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346 comments on Energy Vision 2050 - part I
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346 comments on Energy Vision 2050 - part I
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Niagara Falls already generates 5 GW (Sir Adam Beck on Ontario side). Relatively little water is allowed over the falls at night and a maximum during daylight during "tourist season".
In addition, seasonal maximums exceed the capacity of the power plants. An upgrade to Sir Adam Beck (including a 14.5 m diameter tunnel) is designed to reduce frictional losses, and reduce the % of time that water is "spilled" unused (after subtracting tourist flows) from 2/3rds to 15% of the time (from memory).
Paperwork is the limitation on small hydro in the USA. An operating hydroplant of 3 MW cannot generate enough income to pay for renewing the license after a 50 year renewal (several examples).
Alan
Small scale hydro seems to be a greatly under-estimated resource - the power of the Mississippi river, to name just one example, is worth harnessing as well.
On your original point - not only are geothermal and hydro greatly under-estimated, but solar, wind and biogas are as well (with ocean power - particularly tidal and ocean current also likely to make a significant impact by 2050).
This article doesn't seem to have considered the potential of renewables thoroughly at all and largely ignores the cost and safety aspects that make large scale nuclear power a non-starter for solving our energy needs.
How anyone who is peak oil aware can baulk at the very theoretical safety concerns of nuclear escapes me.
Power down will kill billions, as proposals to use all renewables for the whole world are based on technologies which we do not have deployed at the needed scale, and rely on considerable breakthroughs.
Any contribution form renewables will be welcome, and it has good potential to provide peak solar power in hot climates, wind power where there is a good wind resource, and so on.
The difficulty arises when for ideological reasons it is generalised into an assumption that we can do lots of things that we have not presently got the engineering for.
There are plenty of wind turbines built where it is not windy, solar cells where it is not sunny, and so on.
That is all great fun if it is taxpayers money which is being spent.
However in the serious situation that we are now in, we need ot get on and build what we have the engineering for.
If that changes with future progress, well and good.
The main effect to date of the theorising about what might happen in future and largely imaginary difficulties with nuclear has been to provide support for the lethal coal industry, and increase greenhouse gas emissions.
I'm all for renewables being deployed as fast as is practical, and also for nuclear power.