Quote:
Originally Posted by Lanny_MacDonald
The infrastructire costs of hydro are probably massive in comparison for petroleum generation, but one is 100% clean and the other is a contributor to our problem. Cost-benefit...
|
First off, I want to say I do agree with the meat and potatoes of your post- just wanted to point a couple of things out.
As you say the biggest expense with Hydro is the building of the plant; which can take many years. One of the stumbling blocks is the environmental impact (maybe ecosystem impact is a better term) of turning plains into a lake. I know when I lived in Winnipeg we were always hearing about the "impact" that it was going to have on the ecosystem.
For example; how many of us would mind seeing Elbow Falls turned into a hydro electric plant. Obviously the Elbow rivier is too small to generate a significant amount of power, but the question remains of how the NIMBY crowd would feel about a Hydro project going on the Bow or the South Saskatchewan river.
To answer my own question, I think that we have to look at the lesser evil regarding the envirnment; and realize that using gravity to generate power has to be better than buring fossil fuels. And hopefully this is the type of message we need to give to envirnmentalists.
And this coming from a guy who is still in the "not entirely sure of the human impact on Global Warming."
