By the Rivers of ....;. Quebec? The cheap, green answer to our electricity needs.

Weekly Standard ^ | Dec 3, 2012, Vol. 18, No. 12 | ELI LEHRER

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Jake Irving looks excited. Sitting at a table in a noisy Washington, D.C., bistro, he pulls a chart out of a briefcase with a flourish. The numbers are simple: Canada’s untapped, undammed rivers have enough potential to make a serious difference in North America’s energy needs while helping the economy on both sides of the border. 

Generating plant at Niagara Falls, Ontario: More of this, eh?

NEWSCOM

According to data his Canadian Hydropower Association has collected from its members, Canada has an estimated 163,000 megawatts of untapped hydro capacity: enough to meet any expected increases in U.S. demand for electricity, enough to transform about a third of the U.S. vehicle fleet to electrical power or to replace many scheduled-for-retirement power-generating plants. “This,” he tells visitors, “is where we’re going.” Irving has every reason to act the cheerleader, but hardly anybody doubts his fundamental point: Hydropower offers the potential of an energy boom almost as large as the one now associated with natural gas. 

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I saw that some days ago.

[wita]

You must be kidding. We have torn out three in Washington and are planning more while they are going after several in Oregon and California, also.

Actually no I wasn’t kidding, nor was I aware that things had progressed so far already.

[backwoods-engineer]

Will not be done. Greenies hate dams, and want to destroy them all. Greenies hate electricity, except for them.

[cripplecreek]

Yeah, I think I'll take his unfounded wild-eyed leftwing speculations over the word of health officials. Right.

What makes him left wing?

The fact is that many if not most of these old impoundments have industrial toxins in the sediment from years gone by. I live downstream from an old Ford plating plant and there's mercury in the sediments of this lake. Its fine as long as its undisturbed.

[Baynative]

When the destruction of the Elwha River dam in western Washington began the liberals celebrated more than when we won WWII. It was almost a revenge atmosphere for them, as if they were getting even with the rest of the population for taking an opposite view from theirs.

I remember thinking; "It would really be something if they care as much for unborn children as they do fish."

During the debate on removal the state department of ecology decided that generating energy from the power of a natural river was neither clean nor renewable!

Elwha Dam Removal

U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., left, shares a laugh with Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, right, as they walk across the Elwha Dam following a ceremony to mark the beginning of the removal of the Elwha Dam and the restoration of the Elwha River, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2011, near Port Angeles, Wash. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks,....I like tight harmony.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Good narrative....makes sense.