Run of the River power

I have been doing some research on some energy issues and doing some comparisons of different energy sources and their relative costs financially, socially and environmentally. In doing this work and developing the report I was going to put in some of the environmental issues with run of river power projects. Guess what, I can not find any measurable data showing any environmental impact from run of the river in BC.

There are people that say run of the river is a problem for wildlife. I looked for any research that shows that wildlife is negatively impacted by run of the river in BC. I could find nothing. No data or research within any of the submissions to the Environmental Assessment process indicated any measurable impact to wildlife

Many people are talking about impact on fish, once again I can not find any data indicating any measurable impact on fish. In fact the majority of the projects I looked at were on sections of water courses that do not have fish within them and are above the fish habitat area. There is no good data I could find that there has been any temperature or water flow changes due to the projects.

Increased human activity is claimed to be detrimental, but I can not see the evidence that the added people from run of the river is measurable above the existing impact of forestry, mineral exploration and tourism.

All the projects approved in the EAO process have mitigation strategies for presumed impacts on the environment. They also have long term data gathering going on. It seems to me that the power companies will be required to improve the environment to something better than before the power project was built.

When I blogged about wind power, I was sent a lot of data on people claiming environmental impacts from the windmills. I may not agree with some of what they are saying, but at least there is data to discuss. When it comes to run of the river I can not find any data indicating a problem. All the data I can find indicates there is no measurable impact.

All I am finding are suppositions of potential problems or wild hyperbole with no backing. I can find nothing to indicate that the operating projects have caused any measurable harm to the environment. I have seen one thing in relation to Miller Creek that there was a problem with water flows in 2007 due to human error. Though it was caught before there was an impact.

These power projects are almost all in areas that are within or close to the timber harvesting land base in BC. The footprint of the power projects is several orders of magnitude smaller than the timber harvesting that is going on in the same areas. As an example, the total footprint of all the new land to be disturbed by the Bute Inlet project of Plutonic Power will be smaller than an average clear cut. This for a project that will produce the scale of power of something like the large hydro electric projects. Williston Resevoir, created by the WAC Bennett dam, has an area of 175 000 hectares. That is an area roughly equal to all the timber harvesting in one year in BC.

To put it in other terms, to use the same footprint as the WAC Bennett dam, there would have to be several thousand Bute Inlet type projects built.

I am happy to read anything out there that indicates there is something measurable going on, though I would love to know where it is hiding.

Compact Fluorescent Lights

Many people have jumped on the band wagon to get rid of their incandescent light bulbs and replace them with Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs - CFLs. As time goes by I am realizing there are more and more problems with CFLs and they many not be a great improvement.

I was an early adopter of compact fluorescent lights, the costs at the time I started buying them was high that there was no cost savings on the electrical usage. When I started buying them they were about $8 to $12 a bulb. I bought them to use less power, but I also bought them to reduce the heat in my home. I lived in Lillooet at the time and the reduction of heat from the bulbs made a significant difference in keeping my house cool for five to six months of the year. Having the CFLs meant about 600 watts less of heat going into the house each hour.

I have not been impressed with the length of time CFLs last - in certain parts of this house they last less than a year and in the bathroom fixtures less than six months. I am concerned about the best to dispose of the bulbs, especially when they break. The cost savings are still not really worth it. Electricity is so cheap in BC that you have to save a lot of power to pay for the higher costs. Power is so cheap in BC that is cheaper for me to use oil filled electric space heaters than an oil furnace.

If my concerns were not enough, local Victoria electrician Walter McGinnis has strong issues with the electromagnetic fields of CFLs. Here is a video of an interview with him on Jack Etkin's show face to face

Best small scale hydro projects in the world

There is a poll at International Water Power and Dam Construction Magazine for the best small hydro project for 2009.

This is the top 10 shortlist:

• McNair Creek Hydroelectric Project, British Columbia, Canada
• Rutherford Creek Hydroelectric Project, British Columbia, Canada
• Khudi Power Project, Nepal
• Ludvika Hydro Power Station, Sweden
• Bethlehem Hydro Project, South Africa
• McLeod Green Energy Project, Ontario, Canada
• Canedo Hydro Plant, Portugal
• Hastings project, Minnesota, US
• Town Mill Hydroelectric Installation, Dorset, UK
• Wainikasou Project, Viti Levu, Fiji

Another carbon sequestration solution, maybe.....

I was reading Clean Break by Tyler Hamilton, energy reporter for the Toronto Star, and he latest post is about "biochar", a process by which you turn carbon containing material into a charcoal like material.

