'The Footprint of Energy: Land Use of U.S. Electricity Production'

Ok that’s the metric I was looking for. You determine the average sized reservoir that feeds a hydroelectric facility and then determined the ratio of average power generated for said average reservoir? Given the wide discrepancies between low head ponds and large deep reservoirs isn’t the mash-up a bit misleading and rather a useless metric?
Compound upon this that the reservoir is probably used for other water needs (drinking) might not the size of the reservoir more be determined by other factors rather than strictly for power generation? A good many small scale hydro generation facilities use small retention ponds with long enclosed penstocks to obtain a larger head. These would skew the values differently.

Take the case of the flood control (multi use recreation & irrigation as well) dam; then, 20 years after construction of the dam add electric generation because the 90% of the infrastructure is already there and demand has grown. Now calculate the required footprint of the hydro generation.
A significant percentage (with respect to the overall land use impact outcome as presented/depicted) of the dams were going to be there anyway.

That analogy only works if the oil wells were 5 to 10 times as large of an impact as they need to have been because they were also used for irrigation, flood control, & recreation.

“David Middleton August 9, 2017 at 11:37 am
It’s not a matter of whether or not the reservoir is multi-use. Based on the average footprint of existing hydroelectric power plants, it would require an area equivalent to 72% of Texas or 118% of California.”

That’s rather prejudiced, Dave.
Very few dams are built primarily as “generating sources”. Most of those dams are built for water containment and control; primary, secondary and tertiary.
The electricity generation is installed because it is absurd to waste all of that work energy inherent in falling water.
Let us know when collected and concentrated wind or solar can safely provide similar energy efficiencies with all of the land involved providing multiple layers of benefit; e.g. drinking water, water control, irrigation, flood control, transportation, regional environment moderation, aquaculture, wildfowl habitat and nesting, boating, waterskiing, fishing, swimming, hiking, etc etc.

“David Middleton August 9, 2017 at 6:15 pm
It’s just math.
The quality of the footprint is irrelevant to the size of it.”

“Quality of the footprint is irrelevant”?
My statement stands, David. You do not present any relevance or logic in that response of yours.
When comparing energy generation land usage, land that is only used for one purpose, literally exclusive of other benefits to Earth, wildlife, mankind; especially for very low energy density, that is a pitiful waste of land.
The quality of the footprint is everything. Otherwise, it is mostly wasted space.
Again, hydro power is not a primary reason for building dams. It is lagniappe, as are many other benefits of reservoirs.

“David Middleton August 9, 2017 at 7:29 pm
Each source of energy requires an average area of land per MW. Apart from solar, most of the land remains open to other uses.
Major hydroelectric plants are built into dams which were primarily designed for electricity generation.”

Large wind farms are mostly sole use too, not multiuse.
Dams include power generation as a secondary feature.
Look up the history of TVA, Lake Mead and many other water projects. They were built for water control.
Many small reservoirs are built for water, not power. Water is intensely precious across America.
Controlling floods is extremely beneficial. Providing water for irrigation, populations is extremely beneficial.
Only when a consistent volume of water will fall from sufficient height to power generators are dams built with generating facilities.
Lagniappe! Not primary.
Dammed water, fossil fuels, nuclear density of land use is beneficial to far more than some company raking in subsidies from land turned desolate. Birds, bats, wildlife, humans are endangered within wind turbines’ operating areas; if the blades don’t kill outright, their low frequency vibration disturbs or damages biological systems.
Pristine beautiful recreational places, wind farms are not. Decaying cities have finer allure and greater benefits than unhealthy land wasting low density short lived subsidized electricity pits.

