Spot-on!
A small local city just tapped into the Ohio River for power and is building the plant 60 miles away in Kentucky!
Meldahl Hydroelectric Project
http://www.hamilton-city.org/index.aspx?page=653
The City of Hamilton, Ohio, and its partner, American Municipal Power, Inc. (AMP), together hold a license issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to develop a new, renewable energy, hydroelectric generating facility, called the Meldahl Hydroelectric Project. The Meldahl Project is located on the Ohio River, approximately 40 miles east of Cincinnati, at Foster, Kentucky, near Augusta, Kentucky.
One common misconception that I encounter here at FR when speaking abut hydro electric is that it requires huge Hoover dam type projects and it couldn’t be further from the truth.
The Hoover dam is a very specific case of an area with scarce water and enormous amount of electricity to be used over a wide area.
Here in the east, much smaller dams can produce electricity to be fed into the grid and there are hundreds that are feasible electricity producers. Unlike wind, dams don’t stop producing power when there is too much water they simply keep going and dump the excess water. New generator tech makes the small dams very effective energy produces.
Here is a feasibility study for two dams in Ann Arbor Michigan. Both are expected to exceed capacity more than 25% of the time and both are expected to produce 2,000,000 kwh/yr and 3,350,000 kwh/yr respectively.