Klamath River Dam Removal

[Rotnguns]

Recently came across articles and some youtube videos discussing the ongoing dam removal's on the Klamath River in Oregon and California. The goal is to increase salmon runs in the river.

I live in Idaho and the removal of the Snake River dam's is being discussed. So we may see this up here in a few years.

The controversy surrounding it doesn't seem to fit the typical 'left vs right' framework of most public discourse that permeates pretty much everything now. For example, I saw a group of protesters AGAINST dam removal carrying signs that say, "clean water is a human right". Whatever that means. Also, the arguments used against dam removal in the youtube videos I saw were that it was poisoning the water and killing wildlife. The advocates FOR dam removal were aguing the economics of maintaining ageing dams and that their planned lifespan was expiring, so why not remove them and restore salmon runs also? Who wants to stand in the way of progress?

I am all for dam removal in the northwest, if it will increase salmon runs, and IF electric generating capacity is replaced. What bothers me is that folks want to remove hydro, yet against all forms of electric generation. Also, salmon restoration is complicated. I am interested to see how this plays out in the next decade or so.

What are y'alls thoughts?

There's a matter of scale here that should be noted. The combined annualized power from the Klamath River Dams was about 169 Megawatts, compared to about a Gigawatt for the Snake River dams considered for breaching. Also important to note that the Snake River dam's are not being proposed for complete removal; rather, they would be breached.

 

[Rotnguns]

Very well said in an extremely simple way. Only thing I will add is
D) they have zero idea how much their wind mills and off shore wind mills and solar , create power wise as well in comparison especially when you take into account maintenance and longevity.

Indeed. One very common misconception is nameplate power (generation capacity of a plant) v. annualized power (what's actually provided to the grid). In Idaho, expect a utility-level solar farm to contribute about 1/6 of nameplate power; a wind farm, about 1/3. And it's not "fixed" power - no suitable wind, no sun, no electric energy contributed to the grid, unless we experience a quantum increase in battery storage technology.

 

[2531usmc]

Best Rokslide thread ever!

 

[Kyle C]

I'm all for dam removals after witnessing some of the positives on the Elwa River, but until you stop bottom trawlers and bycatch waste I don't see much changing.

 

[Rotnguns]

For reference, the four Snake River dams discussed for breaching, from upstream to downstream, are Lower Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monumental, and Ice Harbor. Fresh out of college, I worked for a summer as a geological engineer on all four of the dams in 1978. Ice Harbor, near Pasco, Washington, is the oldest – it went online in 1961. They all have head elevations of about 100 feet, and all have locks that enable barge and ship traffic up and down river. Their combined nameplate capacity (power capacity if they were all running at maximum flow) is about 3 Gigawatts. However, flow limitations, due to actual runoff and agreements with Canada, result in about 1 Gigawatt of actual “annualized” power in recent years.

 

[Rotnguns]

Problem is, the people who want the dams removed have:

A) No clue how much power they produce
B) How that power is going to be replaced
C) Are against nuclear power

So this is what we are up against. Stupid people.

Frustrating, for sure. In my experience, really, many of the proponents of dam removal are not stupid per se, they are simply ignorant of the technical aspects involved with energy conversion. Many of them don't know the difference between power and energy, not to mention, nameplate power, annualized power, and efficiency. Probably applies somewhat to those on the other side of the argument as well.

 

[Q child]

When there's enough of it to sustain us and all future growth until the sun engulfs the earth, it's for all practical purposes, unlimited. You can treat the resource as if it will never run out, because on this planet it won't.

I'm glad your such a practical person. Due to the history of catastrophic failure at nuclear power plants, people rightfully have practical concerns about safety. Regardless of whether or not their "greens."

 

[Wrench]

I'm just sitting here waiting for the crowd to target Grand coulee. Portland will be gone. Our bigger units of the 26 are only 850MW.....hardly worth holding back some fish.....oh, the irrigated land of central Washington can go back to the desert.

Sounds like progress.

 

[Q child]

Gotta love any hunting forum that inspires a discussion of the First Law of Thermodynamics! Reminds me of what my old professor said in my first thermo course: According to the first law, you can only break even. According to the second law, you can't even do that.