“David Middleton August 9, 2017 at 7:57 pm
Texas is swarming with dams and reservoirs designed for freshwater supply. Most of these are unsuitable for hydroelectric power.
The Glen Canyon and Hoover dams can only generate electricity if the reservoir elevation is high enough. The higher the elevation, the bigger the footprint. This isn’t good or bad. It’s just volumetrics”

You have yet to make any valid points David.
You insist on defending an untenable opinion as your position. Just because you wrote an opinion, does not make it gospel or even correct.
Glen Canyon, just as Lake Mead were built for water retention, flood control and irrigation. They would have dammed the Grand Canyon as well, if citizens and government had allowed it.
It is not just volumetrics. As you notice with Texas’s potholes, height is required to produce serious electricity.
Using gravity and water volume to amass enough work potential to drive large generators.
Niagara Falls is one example of a generating facility built without intention to actually control the water; just to benefit from the water’s work potential.
Across America, water is life. Around water, life prospers. Hoover dam and Glen Canyon generating facilities were built long before there were sufficient people, businesses or industries around to benefit from the electricity.
California, however was buying, controlling or politically driving crusades to lock in water supplies for California; without care for who they took the water from.
Water from the Colorado River, Glen Canyon, snow fields in the Rockies, Great Lakes, icebergs, etc.; it doesn’t matter just so long as California gains the water they desire.
Where I live, there are three reservoirs within ten miles.
None generate electricity. Their sole purpose is water supply.
Could a local reservoir generate electricity? No.
These are all county reservoirs or jointly controlled county and town reservoirs. In order to amass a sufficient column of water to generate electricity on par or competition with nuclear, gas or coal facilities; they would have to flood the entire county and most of the neighboring county on the other side of a river.
Most modern dams, over the last 80 years or so, are built primarily, secondly and tertiary for water. Electricity is lagniappe and very useful, but low on the list and only viable where sufficient water column can generate electricity on par with nuclear, LNG and coal.
There is zero equivalence to the vast areas land wasted under alleged renewables. Alleged wind and solar renewables consume land and subsidies.

David, you are inventing fiction and cherry picking isolated descriptions.
The history and rationale for establishing the TVA and other large dams are well documented.

“Saving Chattanooga
Before Chickamauga Dam, Chattanooga—the Valley’s most flood-prone city—suffered from massive economic damage and mosquito[sic]-borne health crises because of the untamed river.
Just two or three generations ago, life in the Tennessee Valley was precarious at best. This was partly due to raging floods that regularly destroyed crops, livestock, homes, property and human lives. Flooding—still the most common natural disaster worldwide and the leading cause of natural disaster fatalities—was a grim reality of life for people struggling to make a living in Tennessee.
This was especially true for Chattanooga, which had one of the most serious flooding problems in the nation, suffering serious damage in 1867, 1875, 1886 and 1917. When the Tennessee Valley Authority was formed in 1933, annual flood damage to the Chattanooga area was estimated at $1.7 million (well over $31 million in today’s dollars). This did not include indirect damage such as losses due to interrupted business and traffic, unsanitary conditions and the spread of disease.
Because of this, flood control was the primary consideration in planning and constructing Chickamauga Dam. ”

“Tennessee Valley Authority
One of the most famous and successful projects begun by the federal government during the Great Depression was the Tennessee Valley Authority, or TVA. Do you know what it was and why it was started?
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt set up many new projects and agencies to help the hardest hit areas of the United States. One such agency was the Tennessee Valley Authority, which was created in 1933. The Tennessee River valley was continually dealing with floods, deforestation, and eroded land. The TVA aimed to help reduce these problems by teaching better farming methods, replanting trees, and building dams.”

“Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), U.S. government agency established in 1933 to control floods, improve navigation, improve the living standards of farmers, and produce electrical power along the Tennessee River and its tributaries. The Tennessee River was subject to severe periodic flooding, and navigation along the river’s middle course was interrupted by a series of shoals at Muscle Shoals, Ala. In 1933 the U.S. Congress passed a bill establishing the TVA, thus consolidating all the activities of the various government agencies in the area and placing them under the control of a single one.
A massive program of building dams, hydroelectric generating stations, and flood-control projects ensued. The fusion of a broad range of specific powers with a sense of social responsibility to the region made the TVA significant as a prototype of natural-resource planning. Its jurisdiction is generally limited to the drainage basin of the Tennessee River, which covers parts of seven states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.
The TVA is a public corporation governed by a board of three directors appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate. The constitutionality of the TVA was immediately challenged upon the agency’s establishment, but it was upheld by the Supreme Court in the case of Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority (1936) and in later decisions.
All dams in the system are managed as a unit, with primary emphasis on flood control, which has proved extremely effective; no major flood damage has occurred on the Tennessee River since the system of dams was completed.”

