Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I grew up on a remote cattle ranch in the middle of miles of forest in the northern Sierra Nevada mountains of California. We had our own hydroelectric power plant. It was built by my father and my brother-in-law. They put a two-foot high dam across the creek (blue line), and diverted the water into a mile of ditch that they dug from there to a lake that they built by the house.
Figure 1. Renewable energy, circa 1952
Then they built a penstock and dropped part of the water back to a powerhouse by the creek. Inside the powerhouse was a Pelton Wheel that drove an alternator. Poles carried the power (4,000 volt, 10 kilowatts) to the ranchhouse. That was the only power for the ranch, and there was only us to keep it running. That was my introduction to renewable energy.
When I was a kid, our grade school took a field trip and toured Shasta Dam, in Northern California. I was astounded by it. I loved the idea that it was just a bigger version of our little powerplant.
Figure 2. Shasta Dam, Northern California. Note the five large penstocks at the lower left leading to the powerhouse. MORE PHOTOS
These days, of course, it is almost impossible to build a small dam in the US, much less something on the scale of Shasta Dam. People raise hundreds of objections, any project is stalled before it starts. This has always seemed extremely foolish to me, since hydroelectric power is proven, 24-hour, baseline power. Despite that, there’s a whole branch of the environmental movement that considers dams as forces of evil.
Which is why I laughed out loud when I saw the latest numbers on the CDM. The CDM is the “Clean Development Mechanism” of the Kyoto Protocol. The CDM is the foundation of the carbon emission credit system in use in Europe. Companies which emit more CO2 than the regulations allow can purchase credits. The companies pay the money to sponsor an emissions-reducing project in a developing country, so in theory everything balances out.
There’s a New York Times article on the CDM here. This is the part that I found to be hilarious (emphasis mine):
Since it began operating in 2006, the board has validated 2,918 projects, 40 percent of them in China, according to the U.N. Environment Program’s database at the Risoe Center, in Denmark, which tracks every project in the C.D.M. pipeline. The center’s data show that 1,668 projects are in hydroelectric power and 1,060 of those are in China.
So the effect of the Kyoto Protocol is that it is OK for the West to burn fossil fuels, as long as the West is also subsidizing hydroelectric dam construction in China …
Does anyone but me find that truly and bizarrely hilarious? I’m sure the Chinese are busting up laughing, and saying “Give us 20 Kyoto protocols, this is great, we’ll let you well-meaning Western fools build all the hydroelectric plants China can hold” …
Ron House says:
October 14, 2010 at 5:02 am
recognise that tidal power is a planet killer, and never, ever make use of it.
I think the sea might have eroded all the land and we are six feet under water before we need worry about the moon… although a couple of asteroid impacts on earth might make a difference to the balance… but if all else fails perhaps we could build a few nuclear powered wave machines…
He’s staying!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11541056
At the end of a rural highway just up the from where I live, Pacific Power apparently snuck one smaller hydro-electric into a stream before the area became Wilderness just a little higher up. It’s got a “head” of about 1200 ft. before it reaches the Power House below, and an ~2.5 ft. diameter pipe which is almost totally underground. I know why there aren’t more of them, but it doesn’t make much sense because there’s not even much water diverted once the pipe is filled. The “head” is what makes for the power, so the outflow from the Power House is not very large. This could be done in many other areas, imo.
Willis,
When I looked up “Pelton Wheel”, I ran across this site http://www.oldpelton.net/oldpp.html, that matched much of your story, 18″ Pelton Wheel, Western Sierra Nevada Mountains in Central California, power to ranch. Are the pictures of your old place?
I built three small hydro plants in the 1980’s. I exited the business when it became virtually impossible to get past environmentalists’ intervention. While hydro is on the extreme end of environmentalists “hate list”, no proposed electric power plant, regardless of the technology employed. escapes their ire. I once spent several years getting permits to build a closed-loop, zero-emissions, binary geothermal plant in a remote location. The same “environmentalists” who publicly promote renewable energy will then fight any developer’s actually building one, particularly if there is any chance of financial profit being made.
Claude Harvey
On the money.
The US Congress, hose of Representatives have already past their version of the law that would tax farmers and ranchers for each head of livestock.
