Back when the Clinton Administration was in it’s infancy…[I know, that was the entire 8 years, up to the last-day vandalism of the White House computer "W" keyboard keys and stealing all the china they could], the then new Sec of Interior, Bruce Babbitt vowed that he wanted to be the first secretary to "tear down a dam." That mentality is moving here in California, the latest concerning the ongoing fight up here at the top of the state and south Oregon over the Klamath River and the allocation of its water. It came to a head in 2001 when Klamath Basin farmers found their tap shut off mid summer because of fish concerns.
The latest is a proposal that has been kicking around for some time of tearing out a series of dams for fish passage. Owned by PacifiCorp, they have been in place on the Klamath for over 50 years, generating electricity for, primarily, Californians use. At least 4 dams are in the target sights, They aren’t huge generators like Shasta Lake or Lake Oroville, they aren’t huge dams, but they are important in the overall grid picture when supply of electricity is one very hot day in LA from rolling blackouts, with new generators being built at slow pace, relying even more on natural gas. [This Klamath issue was written about in the LA Times yesterday and was one of the FR’s featured articles.]
Hydroelectricity, electricity that which is generated by water driven turbines, is the cleanest reliable renewable power you can produce. There are no emissions except for the complaints by environmental organizations. It’s renewability is kind of like Morton Salt: When it rains, it renews.
We get lots of rain up here. Yet California’s goofy laws allow hydroelectricity to only count towards the required "renewable electricity portfolio" if the size of the plant is 30 Mega watts or under. If over 30 MW, it isn’t renewable! I guess the rain that falls behind a 30+ MW facility isn’t as renewable as under 30 rain. Therefore, electricity providers must secure "other" power sources to meet this mandate, a mandate that requires 20% of their power to be renewable. The legislature, in its wisdom, worked to move the timetable for when that 20% must be met, up from 2017 to 2010. So you can count on your electricity costs to go up as we now must procure even more high cost solar or wind generated power…not to mention the lack of reliability of wind or that a day without sunshine is like…night
**There is more – click the link**