“President Roosevelt signed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act on May 18, 1933, creating the TVA as a Federal corporation. The new agency was asked to tackle important problems facing the valley, such as flooding, providing electricity to homes and businesses, and replanting forests. Other TVA responsibilities written in the act included improving travel on the Tennessee River and helping develop the region’s business and farming. The establishment of the TVA marked the first time that an agency was directed to address the total resource development needs of a major region. TVA was challenged to take on—in one unified development effort—the problems presented by devastating floods, badly eroded lands, a deficient economy, and a steady out-migration. The most dramatic change in Valley life came from the electricity generated by TVA dams. Electric lights and modern appliances made life easier and farms more productive. Electricity also drew industries to the region, providing desperately needed jobs.
Today, TVA is the largest public power company in the United States. The agency also carefully runs the nation’s fifth-largest river system in order to control flooding, make rivers easier to travel, provide recreation, and protect water quality. As a Federal public power corporation, the TVA serves about 80,000 square miles in the southeastern United States. This area includes most of Tennessee and parts of six other states—Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia.
TVA’s facilities for generating electric power include 29 hydroelectric dams, a pumped-storage plant, 11 coal-fired plants, 3 nuclear plants, and 4 combustion-turbine installations. These facilities provide over 27,000 megawatts of dependable generating capacity. TVA typically produces more than 130 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, making it the largest electric power producer in the country. TVA provides electric power to 160 local, municipal, and cooperative power distributors through a network of about 17,000 miles of transmission lines.”

Dam electricity generation is lagniappe to the primary rationale, authorization and assignment to control floods.

“Established by the U.S. Congress in 1933 as a critical component of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Depression-era “New Deal,” the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was initially created primarily to manage the Tennessee River’s navigation and flood control problems, to encourage reforestation and proper land use, and to foster agricultural and industrial development.”

“A Suggestion for Legislation to Create the Tennessee Valley Authority
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
April 10, 1933
Publishing Information Source: The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt With a Special Introduction and Explanatory Notes by President Roosevelt, Volume 2, The Year of Crisis, 1933. New York, Random House, 1938, 122-29.
To the Congress:
The continued idleness of a great national investment in the Tennessee Valley leads me to ask the Congress for legislation necessary to enlist this project in the service of the people.
It is clear that the Muscle Shoals development is but a small part of the potential public usefulness of the entire Tennessee River. Such use, if envisioned in its entirely, transcends mere power development; it enters the wide fields of flood control, soil erosion, reforestation, elimination from agricultural use of marginal lands, and distribution and diversification of industry. In short, this power development of war days leads logically to national planning for a complete river watershed involving many States and the future lives and welfare of millions. It touches and gives life to all forms of human concerns.
I, therefore, suggest to the Congress legislation to create a Tennessee Valley Authority, a cooperation clothed with the power of Government but possessed of the flexibility and initiative of a private enterprise. It should be charged with the broadest duty of planning for the proper use, conservation and development of the natural resources of the Tennessee River drainage basin and its adjoining territory for the general social and economic welfare of the Nation. The Authority should also be clothed with the necessary power to carry these plans into effect. Its duty should be the rehabilitation of the Muscle Shoals development and the coordination of it with the wider plan.
Many hard lessons have taught us the human waste that results from lack of planning. Here and there a few wise cities and counties have looked ahead and planned. But our Nation has “just grown.” It is time to extend planning to a wider field, in this instance comprehending in one great project many States directly concerned with the basin of one or our greatest rivers.
This in a true sense is a return to the spirit and vision of the pioneer. If we are successful here we can march on, step by step, in a like development of other great natural territorial units within our borders.
President Roosevelt’s Notes
Added to the Published Congressional Message
. . . Pursuant to the foregoing message, the Congress passed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act of 1933.
The Tennessee Valley Authority created by this Act was established, in the words of the document, “. . . for the purpose of maintaining and operating the properties now owned by the United States in the vicinity of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, in the interest of the national defense and for agricultural and industrial development, and to improve navigation in the Tennessee River and to control the destructive flood waters in the Tennessee River and Mississippi River Basins. . . .”
The program aiming at the control and proper use of the water resources of the Tennessee River Basin began with the issuance of my Executive Order No. 6162 of June 8, 1933, starting the construction of the Cove Creek Dam (Norris Dam) on the Clinch River, the first of a system of publicly owned dams on the principal tributaries and on the Tennessee itself.”

