communities
Communities in the Klamath Basin include:

Merrill, Oregon
Bly, Oregon
Beatty, Oregon
Bonanza, Oregon
Chiloquin, Oregon
Happy Camp, California
Klamath Falls, Oregon
Sprague River, Oregon
Tulelake, California
Weaverville, California
Yreka, California

Wonder how these folks are going to get electric? A bunch of generators, wind and solar.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

*Gasp* You mean I have to actually think about where I want to live and adjust my building plans accordingly? Rain catchment systems are built into EarthShips that are constructed in the desert.



But yeah. It's easier to have some big government construction project to build muh infrastructure and divert river water that would naturally flow to country people downstream and instead siphon it off to big city folks that love socialism and all that. Like [MENTION=3169]Anti Federalist[/MENTION] says, freedom isn't popular.

"Ideally, water would be used."

Yeah, looks totally practical. China can manufacture rainwater catchment systems for $1 each, and anyone can install and maintain them. I hear millennials are very capable of these kinds of things...

 

[jmdrake]

"Ideally, water would be used."

Yeah, looks totally practical. China can manufacture rainwater catchment systems for $1 each, and anyone can install and maintain them. I hear millennials are very capable of these kinds of things...

Statism FTW! Save big government for big water projects and take the land that will be taken by the flooding by eminent domain! Government picking winners and losers! (Water for big cities over country folk would would get it naturally flowing down river.)

 

[Matt4Liberty]

Statism FTW! Save big government for big water projects and take the land that will be taken by the flooding by eminent domain! Government picking winners and losers! (Water for big cities over country folk would would get it naturally flowing down river.)

That's a fair argument to make before a dam is built. The price has already been paid for these long time ago. At this point it's just wasting what was spent. Tearing already built infrastructure down isn't going to help anyone besides the Bolsheviks.

 

[jmdrake]

That's a fair argument to make before a dam is built. The price has already been paid for these long time ago. At this point it's just wasting what was spent. Tearing already built infrastructure down isn't going to help anyone besides the Bolsheviks.

Meh. It will help everyone hurt by the monstrosity being built in the first place. I'm not for or against it being torn down. But the pearl clutching over it is a bit much. So is interpreting everything that happens from a "Bolshevik" lens.

 

[Okie RP fan]

One of the things not being noticed is all the critical infrastructure that's being destroyed. Not only are we as a society not able to create new projects, but we are destroying old infrastructure. Look at how they always find a problem, even with the most green forms of energy. The Pacific Northwest has many of these dams, and therefore the most clean, cheap energy in the country. If your goal was to be more "carbon neutral" you certainly wouldn't be destroying these. Instead we are destroying infrastructure at a troubling rate even while the need grows.

They're intentionally making traffic worse, not only by refusing to make new roads and bridges, but destroying the old. In Seattle they replaced a viaduct with three lanes in each direction and downtown exits to a tunnel with two lanes in each direction and no downtown exits. In Portland they want to eliminate the downtown I-5 freeway section. In Detroit I-375. None of this makes sense.

This made me think of China's continued "rise."
They're going full bore on just about anything/everything to help themselves grow and generate power for a burgeoning society. So while the U.S. will likely begin more projects like these that could very well end up having negative socioeconomic consequences (I have no dog in this particular fight and won't deep dive too much for now) for the U.S., at least we'll be able to feel good about "restoring" something to the way it was before. Even though a new ecosystem has been built and I'm sure there's other methods that can be used to achieve similar results of what's being asked here beyond just destroying infrastructure.

I just thought it was funny to kind of compare how this mirrors the facade of what's going on in the U.S. right now.