Posted by so on May 21, 2005, at 20:34:04
In reply to Re: Power problems..., posted by Eloaf on May 21, 2005, at 19:17:43
> > NZ
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> In NZ are you allowed to run your own small hydro dam if you live on a fast enough flowing river? And then from there hook up to the power grid so you can seel the extra power you make to the electrical company?
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> Ive heard of people doing that here in the US buyt also ive heard the electric company dosent like people doing it because of course they dont get to make it themselves and charege you... It seems if the power grid was really efficient and folks who lived on rivers capible of small time hydro plants could hook up to the grid; there would be great progress there... From there if more wind was used and solar on top of peoples houses became a standard there would be no problem; Nz or US or anyother country wiing to put the effort in and make the change.
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> Damn imagine how many jobs that would create too do such a thing.
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> Aso there is some promise for geothermal power too that has been attempted verry little. Also IO hear tidal rythyms can produce a signifigant amoount of energy too.
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> Fact is the options are out there its just the effort to do them and make the change... Lots of big money would have to moove from where it is and people dont like that...Electric companies and industrial electric consumers alike have lobbied against and in some cases delayed implementation of mandatory net-metering and electric buy-back provisions in the US, but that's not the main barrier to small scale hydroelectric in the States.
The problem with small-scale hydro isn't so much the electric companies, but the US Corps of Engineers, which has authority over all navigable waterways in the US. Almost anything deep enough to wet your sneakers is navigable.
The problems aren't as simple as clean-energy, let-'er rip. Unless the dam is a run-of-river dam it can effect flows downstream, and most of the water rights in the US are spoken for, so people have to let it flow. Even with a run-of-river dam, there are ecological problems -- fish need to use the waterways, too, and if they can't get around the dam, or if they get ground to bait in the hydro-turbines, the dam has an adverse effect on the ecology. In most cases, a dam needs fall to make electricity -- that is, the water doesn't just go over a dam, it has to fall from some height to make turn the turbines with enough power to make electricity. So again, it requires altering the terrain in rivers or streams that have already been hammered by channelization, industrial or ag runnoff, silt or other non-point-source pollutants from parking lot and road runnof that can reduce oxygen content and increase dissolved solids.
In parts of the northwest US, debates revolve around decommissioning some mid-sized dams so Salmon populations can recover before some species go extint in some areas. Conservation would seem a viable alternative, but zoning commissions continue to favor land-use regulations that favor tax revenues generated from concentrated commercial centers, and public schools for whatever reason, continue to inculcate children with the notion that success is measured proportionately to capacity to consume, with little real education about how or why some people in the world use far fewer resources than do Western cultures.
poster:so
thread:498110
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20050509/msgs/500928.html