“At the turn of the 20th century, farmers sought to divert the Colorado River to budding Southwestern communities via a series of canals. When the Colorado broke through the canals in 1905, creating the inland Salton Sea, the job of controlling the raging river fell to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
Bureau director Arthur Powell Davis in 1922 outlined a plan before Congress for a multipurpose dam in Black Canyon, located on the Arizona-Nevada border. Named the Boulder Canyon project, after the original proposed site, the dam would not only control flooding and irrigation, it would generate and sell hydroelectric power to recoup its costs.”

“Even before Powell and Ives explored the river, others had seen the possibility of using its water to irrigate lands in California’s Imperial Valley. The idea was proposed in the 1850s, but it was not until the 1890s that actual development began. In 1896, the California Development Company began constructing canals in the Imperial Valley and the first water from the Colorado River was delivered in 1901.
The Imperial Valley of southern California is a deep depression with its lowest point, the Salton Sink, some 280 feet below sea level. The Colorado River flows along the valley’s southeastern rim, about 100 feet above sea level, and is separated from the valley by a ridge of alluvial material deposited by the river. The original Imperial Canal had its headworks on the California side of the river just upstream from the US/Mexico border. The canal ran along side the river for about four miles before turning west into the old Alamo River channel and into the Imperial Valley. In 1904, floods filled the first four miles of the canal with silt and prevented diversion of water. To solve the problem, a temporary channel was dug directly from the river to the old Alamo River channel. Since the channel was temporary and supposed to be closed before the spring floods, no control works were installed. Unexpected winter flooding caught the canal’s owners off guard, sending floods into the Imperial Valley. The uncontrolled flows began to cut into the channel making it deeper and deeper until the entire flow of the Colorado River was flowing into the Alamo channel and the Salton Sink, creating the Salton Sea. The river ran uncontrolled into the valley until November 1906 when the bypass channel was finally blocked. In December 1906, the river once again flooded, breaching the dam that had been built across the bypass channel and the river again flowed into the Salton Sea. The river was again controlled in February 1907, but renewed flooding in 1908 and 1909 underscored the need to find a way to control the river.
The Imperial Valley was not the only place to suffer from the unpredictable nature of the river and its tributaries. Yuma, Arizona, and the Bureau of Reclamation’s Yuma Project were subject to the effects of flooding by the Gila River. Levees built to protect the city and the project proved to be less effective than hoped, and the area became subject to regular floods. In 1916, flooding on the Gila River breached levees, and water stood four feet deep in the streets of Yuma. Faced with constant cycles of flooding and drought, the people of the region looked to the Federal Government for relief, and the Bureau of Reclamation began investigations into how to control the river and best use its valuable resource.
Authorization
The passage of the Boulder Canyon Project Act came after more than two decades of studies and investigations. One of the most difficult steps in gaining approval for the project was determining the equitable allocation of the waters of the Colorado River. The people living in the Colorado River Basin depended of the waters of the river, and in many cases water rights held greater value than land titles. While all of the Basin states recognized the advantages of a large dam on the river, there were concerns about one state’s ability to claim the lions’s share of the water, leaving the other state without sufficient water for development. Under the doctrine of prior appropriation which was recognized by all Basin states, an individual or agency meeting certain legal conditions and first appropriating water for beneficial use had first right to the water. Several of the Basin States feared that California, with it’s vast financial resources and great thirst for water, would be the first state to begin beneficial use of the waters of the Colorado River and therefore claim rights to the majority of the water. It was clear that without some sort of an agreement on the distribution of water, the project could not proceed.
