In a recent development, the Biden administration, in concert with environmental groups and Native American tribes, has set in motion a plan that could lead to the removal of four hydroelectric dams in Washington state. This decision, ostensibly made to protect salmon populations, raises significant concerns about the stability and reliability of the western power grid, particularly in terms of grid inertia and energy supply.
The White House, in coordination with Native American tribes and environmental groups, announced actions Thursday that provide a pathway for breaching, or removing, four hydroelectric dams in Washington state to protect salmon.
As part of the announcement, the federal government entered into a legal agreement with the Pacific Northwest tribes and environmental organizations filed earlier in the day in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon. Under that agreement, the tribes and eco groups — which had sued the federal government in an effort to forcibly breach the dams — agreed to stay the litigation through 2028.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-admin-creates-pathway-eco-groups-shutter-energy-source-serving-millions-americans
Understanding Grid Inertia and Stability
Grid inertia is a critical aspect of power system stability. It refers to the resistance of the electrical grid to changes in frequency, which is essential for maintaining a steady and reliable power supply. Traditional power sources like coal, gas, and hydroelectric dams contribute significantly to grid inertia due to their large rotating generators. These generators store kinetic energy, which acts as a buffer against sudden changes in power supply or demand, thereby stabilizing the grid.
The initiative explicitly recommends that dams are breached within two fish generations, or approximately eight years. While there isn’t an explicit plan to breach the dams — an action that the White House has acknowledged would require congressional approval — the agreement does include commitments to begin replacing the services provided by the dams.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-admin-creates-pathway-eco-groups-shutter-energy-source-serving-millions-americans
And opposition to this extra legal back door deal is growing.
“Congress — and Congress alone — can authorize removal of the dams on the lower Snake River. Bureaucrats, activist litigation, nor this administration’s radical agenda will determine the fate of any of the Northwest’s federal dams,” Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
“This litigation effort was useless: It occurred behind closed doors, between two parties who wanted the same end result — to tear out our dams, and it completely excluded Idahoans who rely on the River System for its energy, transportation, agriculture and recreation benefits,” he continued. “I will continue to fight any breaching efforts, and, at every turn, I will reject the Biden administration’s efforts to usurp Congressional authority.”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-admin-creates-pathway-eco-groups-shutter-energy-source-serving-millions-americans
The hydroelectric dams in question are not just sources of renewable energy; they are also vital contributors to grid inertia. Their removal, as proposed in the Biden administration’s plan, poses a direct threat to the stability of the western power grid. The dams currently provide about 8% of Washington state’s electricity and have a total capacity of 3,000 megawatts. This is not just about losing a significant chunk of power supply; it’s about eroding the grid’s ability to withstand and quickly recover from power disturbances.
A grid with reduced inertia is more susceptible to fluctuations in power frequency, which can lead to blackouts and other reliability issues. As we transition to more renewable energy sources like wind and solar, which do not inherently provide inertia, the importance of maintaining other sources of inertia, such as hydroelectric power, becomes even more critical. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has highlighted the evolving role of inertia in maintaining grid reliability, especially as the energy mix changes (NREL).
The Irony of Green Energy Initiatives
The irony in this scenario is palpable. While the intention to protect salmon runs has some merit, the removal of these dams could lead to increased reliance on fossil fuels to compensate for the lost power and grid stability. This move could inadvertently result in higher carbon emissions, as replacing hydropower with natural gas generation would increase carbon emissions by up to 2.6 million metric tons per year.
The Agricultural and Economic Impact
Apart from the electrical implications, there’s also the agricultural angle. The dams facilitate the transportation of about 60% of Washington’s annual wheat exports via barges. Removing them could disrupt this supply chain, impacting both local and national agricultural markets.
In light of these considerations, it is imperative that decisions affecting our power infrastructure be made with a full understanding of their implications on grid stability, energy supply, and the broader environment. While the protection of salmon populations is important, it needs to balanced with the expense of grid reliability and the broader ecological and economic stability.
In conclusion, the Biden administration’s plan to remove these hydroelectric dams is a short-sighted approach that overlooks the broader implications on grid stability, energy supply, and environmental impact. A more balanced approach that considers all these factors is crucial for ensuring a stable, reliable, energy future.
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It struck me about ten years ago, the absolute environmental devastation caused by damming a river.
