{"id":6953,"date":"2016-06-17T14:46:38","date_gmt":"2016-06-17T13:46:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=6953"},"modified":"2016-06-17T14:46:38","modified_gmt":"2016-06-17T13:46:38","slug":"one-thing-learnt-week-dams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=6953","title":{"rendered":"One thing we have learnt this week-dams"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Usina_Hidel\u00e9trica_do_Passo_Real.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-6960 size-medium\" title=\"By L\u00e9o Passat (CEEE-GT) [GFDL (http:\/\/www.gnu.org\/copyleft\/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/) or FAL], via Wikimedia Commons\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Usina_Hidel\u00e9trica_do_Passo_Real-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Usina_Hidel\u00e9trica_do_Passo_Real\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Usina_Hidel\u00e9trica_do_Passo_Real-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Usina_Hidel\u00e9trica_do_Passo_Real-1024x683.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Hydroelectric dams.\u00a0 They are a good thing right in fighting peak oil and climate change?\u00a0 Well it depends.\u00a0 This week there is a fuss over the building of a series of massive hydroelectric dams in Brazil with up to 26GWp capacity.\u00a0 An astounding figure.\u00a0 Greenpeace are opposing this and other vast hydro schemes in the Congo.<\/p>\n<p>There are two problems with such dams.\u00a0 The first is the one we all hear about which is loss of habitat and damage to indigenous tribes.\u00a0 There seems never to be enough compensation to people displaced in this way by dams and you read of corruption from India to China.<\/p>\n<p>The second problem is one you don&#8217;t so often hear about.\u00a0 That is anaerobic digestion and the release of methane from the reservoirs.\u00a0 This makes hydroelectric schemes (at least in the tropics) net greenhouse gas emitters.\u00a0 The sludge at the bottom of the reservoirs contains organic compounds, bacteria and little oxygen.\u00a0 Aerobic bacteria require oxygen for respiration but anaerobic bugs don&#8217;t and will grow quite happily without.\u00a0 Instead of producing CO<sub>2<\/sub> they produce methane a much more potent greenhouse gas.\u00a0 In temperate regions of the world the lower water temperatures mean that either the bacteria don&#8217;t at all or only very partially so that the schemes are carbon negative overall.<\/p>\n<p>Two questions arise.\u00a0 Is there any way to stop this in the tropics?\u00a0 The answer is almost certainly no.\u00a0 The only exceptions to this might be schemes that do not use reservoirs (which do less of first type of damage) and high altitude schemes where the water is cold.\u00a0 The second is with rising global temperatures how long before some hydro schemes in temperate regions become a problem?\u00a0 One final point is that sediment does still exist at the bottom of reservoirs in temperate regions.\u00a0 These need dredging if they are not to get silted up.\u00a0 In most dams in this country this is made of peat.\u00a0 Its now being sold as an environmentally friendly alternative to peat from peat bogs.<\/p>\n<p>Neil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hydroelectric dams.\u00a0 They are a good thing right in fighting peak oil and climate change?\u00a0 Well it depends.\u00a0 This week there is a fuss over the building of a series of massive hydroelectric dams in Brazil with up to 26GWp &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=6953\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[269,195,196,61],"class_list":["post-6953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-one-thing-we-have-learnt-this-week","tag-climate-change","tag-dams","tag-hydropower","tag-renewable-energy"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.8 - 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