In 1920, representatives of the seven Basin states met and endorsed a proposal for an interstate compact. A commission was formed with a representative from each of the Basin states and one from the Federal Government. The Government’s representative was Herbert Hoover, then Secretary of Commerce under President Harding. The commission first met in January 1922 with Hoover presiding. At first, negotiations attempted to establish amounts for each state, but an agreement could not be reached. Hoover proposed that the Colorado River water resources be divided into two groups, the Upper and Lower Basin States, with the division of water within each Basin to be agreed upon at a later date. The Upper Basin consisted of the area above Lees Ferry, Arizona, about 30 miles south of the Arizona/Utah border, with the Lower Basin that area south of Lees Ferry. The proposal, known as the Hoover Compromise, led to the Colorado River Compact, which was signed by the Commissioners on November 24, 1922. The Compact was approved by the legislatures of six Basin States (Arizona did not approve the Compact until 1944) and the Federal Government. The division of water within the Upper and Lower Basins was left to the Basin States. In October 1948, the Upper Basin States approved the Upper Colorado River Basin Compact dividing water resources among the states of the Upper Basin. The states of the Lower Basin could not reach agreement, and the Secretary of the Interior determined the state’s allocation. The matter was sent to the courts for determination, and in 1963, the Supreme Court upheld the Secretary’s decision. The Colorado River Compact allocated each Basin 7,500,000 acre feet (af) per year, slightly less than is, on average, available. The Upper Colorado River Basin Compact divided the Upper Basin’s share in the following manner: Colorado, 51.75 percent; Utah, 23 percent; Wyoming, 14 percent; New Mexico, 11.25 percent, and 50,000 af to Arizona because a small portion of the state is within the upper basin. The Secretary of the Interior divided the Lower Basin’s share with California receiving 4,400,000 ac/ft, Nevada 300,000 ac/ft, and Arizona 2,800,000 ac/ft.
The first attempt to gain approval for construction of Boulder Dam came in 1922 with the introduction of two bills in the House of Representatives and the Senate. The bills were introduced by Congressman Phil D. Swing and Senator Hiram W. Johnson and were known as the Swing-Johnson bills. The bills failed to come up for a vote and were subsequently reintroduced several times. Many parties joined to oppose the bills. Arizona feared that a thirsty California was trying to get their water. Eastern legislators saw the project as a white elephant that would in no way benefit their constituents. The power lobby, under the guidance of Utah Senator Reed Smoot, saw the project as an attempt by the federal government to get into the power business, directly competing with private industry. Also joining the fight was the influential publisher of the Los Angeles Times, Harry Chandler, who owned 830,000 acres of irrigated land in Mexico. Chandler feared that the proposed project would siphon off water that was irrigating his land. In December 1928, after many failures, both the House and the Senate approved the bill and sent it to the President for final approval. On December 21, 1928, President Coolidge signed the bill approving the Boulder Canyon Project.
The Boulder Canyon Project Act authorized construction of a dam in Boulder or Black Canyon, construction of the All-American Canal to connect the Imperial and Coachella Valleys with the Colorado River, and divided the lower basin waters among the lower basin states. In addition, the Act authorized $165,000,000 for construction and stated the primary purposes of the project as flood control, improvement of navigation on the Colorado River, storage and delivery of water for reclamation and other beneficial uses, and generation of power. The Boulder Canyon Project Act became effective in June 1929 following ratification of the Colorado River Compact by six of the seven states of the Colorado River Basin.”

“Glen Canyon Dam Construction History
The authorization of the Colorado River Storage Project Act by Congress on April 11, 1956 initiated the construction of Glen Canyon Dam, the key unit of one of the most extensive and complex river resource developments in the world. The first dynamite blast in Glen Canyon occurred on October 15, 1956 when President Dwight D. Eisnehower pressed a telegraph key from Washington D.C. to set off the explosion signaling the beginning of construction.
Once completed, Glen Canyon Dam would provide vital water storage that would allow the Upper Colorado River Basin states of Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico to utilize their share of the Colorado River, especially during times of drought, while providing the required delivery of water to the Lower Basin states of California, Nevada, and Arizona, as required by the Colorado River Compact of 1922.”

Our modern era of dams are all about water!
Electricity generation is lagniappe.
Especially when the long term result of hydro electrical generation is cheap electricity.