I grew up on the lower American River in Sacramento. The American River drainage is 1,900 square miles, most of that in the Sierra Nevada range and it’s foothills. Every spring and fall—there used to be two salmon runs. Every fall—and spring before the Chinook Salmon went extinct here—the river banks would be thick with rotting salmon carcasses, the byproduct of the spawning.
Nimbus dam, creating Natomas Lake at the town of Folsom, hosts a fish hatchery, and is the top of the current native salmon run. Since the construction of this dam in 1955, no salmon make it upstream of this point.
My Dad often reminisces about working as an apprentice in Placerville—upstream in the American River drainage. After work, he and friends would fish for steelhead trout in Mosquito Creek in downtown Placerville. This got me to thinking that if there were steelhead, there would also be salmon. But salmon would be pretty beat up by this time. However if there were steelhead trout, and salmon in Placerville, there would also be salmon going far above these locations, probably all the way to the Rubicon and the highest reaches of the drainage, which if you don’t know, is just a hop, skip & jump from Lake Tahoe.
Then I considered all the salmon going that way, hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Millions of fish spawning along the rivers, creeks, and streams of the high sierra. The adults dying, their carcasses feeding bears, skunks, opossums, mink, martin, etc. That must have been the major food source for those animals to fatten up for the winter. This all stopped in 1955; think of the devastation to these animals. Then think about all the detritus from the bodies decaying in the streams, feeding the life of those creeks, streams, rivers, all the crayfish, worms, bugs & whatnot biota depending upon those resources. Then consider the fry, hundreds of millions, if not billions of fry hatching, living in the protected large rock sanctuaries, again, those fry feeding the snakes, trout, frogs, aquatic mammals, etc.
Think about the devastation when the salmon were cut off.
Yes, I know the economic gains brought by Nimbus Dam & Natomas Lake, Folsom Dam & Folsom lake: power, water storage, recreation, flood protection. I’ve swam and boated in both, enjoyed both, enjoyed the almost free electricity from both. But is this the right thing?
Why have no fresh water salmon been planted? They’re in the Great Lakes and in the
Northern Rockies and they are thriving. One things loss is another things gain. Take
a drive to Southern California and see what the Colorado River looks like and
give us your view on that.
Building a dam will likely effect the old ecosystem but a new one will develop.
Beavers do it all the time.
Returning to the post topic about removing established dams for reasons that have to do with a dam’s effect on the old ecosystem, what will removing the dam do to the newer ecosystem?
Destroy it?
Senator Risch is absolutely correct – only Congress can make this decision under our Constitution and existing laws.
Whether the dams should be removed or not is a complicated matter, best resolved with Congressional debate and consideration. There are some arguments for removing (breaching the dams, and some arguments for retaining the dams. The arguments for are mostly about environmental impacts and the effects on the salmon runs, which is where the Indian tribes get involved, as well as environmentalists. The arguments against are not just about hydro power capacity, but also the other aspects including navigation, flood control, irrigation, and recreational uses.
The Biden admin will never get a filibuster proof Senate vote in favor to breach, which is why the pro-breachers tried the litigation route. But the Supreme Court is not going to allow the executive branch to bypass Congress.
So many things that would have been unconstitutional have been cemented into the legal framework of the Union because of declarations of emergency that have since become permanent parts of the legal framework.
Not so. SCOTUS has repeatedly overturned executive agency decisions and executive orders on constitutional grounds, as recently as this year and last year.
This!
Translation: Joe Biden: “We don’t need oil or gas. We don’t need coal. We don’t even need dams. All anyone needs to do for electricity is just plug into a wall outlet.”
Politicians usually go where the votes are.
In a June 2023 Pew Research poll, they found that 69 percent of Americans favored the steps to become carbon neutral by 2050.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/09/what-the-data-says-about-americans-views-of-climate-change/
“Let me write the questions and choose who gets asked those questions, and I can give you any poll results you want.”
Hydroelectric power is one of the few “renewable” resources that can yield substantial amounts of energy, wherever there is a large river with a large change in elevation. Tearing down dams means that the missing power would have to be generated from another source, most likely natural gas, which would INCREASE CO2 emissions compared to leaving the dams in place. A giant step in the wrong direction.
