Articles

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Hydro Industry Seeks to Weaken Standards

By Peter Bosshard, Policy Director, International Rivers, March, 13, 2009 - Just like developers and contractors, affected people need enforceable rights in dam projects. The public interest in cost effectiveness and environmental protection must be safeguarded by clear standards. Yet the dam industry is currently trying to roll back rights and standards that have been established over the past 20 years. more...
Article Viewed 2699 Times | 1 Comments

Cambodia: Chinese hydro concessions generate controversy

By Grainne Ryder, Policy Director, Probe International, January, 30, 2009 - In a desperate bid to attract investment in Cambodia's failing power sector, the government is offering guaranteed power revenues to Chinese companies willing to finance and build large hydro dams, and sell their entire output to the financially-strapped state utility, Electricite du Cambodge (EdC). First in line for the new guarantee was Sinohydro, the company that helped build China's Three Gorges dam and is now building dams across Africa, backed by China's state development banks. The Cambodian government approved its guarantee earlier this year, insuring payment to Sinohydro for electricity produced over its 44-year concession to build and operate the 193-MW Kamchay dam. more...
Article Viewed 3001 Times | 8 Comments

Canadian Energy in a Changing Climate

By Harry Valentine, Commentator/Energy Researcher, , April, 09, 2008 - The Northeastern United States receives a large percentage of its electrical power from Canadian hydroelectric power dams. California imported electric power from the hydroelectric power dams of British Columbia during a power shortage. Canada is also America’s largest foreign supplier of oil that can only be extracted from frozen tar sands after steam is pumped into the ground to liquefy that oil for it to flow into pipes. A climate that can ensure an adequate supply of water plays a critical role in Canadian energy. However, Canada’s historical climatic record reveals several periods of drought. more...
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The Case for Expanding Pumped Hydroelectric Storage

By Harry Valentine, Commentator/Energy Researcher, , March, 21, 2008 - Advances that are occurring in energy conversion technologies and in the marine shipping industry could strengthen the case for high capacity pumped hydraulic energy storage at Niagara Falls. At the present time the United States leads the world in the number of pumped hydroelectric installations of over 1,000 megawatts, followed closely by Japan. America’s largest such installation at Bath County, Virginia transfers water over a vertical height of 1,262 feet and is rated at 2,100 megawatts. The Ludington installation on Lake Huron in Mason County, Michigan, uses a vertical height of 363 feet and is rated at 1,872 megawatts. more...
Article Viewed 4185 Times | 9 Comments

Micro-hydroelectric Power from Fog Fences

By Harry Valentine, Commentator/Energy Researcher, , September, 25, 2006 - Fog fences have been used for decades to collect the water droplets from dew and fog after which the moisture is sent to storage systems via piping systems. These fences are typically located at higher elevations near coastal regions where moisture is carried in by winds that blow over a cold ocean current during the early morning hours. The circulation of air from sea to land results from a landmass warming at a faster rate after sunrise than seawater in an adjacent ocean. The result is that moisture laden cool air will slowly blow across the cooler sea to the land after sunrise each day. more...
Article Viewed 5628 Times | 4 Comments

Should You Invest More in Your Hydro Assets?

By Ramon Mischkot, Principal Consultant, Transactive Management, July, 13, 2006 - In conducting depreciable life studies of almost every type of fossil-fired and renewable power generating technology over the past nine years, I have found hydroelectric generation to offer the best combination of economic and environmental advantages. Yet this energy alternative has failed to attract the investment necessary to expand existing systems or to develop new ones and US hydro capacity has actually declined by over 10 percent over the past twenty years. The reason? The perceived cost and risk of addressing the wide range of environmental and other issues that interveners can introduce under a 1986 amendment to the Federal Power Act have proved a barrier to new investment. more...
Article Viewed 5920 Times | 4 Comments

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Finding the True Cost of China's West-East Hydro: SERC should step in

By Grainne Ryder, Policy Director, Probe International, May, 24, 2006 - Just outside Kunming, the capital of southwest China's Yunnan province, a giant billboard advertises Hydrolancang on a blue-sky background. You wouldn't know it from the billboard, but Hydrolancang is the company building two of the world's tallest and most controversial hydro dams on the Lancang River just a few hundred kilometres to the south. more...
Article Viewed 8063 Times | 5 Comments

Water and Power in North America

By Harry Valentine, Commentator/Energy Researcher, , February, 24, 2006 - Water and power have been synonymous with each other since the early days of the industrial revolution. The energy of water drove waterwheels that provided the power used by mills and by factories. When the steam age dawned, water was boiled to drive steam engines that powered the economy. At the present day, water and power are still synonymous with each other in modern hydroelectric dams and in coal-fired and in nuclear power stations. more...
Article Viewed 7814 Times | 3 Comments

Los Angeles toughens renewables plan, even at cost of higher electricity rates

By Gary Clouser, , , October, 26, 2004 - The Los Angeles City Council has ordered its municipal utility, Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (LADWP), to toughen its renewable fuels goal, even at the anticipation that it will result in higher electricity rates. The City Council has told LADWP it may not count power generated from the Hoover Dam toward its renewable goals. Hoover Dam-generated power accounts for about 2.5% of LADWP's power. Exclusion of power from that source toward the renewables objective is expected to cost the average residential ratepayer about $0.60 more per month, raising the anticipated cost for the renewable program to $3.20 per month from the earlier projection of $2.60 by 2017. more...
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Why Hydropower Should be Included in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Initiatives

By Linda Church Ciocci, Executive Director, National Hydropower Association, August, 19, 2004 - As the many power, environmental and societal benefits of the hydropower resource are being debated in both national and international forums, the National Hydropower Association (NHA) offers twelve reasons why hydropower should be included in national and international renewable and sustainable energy initiatives. In fact, excluding hydropower would only shortchange both the national and global communities. more...
Article Viewed 2806 Times | 11 Comments

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