Should All Dams Be Removed?

Dams were first put into rivers around the world as one of the earliest sources of clean energy. And while dams have done a lot of good, they have been found to drastically alter river ecosystems with dire consequences. In this episode of Impact of Everything, we not only explore how dams affect rivers and what solutions are available, but we’ll also take a look at one of the largest dam removal projects in the world and how its river is recovering.

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Today, hydroelectric energy creates about 16% of the world’s electricity and over 70% of the world’s renewable energy. Which is great, much better than burning coal. But, as more and more dams were built to do good in the world, more and more people started to take notice of their negative impact on the environment.

To understand how rivers make electricity and dams negatively affect the environment, we have to talk about the flow of rivers. It’s all about the volume of the water and its speed. That combination changes over the seasons and it's that change that nature has grown and coevolved with. When a hydroelectric dam goes in though, it disrupts that flow and creates a reservoir in order to control the flow of water, releasing it to spin turbines to create electricity at the times people need it most.

When you disrupt the flow of a river, there are so many negative consequences to the surrounding ecosystem that it's hard to fit them all into one video. Trees rely on the flow to redistribute seeds. Lessening the flow increases water temperature, which is terrible to the health of the plants and animals . Water being held back by dams can also become toxic or lose oxygen, both of which are not good when that water is eventually released . Dams also stop the flow of sediment downriver, which is, again, a huge problem.

#seeker #science #dams #cleanenergy, #conservation #ecosystems #impactofeverything #hydropower

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Read More:

How Dams Damage Rivers
“While dams can benefit society, they also cause considerable harm to rivers. Dams have depleted fisheries, degraded river ecosystems, and altered recreational opportunities on nearly all of our nation’s rivers. Today, many dams that were once at the epicenter of a community’s livelihood are now old, unsafe or no longer serving their intended purposes.”
https://www.americanrivers.org/threats-solutions/restoring-damaged-rivers/how-dams-damage-rivers/

Lessons From the World’s Largest Dam-Removal Project at the Elwha River
“For just over four years now, the Elwha River has run free. Today the river drains, uninterrupted, from a snowfield in the mountains of Washington’s Olympic National Park to the Strait of Juan de Fuca in the Pacific Ocean. But for about a century before, this course of 45 miles was blocked by two dams, the 105-foot-tall Elwha Dam and 210-foot-tall Glines Canyon Dam. https://www.adventure-journal.com/2020/09/lessons-from-the-worlds-largest-dam-removal-project-at-the-elwha-river/

Dam Removal - Olympic National Park
“The first step in removing the Elwha dam was to lower the reservoir's water level by approximately 15 feet using the existing water intakes and spillway. This process began on June 1, 2011 following the closure of the powerhouse.”
https://www.nps.gov/olym/learn/nature/dam-removal.htm

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Young people today are facing the realities of the climate crisis, mounting pollution, endless waste, and a society that is holding onto inefficient ways of producing energy. To that end, it’s easy to feel hopeless, but this is a generation who not only want solutions, they’re willing to build them. Impact of Everything is a series that is taking a look at the maverick engineers, scientists, tinkerers, and innovators who are helping to solve the world’s biggest environmental problems through technology.
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