My thermo teacher put it pretty similarly.
As an EE student I had to take thermo, but it wasn't in the main track. Kind of like chemistry, I had to get it done, but it wasn't a prerequisite for any of my electrical classes. My class load necessitated that I took thermo during my senior year. But, thermo definitely should have been in the main track. The mechanicals had to take it junior year, and I think I would have benefited taking it a little earlier.

 

[z987k]

I'm glad your such a practical person. Due to the history of catastrophic failure at nuclear power plants, people rightfully have practical concerns about safety. Regardless of whether or not their "greens."

What catastrophic failure? Outside a completely irrelevant failure in Russia due to their type of government and nothing to do with nuclear energy, how many people have died due to nuclear power?
Nuclear reactors have the safest failure of any industry on the planet.
How many have died due to wind, solar, coal, natural gas and hydro? Because we have that data. Only Hydro electric is safer than nuclear per kW-h. And that's if we throw out Hydro's most spectacular failure, but I do because it had nothing to do with the generation of power and everything to do with the, surprise, totalitarian communist government where it was located.

 

[BuckSmasher]

There's a matter of scale here that should be noted. The combined annualized power from the Klamath River Dams was about 169 Megawatts, compared to about a Gigawatt for the Snake River dams considered for breaching. Also important to note that the Snake River dam's are not being proposed for complete removal; rather, they would be I understand it the proposal put forth by our congressional delegation has provisions to replace the power I think.

As I understand it the proposal put forth had provisions to account for extra power generation.

 

[Rotnguns]

My thermo teacher put it pretty similarly.
As an EE student I had to take thermo, but it wasn't in the main track. Kind of like chemistry, I had to get it done, but it wasn't a prerequisite for any of my electrical classes. My class load necessitated that I took thermo during my senior year. But, thermo definitely should have been in the main track. The mechanicals had to take it junior year, and I think I would have benefited taking it a little earlier.

As an ME, I had much the same experience with my circuits course. Took it as a requirement late, but I found it to be one of the most useful and interesting classes in the curriculum. Wonderful and practical applications of linear algebra and ordinary diff eqns.

 

[Wrench]

If you respond to what the media tells you, you'll be all for alternative energy. They told us natural gas was clean burning.....and now it's not. And hydro is bad. Coal, diesel....all bad.....BUT, they're still pushing us to go 100% electric even though we can't support it.


It's plainly obvious they want small scale nuclear plants on every piece of water around.

We should have noticed when the Clintons were buying uranium one.

 

[Rotnguns]

As I understand it the proposal put forth had provisions to account for extra power generation.

I haven't seen a practical proposal for replacing 1 Gigawatt of fixed annualized power, other than the use of nuclear plants, which most proponents of breaching don't like. The Murray-Inslee report mentioned several alternatives, each with their own advantages and drawbacks. The main problem is that many proponents of breaching use nameplate power to compare various sources like solar and wind to hydro and nuclear, and they are not equivalent, as the Murray-Inslee report points out in considerable detail.

 

[Softtail103]

Doesn’t California need more dams for more water storage? Putting a fish before a human is what that is. Same shit up in the northwest.

 

[LostWapiti]

Doesn’t California need more dams for more water storage? Putting a fish before a human is what that is. Same shit up in the northwest.

California is proposing something cool which involves creating a dam away from the river channel. Look up Sites Reservoir proposal. They want to pump water to the reservoir during high flows and then store it.

I’m not sure what all the drawbacks are but I’m sure there are reasons not to do it including a waste of energy and reduction of high flows which are also important for healthy rivers. I mentioned in an earlier comment that high flows is how salmon smolt make it to the ocean.

 

[Softtail103]

California is proposing something cool which involves creating a dam away from the river channel. Look up Sites Reservoir proposal. They want to pump water to the reservoir during high flows and then store it.

I’m not sure what all the drawbacks are but I’m sure there are reasons not to do it including a waste of energy and reduction of high flows which are also important for healthy rivers. I mentioned in an earlier comment that high flows is how salmon smolt make it to the

Our local tribes are trying this.

Hundreds of Chinook Salmon released into Spokane River

According to our partners at The Spokesman-Review, the Coeur d'Alene Tribe released 150 Chinook Salmon into the Spokane River for an ongoing reintroduction effort.

www.khq.com