If the Biden administration is really worried about salmon, they should consider “salmon ladders”, where the salmon can jump up a series of pools with small changes of elevation for each step. They can also be fenced in to prevent over-fishing by grizzly bears!
Grid inertia is very important for our system today but I wouldn’t go as far as saying that replacing these dams with renewable energy threatens the western interconnection. One of the only reasons our grid uses grid forming frequency control with rotating generators currently is because those types of generating plants were built first. Would we do the same system if we built it from scratch today? Probably not. Grid forming inverters and current innovation in power electronics make the loss of inertial generators much less drastic than it would have been decades ago. NREL has interesting research on not only the reaction of the grid to loss of inertia, but also to the increased penetration of grid forming inverters. It’s actually pretty fascinating to see that the same “slow response” to frequency that is afforded to us through inertia can affect recovery of the system in the same way. Sure, stability is offered by not dropping in frequency as quickly but that same inertia means the grid can’t recover as quickly. A grid full of power electronics would allow full control of the response and recovery of the system which could make the whole system more reliable and more robust.
I can’t comment on the possibility of that but with the first system, the inertia control is a by product of the generation and has worked well for over a century. With the second it is an extremely expensive add-on that is probably more fragile.
Presently, the river flow that these Dams are already required to follow to meet EPA regulations dictates the operating schedule of the Columbia NPP, which must decrease power so as to make the Dams profitable as they make these releases and the allowable flow rate, which of course, makes Columbia NPP less profitable and the reason the Columbia NPP has a lower Capacity factor.
Another problem with eliminating dams is that these generators are necessary to provide the necessary VAR’s to move electricity from Washington St to California. When they are eliminated, the Wind Turbines and/or Solar available in the North West states (AW & ID) will be insufficient to provide the necessary VARS ** to “Push” the energy from WA to CA.
Worse none of the people talking about Wind/Solar ever mention (Obviously have no knowledge of) the fact that the more “Renewables” that are placed on the grid the harder it is going to be to “Push” the power they generate to the area that needs electricity greatly increasing BLACKOUTS. Imagine how difficult it is going to be to control the VARs of the output power on several million Wind Turbines and multi Million solar panel Transverters. These transverters can NOT follow the VARs at their Grid connection – your meter – for home panels.
All of this means a highly sophisticated system will need to be designed, built and programed to adjust the VARS at the WA state Wind turbines to the correct VAR value to push that power to CA. The decommissioned generators in the Dams will be useless.
Also, the elimination of Coal, NG, NPP and Hydro plants means that Electric Utilities will need to spend Billions, individually, to make the VARS on their Grid/Distribution system as close to 100% Resistive as possible or they will be wasting power on reactive loading. That means that YOU, Anyone that uses electrical power, will see their electric bill increase by 50 to 100% over the next ten years to buy the necessary capacitors to eliminate the increased Reactive load cause by the elimination of the Coal, NG, Hydro and even NP plants from the elimination of these large spinning generators which presently provide capability to reduce Reactive loads on the grid.
** [VAR – Volts Amps Reactive. Basically the phase relationship of the peak of the sine wave of generated Voltage & Amperage. VARS need to be + or ahead to push and — or behind to adsorb the generated power. Presently, this is controlled by the Utility Dispatcher adjusting the power of the generating stations. Decimal Fractions of difference are needed to move electricity; and decimal fractions to large or of the wrong phase means BLACKOUTS. ]
For More Info – http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8353190/
The level of power generated from the Columbia Generating Station on any given day — what you call the Columbia NPP — is determined by the Bonneville Power Administration according to its own requirements on any given day. The station’s power level is either 60% or 100% depending on what the BPA wants that day in managing its response to power grid demand.
In recent years, the number of 60% days has been steadily declining; and the number of 100% days has been steadily increasing. IMHO, as the northwest’s supply of coal-fired and gas-fired capacity continues to decline without adequate replacement, the number of 100% days will continue to increase until eventually, the station is always running flat out all day long for every day of its scheduled up time.
The plant’s NRC license has been extended by 20 years from its original 40 years to 60. We should have every reason to believe the station’s service life can be further extended to 80 years, which now seems probable even if most of us won’t be around when that decision is made.
https://transmission.bpa.gov/Business/Operations/Wind/baltwg.aspx
The color of the line for nuclear is called Cobalt – one of 3 lines in the lower part of the chart. Older eyes may need to zoom-it to about 200%.
