this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023

95 points (98.0% liked)

News

23424 readers

4592 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

As work begins on the largest US dam removal project, tribes look to a future of growth (abcnews.go.com)

submitted 1 year ago by MicroWave to c/news

14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The largest dam removal project in United States history is underway along the California-Oregon border — a process that won't conclude until the end of next year with the help of heavy machinery and explosives.

all 15 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] MicroWave 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The demolition is part of a national movement to return the natural flow of the nation's rivers and restore habitat for fish and the ecosystems that sustain other wildlife. More than 2,000 dams have been removed in the U.S. as of February, with the bulk of those having come down within the last 25 years, according to the advocacy group American Rivers.

The removal of four hydroelectric dams along the Klamath River is the movement's greatest triumph and its greatest challenge. When demolition is completed by the end of next year, more than 400 miles (644 kilometers) of river will have opened for threatened species of fish and other wildlife. By comparison, the 65 dams removed in the U.S. last year combined to reconnect 430 miles (692 kilometers) of river.

This is great to see and hopefully will restore the lost salmon runs.

[–] LexiconDexicon 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah there's really no need for so many dams anymore, they were built to power hydroelectric stations that are no longer needed so this is a good thing.

“Why not just let nature take its course? Well, nature didn’t take its course when dams got put in. We can’t pretend this gigantic change in the landscape has not happened and we can’t just ignore the fact that invasive species are a big problem in the west and in California,” said Dave Meurer, director of community affairs for Resource Environmental Solutions, the company leading the restoration project. “Our goal is to give nature a head start.”

Which is another really good point, sadly there's a lot of invasive plant species that were unknowingly brought over by Europeans mostly for ornamental purposes which have had a devastating effects on native plant life

[–] Aqarius 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

How is hydro power no longer needed?

[–] MicroWave 15 points 1 year ago

I don't think @[email protected] said hydropower is no longer needed. They just said there's no need for so many dams anymore, and I think that's correct in this case.

A lot of these older and extremely underpowered dams were built in important riverways. They decimated salmon runs but produced only small amounts of power in return. For a recent example, Elwha Dam removal in Washington State comes to mind. It and another dam produced only 38% of the electricity needed to operate one sawmill, but it killed salmon habitats. You can read a little about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elwha_Dam

[–] BombOmOm 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

No clue why he would think that. Hydro power is the best source of carbon-free power. It's also the only reasonable way to do grid-scale storage we have. Unless we see a huge build-out in nuclear, hydro-power will be required for the next century.

[–] LexiconDexicon 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I have no clue either as you misread what I wrote. MicroWave is correct, that was my meaning.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's also the only reasonable way to do grid-scale storage we have.

That's not true. There's TONS of viable alternatives. ex:

[–] BombOmOm -2 points 1 year ago

https://youtu.be/_-cOgrBIAuc

Pumped storage hydro is exactly what I was talking about when I said hydro is the only reasonable way to do grid-scale storage we have.

https://balkangreenenergynews.com/iron-air-batteries-are-10-times-as-cheap-as-lithium-and-will-be-produced-from-2024/

Alternatives are being developed around the world, such as iron-air batteries

When your alternative is something that doesn't exist yet, you are reinforcing my point that hydro is the only viable grid-scale storage tech we have right now.

[–] deranger 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is a insane take. We absolutely need hydro power right now. It was the leading source of electricity before coal. More dams, please.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can do hydropower without dams. Dams are incredibly destructive to ecosystems.

[–] deranger 4 points 1 year ago

Do educate me.

It just seems like a huge waste of energy / resources to remove an existing dam than to remediate it somehow. I didn’t see any mention of if this generated power or how it’d be offset.

Not really an environmental win if this hydro power capacity was replaced by coal.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

The restoration of this former reservoir is going to be an epic task of conservation with very interesting results. I'm sure extensive measurement and tracking will make this not only a useful scientific experiment but hopefully a prototype for future dam removals.

It would be so cool to view it live in action over time

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I’ve been up there and spent time on two Rez’s and the Klamath river was so bad. The red algae and low levels were terrible for the salmon runs. The Yurok and Hoopa have relied on it forever and hate the dams.

Hydroelectric power was a dumb idea. Cool idea, but short sighted and reeked of manifest destiny.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

I'm not sure how demolishing renewable energy sources is going to help protect the environment during a climate crisis.

For my two cents, demolish the last fossil fuel power plants in a country, and we can then start taking a look at hydroelectric dams to tear down for environmental concerns.