The Little Green People want to shut down America.
Good post Willis.
As I pointed out in an earlier commsent to Mr. Fuller, dams are not counted as renewable in many states that have renewable energy laws.
And we get national TV advertisements run be American Express with some guy saying he wants to get rid of dams. A CEO of some company I believe. He is shown rock climbing. AmericanProjects is what I think it is called.
I live in a city with an old Union Carbide built hydro plant. A lovely old building with wooden bearings for the turbines. An African wood that gets harder under water.
[Tenuc says:
I agree. A long-planned project for a tidal generator on the river Severn would generate about 5% of UK total demand, but has been bogged down with people following a green agenda.]
Ron House says:
October 14, 2010 at 5:02 am
“Tidal power is not renewable…”
Sorry Ron, but tidal power is a renewable energy source. Tides dissipate the same amount of energy whether they are harnessed to produce energy or freely move tons of water around. Using this waste energy has no long-term dangerous effect.
Two hundred years ago New Englanders built a thriving economy on such small hydropower plants. The remains of old mill sites still exist on thousands of small streams and rivers. There are five within a half mile of my house.
Lucy Skywalker says:
October 14, 2010 at 3:53 am
I wholeheartedly agree. One of the things I used to do every January was man a stand at the Young Scientists Exhibition here in Ireland. These were 13-18 yr old pupils who would do a science project and then exhibit it there. In all, there might be 500 different projects at various levels of sophistication. This year’s winner also won the European version. I used to get a great buzz out of the enthusiasm that the pupils had for their projects.
Yet, by the time it comes to them doing their Leaving Cert (around 18 yoa), very few are picking science subjects. Something along the way kills their passion for it. Very sad, and it will have consequences for us in the future.
Those Welsh sheep are amazing.
I’m almost certain that tidal energy use would shorted the panets uselful life by atleast a thousanth of a percent of the planets expected life. A 3 billion year expected life would be reduced to 2,999,970,000 …
Espen says:
October 14, 2010 at 3:11 am
“It’s just the modern version of roman catholic indulgence. Except that this time, the money doesn’t pay for local infrastructure or wonderful cathedrals, but for Chinese infrastructure.”
Moreover, the indulgences were voluntary.
Ron, that actually makes more sense then carbon forced warming and feedback multipliers, you should apply for a grant.
Ron House
I’ve got to have a little more proof than your take on tidal power to believe that it would send the moon hurling into outer space and dooming us all.
@ur momisugly Joe Lalonde (October 14, 2010 at 4:23 am)
Are we taking energy from the water
or from gravity?
“The effect is to push the Moon away from the Earth”
How, exactly does this work?
I missed something.
“Tidal power is not renewable. ”
Sun power is not renewable, everytime the sun fuses some hydrogen, it’s a bit of power lost forever. We need more government taxes to help conserve solar hydrogen.
Sun power is a sun killer, so never ever make use of it.
Back on topic,
Anyone else find it’s all too simular to history?
Anglo-americans funded germany’s rise to power through 1920s and 1930s while claiming to the anglo-american public their countries were bankrupt. Next up, big war with germany. Then anglo-americans banks funded the soviet union from 1940s till mid 1980s ( steming from 1917 counter revolution funded by britain ) . Cold war with russia.
Tons of minor cases like this aswell.
Now china.
Oregon has Governor Hayduke, er, Kitzhaber D-retread, who, if re elected, wants to blow up dams not build them. Close down our only coalfired plant too. Solar and wind have serious drawbacks, but they are ignored, until it’s too late…
Thanks Willis.
China does like water power, they are now claiming the South China Sea as historically theirs. While we help build their economic power and they buy our debt, they are building their military power and they are flexing it. China is indeed smiling.
On the dams that can’t be built here, environmentalists have no power without our elected representatives who write and pass the laws and appointed judges who accept the cases, and make their own laws. who get their power from, well you can exercise that in November or not.