I find this another interesting way to capture CO2 and store. The higher the demand is for solutions, the more interesting ideas are going to come out of the woodwork. Some of these ideas will become economic and be able to take green house gasses out of the atmosphere fast enough and large enough quantities to make a difference.

When there is a problem and there is some way for people to make a gain out of it, the forces of innovation work very, very quickly. Once someone figures out how to make money getting GHGs out of the atmosphere, there will be a flood of people trying to do the same. Very quickly the costs will come down and come down dramatically.

If we see the sort of advances we have seen in things circuits on a chip, or the cost to sequence DNA, or various other new technologies, we are likely to see some very inexpensive solutions for capture and storage of CO2 within ten years.

I look around at how well innovation works when there is a market demand for the service or product, I have no strong worries about the future. Frankly I see us reaching a steady state for GHG emissions within five to ten years and I see us being able to reduce the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere by 2025. The bigger problem between 2025 and 2050 is going to be complaints from the cold nations that things are going too quickly with respect to stopping the greenhouse effect.

The people calling out for us to use fewer resources, to consume less, to not have the first world lifestyle we are used to are going to be in for a surprise when the clear solution for global warming will be through capture and storage. The goal of the people seeking for us to use less is often their core political belief and global warming has become their tool to attack the status quo.

The future is going to have us having more cars, bigger houses and more toys. It is this global desire that will make it very attactive for people to figure out how to capture the carbon so that we do not have to give up the good life we are used to.

Thursday June 18: Dr William Calvin - Solutions to Climate Change

Thursday June 18: Dr William Calvin - Solutions to Climate Change

7pm

UVic, Bob Wright Centre, Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Building

VICTORIA, B.C. - We all know about the problem of global warming, but what can we do about it? On Thursday, June 18th Sierra Club BC brings Dr William Calvin to the University of Victoria to deliver a lecture about solutions to climate change over the next 20 years.

Dr Calvin is a respected neuro-physiologist at the University of Washington School of Medicine affiliated with the Program on Climate Change. He is widely known for his work linking abrupt climate change with human evolution. In his 2008 book, Global Fever: How to Treat Climate Change Dr Calvin delivers both a clear-eyed diagnosis and a strongly worded prescription.

Tickets are $15 or $5 for students from Sierra Club BC by calling 250-386-5255 Ex 237.

Lecture begins at 7 pm at the Bob Wright Centre, Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Building, University of Victoria.

Since 1969 Sierra Club BC has played a leading role in environmental stewardship in British Columbia. BC's spectacular wilderness and wildlife make our province a global ecological treasure. Sierra Club BC is passionately committed to safeguarding BC's wild places.

For more information, please contact:

Moira Campbell, Sierra Club BC: (250) 386-5255 Ex 237

More will come in the next weeks

but for the moment here is a link to good, postive and forward thinking op-ed by Tseporah Berman in the Vancouver Sun.

Instead of having a lot of investment money tied up in the car industry a lot of that can and will go into green electrical power. The free market will support green projects when they show they can be profitable.

Some more the scale of the problem

The estimates are that in the next 20 years we will need to generate a lot more electrical power for all of our electrical gadgets, this according to the International Energy Agency. They are talking about another 1 000 000 Gigawatt hours of electricity per year by 2030. IF the gadgets can be made to require less electrical power, the need would fall to about 750 000 GwH.

We need to add about 40 000 GwH or green power a year globally just to keep pace with the demand for electronic gadgets. If we are not adding that much, we are falling behind. If only add that much we are not cutting into the existing coal fired power base.

Tyler Hamilton has a good article on this in the Toronto Star.

Globally governments have to remove the barriers to the development of a lot more private green power. Government has been the biggest block to increasing green power since the 1960s. We need to work towards a carbon tax on coal, this alone will push the vast majority of green power ideas from marginal into profitable.

I would like to see the money from carbon taxes used to remore green house gases from the atmosphere. I would like to see the tax go high enough that companies find it cheaper to be carbon neutral than pay the tax.

But back to the point, demand for electrical power is still rising and is no danger of falling anytime soon. We have to plan on the standard of living of China and India rising dramatically over the next generation and with that electrical energy use. To pretend that it is not going to happen is to stick one's head in the sand and ignore reality.

By 2030 I expect China and India to have 2 000 000 000 iPhone (or much better) moblie phones in use. I expect that there will be 500 000 000 computers, gaming systems and other electronic equipment to be in use. I also expect there to be a lot more air conditioners in use, one per household by 2030.

There is a huge demand for electrical power coming. Every watt of green power will be one more carbon free watt produced and we need huge amounts to come online very quickly.