?
https://www.fossilconsulting.com/blog/power-plant-fundamentals/vars-explained-in-300-words/
Correction, if there is no impact on the political class then who in policy circles cares? It’s another case of hear no evil, see no evil.
Balanced – balance isn’t necessary – the time for debate is over, the science is settled.
I see Deb Haaland, Sec of Interior, all over this. If so, one thing is certain: very little of this has been thought through.
She’s the sort for whom the gesture is everything; results and adverse consequences be damned.
This could seriously harm the prosperity of Native Americans and others in the region and she would not care.
It seems crazy, but sea lions have learned to swim all the way up the Columbia river to the Bonneville dam, just to feast on salmon at the fish ladders. There is currently a big fight over shooting the sea lions. Here’s an article for those interested: https://www.columbian.com/news/2023/feb/17/sea-lions-threaten-northwests-salmon/
tom
Hydro power is essential to reestablishing frequency stabilization after an event.
The problem is that dams work. They provide electricity, store water & prevent floods. The toxic greens hate everything that works, which is why these dams have to go.
I have no knowledge of these dams or the local salmon situation. May be the dams are causing a problem for the salmon. However, the hydro-electric dam at Pitlochry in Scotland has a fish ladder which allows the salmon to move without restriction. Maybe the US and the Scottish situations are very different. Maybe the local circumstances would not be suitable for the Pitlochry solution. But, if so, it would be interesting to know why.
There are no words foul enough to describe this profane action or the dark hearts of the promoters.
Plain and simple: dams serve load, wrecking them creates room on the system for wind energy.
The claims about salmon have been debated for many decades. The only thing is that different now is that a financial winner has figured out how to profit.
I’m all for dam removal to be honest. But I love fish and know the value of wild, naturally reproducing populations. But replace the power generation first with reliable nuclear, natural gas, or coal. Then remove the dams.
No, no… solutions come last in the sequence.
Biden’s puppeteers are trying to systematically dismantle our power grid and deny access to any form of reliable, affordable energy. They envision us living in sod huts, burning bison chips to stay warm and cook whatever food we can find. No wait, cutting sod will be outlawed by the EPA, and gathering bison chips will be a felony, since they are a product from what will be deemed a protected species. So go ahead, starve and freeze, you peasants. We have to save the planet from the scourge of “useless eaters”.
Won’t the Bison be ‘long gone’? Don’t they fart, creating methane (or something)?
As a long time resident of Washington State, I can tell you those dams don’t just generate power, but also provide irrigation, and support a massive amount of barge traffic in and out of the Port of Lewiston. Massive amounts of wheat, apples, and timber are shipped out of the Port. All that would have to be moved by trucks to the next nearest port, requiring massive upgrades to I 84. There must be a better way to cope with salmon than removing these dams. Whatever the answer is, it should be arrived at through discussion and debate, not back-door fiats. Read all about the Port here: https://portoflewiston.com/
For those of you who want to take a deep dive into the deep waters of the Snake River dam breaching controversy, here is the US Army Corps of Engineers EIS and Record of Decision from the year 2002:
Lower Snake River Juvenile Salmon Migration Feasibility Study (‘2002 LSR Study’)
Here is the 2002 LSE/EIS summary from the USACE Walla Walla District web page:
More than two decades ago, I attended several of the public comment meetings held in 1998 and 1999 concernig this EIS while it was in draft form.
One meeting that I went to was a well-attended talk given by a National Marine Fisheries senior biologist out of the Portland office concerning the major scientific facets of Snake River salmon survival. To say the topic is complex is putting it mildly.
It was this talk where I learned that producing an absolute guarantee of Snake River salmon survival required the removal of Hells Canyon Dam in Idaho and probably other dams on the Snake River in Idaho, in addition to removing the four lower Snake River dams in Washington state.
We should have no doubt that the Biden administration has put intense pressure on the Corps of Engineers and on other federal agencies such as National Marine Fisheries to reverse the Record of Decision published in 2002 and to decide that dam breaching is now the preferred alternative.
WA is also getting rid of fossil fuel plants and mandating electric vehicles. They’re going to need more electricity.