So now we can add evaporating water from reservoirs to the list of causes of greenhouse gases? How serious is that compared to CO2 which is just about saturated it’s absorption lines?
http://pathstoknowledge.net/2009/07/13/boiling-water-contributes-to-greenhouse-effect
For a fun and learning excercise, Google “excluding hydroelectric”. You will learn another trick put on the public by the mean greenies. When they give numbers of electricity consumed, they include hydropower. When they give numbers of renewable and “clean” power produced, they exclude hydropower. Through this manipulation, hydro is counted as a non-renewable energy source.
I think there is a baby in this bathwater. The important lesson is one that all farmers take for granted, out of necessity. That is the virtue of self sufficiency and the power of harvest.
Willis having been raised in such environment, retains this pioneering mentality, and it can be easily detected, by his close to earth analytical thinking and essays. This world would be better off, if we all thought and acted as harvesters and retained the good sense of farmers. These are the leaders we should desire. GK
“Companies which emit more CO2 than the regulations allow can purchase credits. The companies pay the money to sponsor an emissions-reducing project in a developing country, so in theory everything balances out.”
The important thing that this ‘balances out’ is wealth between countries. The redistribution of wealth, both within and between countries seems to be one of the ‘solutions’ of AGW.
“So the effect of the Kyoto Protocol is that it is OK for the West to burn fossil fuels, as long as the West is also subsidizing hydroelectric dam construction in China …
Does anyone but me find that truly and bizarrely hilarious? I’m sure the Chinese are busting up laughing, and saying “Give us 20 Kyoto protocols, this is great, we’ll let you well-meaning Western fools build all the hydroelectric plants China can hold” …”
No, this isn’t bizarre and hilarious at all. According to Cass Sunstein, the US could have paid up to 80% of the costs of Kyoto and he also said that China’s view was that this transfer of wealth go in particular to China (and India).
Does anybody remember the issue with the Clinton admin and the DNC in the ’90’s with the Chinese government? Clinton and the DNC were caught taking illegal contributions from the communist Chinese government. Kyoto was payback as was PNTR (permanent normalized trade relations) and a few other things. Kyoto could have resulted (according to Sunstein) in a huge transfer of wealth from the US to China. PNTR, signed in Oct of 2000 has resulted in us closing over 40,000 manufacturing plants and sending millions of jobs to China over the last 10 years.
Gotta hand it to the Chinese, their ‘investment’ in Clinton and the DNC has yielded fantastic results for their country. They would have really scored if the Senate have ratified Kyoto.
Sources:
-Wealth redistribution and climate change:
1) http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/other_comments/345226/nothing_will_happen_at_copenhagen_until_the_11_hour.html
2) http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/other_comments/363369/we_shouldnt_expect_a_single_copenhagen_treaty_to_solve_things.html (This one from Mike Hulme of University of East Anglia)
-Cass Sunstein, Kyoto:
1) http://www.georgetownlawjournal.com/issues/pdf/96-5/Posner-Sunstein.PDF (pages 1573, 1577)
-PNTR:
1) http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/15/opinion/essay-riady-cops-a-plea.html
2) http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_plight_of_american_manufacturing
3) http://lieberman.senate.gov/assets/pdf/off_shoring.pdf (page 7 at top, notices he says from November of 2000 right after Clinton signed PNTR)
The greens are only against hydro power if it is effective and only support it where it can’t work.
In Washington State, which gets 90% of its electrical power from hydro, hydro power is hobbled and costs increased each time a license is renewed. Although in most cases this is done in the name of what are in essence marginal (at best) improvements for marginal fish populations, in a recent renewal kayakers (presumably an important voting block) were accommodated so that water releases for them were given precedence over the power needs of the community. This was on a stream that is not high up on the list of important kayaking streams (Sultan River near Everett, WA).
Several years ago the Washington State legislature passed a law mandating that 20% of all power be generated by “renewable” sources. They appear to have forgotten that 90% of the power was already provided by hydro. In fact they specifically left out hydro from the definition of what is renewable. Wind mills now blot out the sky in Eastern WA, far from the vistas of evergreens enjoyed by the greenies in Western WA.
A sort of relevant article by Lawrence Solomon in the Financial Post.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/10/13/fps-lawrence-solomon-ontario-power-lesson/
Talks about the upcoming Ontario Hydro woes and the need for privatization.