Nuclear V Hydroelectric Power

 

Where Fear-Based Thinking Has Taken Us – The irrational destruction of millions of hectares of the most important habitat in Canada.

One issue that brings resolution to the challenge of fear of carbon driving decision-making is how governments promote reservoir Hydroelectric power generation as “green”. The mere fact that it produces electricity with a low carbon footprint gives it a get-out-of-jail-free card on massive environmental damage. Williston Lake, Lake Koocanusa, Arrow Lakes Reservoir, Kinbasket Reservoir, Revelstoke Lake, Nechako Reservoir, Seton Lake, and Carpenter Lake collectively have flooded 295,000 hectares – land that was key wintering habitat, rivers that were once salmon rivers, vast areas with other potential in industrial pursuits.  Had we chosen Nuclear Power instead, the same amount of power generation would have had about a 2000-hectare footprint and a fraction of the environmental damage.

This is in no way a bid to reclaim this land, nor really to condemn the choice to build Dams, this is a call to stop letting fear rule the roost and start letting reason and science drive decision-making.  It was fear rather than reason that drove the damming of rivers, building thousands of miles of right of way for transmission lines and the resulting depletion of habitat and reduction in other income opportunities. This folly rages on, British Columbia built the Site C dam and Quebec is planning more hydro development. Hydroelectric power, while short of being carbon neutral, is a low carbon source of energy – it is devastating to the environment generally, people flock to it out of the fear of carbon and the fear of a possible accident from the safest form of energy we have.

 Let’s take a look at Williston Lake and the WAC Benett Dam.

Williston Lake and WAC Benett Dam have a reported capacity of 15 GW. As a result of the dam, we lost 129 thousand hectares of wildlife habitat, and river bottoms typically are critical wintering habitat. The reservoir emits 252 KG per MWh the dam is responsible for approximately 2 million tonnes total per year. The approximate dollar value of the timber destroyed by flooding and the timber value that the reservoir precludes from producing is roughly $8 Billion. All other industrial values precluded, such as tourism, mining etc. are outside the writer’s capacity to quantify, they are sure to be substantive. All the acreage lost to transmission lines and the way transmission lines mar the landscape are an additional price we pay. 

Nuclear and Hydro have nearly the same safety profile.

It is clearly indicated by the data that Nuclear is as safe as Hydroelectric and is much less damaging to the environment. So how have we ended up ruining thousands of hectares of land for no good reason? I submit that the answer is irrational fear.

We should be rational in the choices we make, Nuclear is safe, and effective and we are leaders in the technology – we should use more of it. We should be exporting LNG and displacing coal use in Asia and Europe. We should stop letting social engineering hijack the critical task of protecting the environment.

 

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