Meanwhile California is shutting down dams and nuclear plants.

Caligatio 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I can't speak to any particular dam closure but there's a lot more to maintaining dams than one might believe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiUOBdEUqjY (Practical Engineering - All Dams Are Temporary)

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pstuart 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The last shutdown of a reactor in CA was 2013 -- https://www.eia.gov/nuclear/reactors/shutdown/ Diablo Canyon got a reprieve and has 5 more years to go.

Dam removals have multiple factors behind them, from pure economics (cheaper to remove than repair) to environmental -- restoring fisheries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dam_removals_in_Califo...

We need all the non-carbon power we can get, and it's a shame to remove existing power sources but as electric power is eminently fungible, that loss can be mitigated with other sources.

Meanwhile, efforts to modernize the US electric grid have been stalled by Red states that are ideologically opposed to renewable power. There's plenty of potential power to be generated that is hamstrung by that resistance (pun intended).

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dghlsakjg 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

The other thing that people forget is that dams, in almost all cases, have a finite lifespan. Both the engineering and (mostly) the silt buildup mean that every dam eventually has to come down or otherwise be involved in a massive infrastructure project rivaling the cost and complexity of building a new dam.

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peepeepoopoo140 3 days ago | parent [-]

Silt buildup is a trope that often gets repeated as a reason for tearing down dams, but it has no effect on power output. Generating capacity is determined by vertical pressure head, i.e. how far the water drops as it passes the dam, and not by how much water is held by the reservoir. It's factually incorrect to say that silt buildup causes a decrease in generating capacity.

	▲	eszed 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		No expertise in the field, but that makes sense as far as momentary output is concerned. The amount of power generated over a period of time, however, would be entirely by the quantity of water stored behind the dam. At some point it would no longer be economically worthwhile to keep it online.

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kibwen 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> it's a shame to remove existing power sources

Maybe other people are thinking about different dams, but the ones that were in the news semi-recently for being dismantled were producing something like five wind turbines worth of energy. China has built five turbines in the time it took you to read this comment.

	▲	Slava_Propanei 3 days ago \| parent [-]
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