Pennsylvania Electric Rate Increase

I've sometimes wondered just what comes out of tailpipes these days. My car's exhaust has almost a vinegar smell. I sometimes miss the aroma of burning 30W oil and too rich carburetors.

A side-by-side pulled up behind me at a traffic light today. I was glad I was in front of him since he was producing a huge cloud of smoke. I didn't think they used two-strokes in them but it reminded me of the Saab 93 mosquito fogger I used to see around town.

Beck 1 500 Niagara Beck 2 1500 Niagara Pump Genny 175 Niagara

= 26 % of Ontario's total of 8130 MW hydroelectric capacity

Decew 167 < not Niagara but nearby Welland Canal >

Quebec's James Bay Project is a biggie :

I was just pointing out they don't have a Niagara Falls in Michigan. Hydro is pretty much built out. You would never get permits to build another Hoover Dam. Environmental impact statements would be ugly. We are taking out small hydro plants to restore fish migration. That's why I mentioned the Manatees at our (and also all coastal power plants). They are already making concessions to the manatee huggers and artificially heating the water to bunker oil levels on cold nights so the manatees will have a warm place to winter over. If the plant was removed, we would still be burning fossil fuels to heat the water for the manatee.

A single malfunctioning vehicle may pollute more than scores of cars. Police like with a radar detector type device could flag these vehicles and ticket them.

Many of our hydroelectric plants were built long before environmental assessments existed. Beck 1 1922 Beck 2 1954 Abitibi Canyon 1936 Kakabeka 1906 etc etc I would have thought that Michigan might have a few also.

I once worked at the still-operating 25 Hertz plant at the foot-of-The-Falls built in 1905 :

The environmentalists are actually forcing the removal of hundreds of older FDR era dams in the US to restore natural river flows. Between that and the Colorado river going dry the US hydro capacity is actually going to be decreasing. I don't think we built made a hydro dam since the Johnson administration and any increase in capacity is only from improving the turbines on existing dams. We seem to have a dispute between the two branches of environmentalism there. Are we going to stop carbon or save animals.

Old dams ? .. or functioning hydroelectric generating stations ? ... any cites for your statement ? seems hokey to me. John T.

It's fretwell, who believes that facts get in the way of his opinions.

Thanks for the link. In my area it seems like the old dams get assessed for removal when the cost of upkeep or reconstruction warrants it - then the years of study & meetings & consultants etc begin. John T.

This is the top hit on Duck after you get past the ads for dams at Amazon etc.

That is a bigger number than my article cited (350)

I am guessing a lot of that 1800 were not hydro power dams. At any rate that power is usually going to be made up for with natural gas. (we hope, not coal)

The fact still remains the environmental community seems split on whether carbon is a bigger issue than wildlife. As I said, we are using nat gas to heat water for manatees because that plant is more efficient than the bunker oil plant it replaced and now the manatees it attracts are dying of cold stress and starvation. (a record number of manatee I might add). That "natural" cause has eclipsed boat strikes, lock injuries and other man made causes of death in the last couple years. The manatee huggers are blaming lake O sugar farmers but they ignore the fact that a lot of these deaths are far from lake O discharge points and nobody will address what the grazing potential is in the areas near the power plants close enough for a leisurely swim without freezing to death. The manatee may have simply multiplied up to the limits of their food supply and Darwin is in charge. Now the debate is whether we should be feeding them. (a federal crime).

but I digress.

Thanks for the link, but this link sure doesn't support what you said ... quite the opposite.

"Several observations are immediately apparent from the data on hydro dams removed to date: The dams tend to be of moderate height (range 5m to 18m). Most of the dams had a small installed generating capacity (0.4 to

John T.

Ah yes, the government couldn't put out a dumpster fire without having a study, meetings and consultants evaluating the idea.

What didn't agree with what I said?

I have no trouble believing that old dams are being deconstructed but Fretwell implied that hydroelectric generation was being lost. ... quite miniscule amounts maybe. as the other links stated. John T.

Polluted silt was a factor in a dam near me also - even though it was just a weir - but it was about 120 years old on a river that flowed by the biggest textile factory in the British Empire during the war .. go figure. John T.

It is not the amount per dam, just the number of them. 0.5 MW here and