Lecture 27 Summary and Notes

We began our lecture today with some excerpts from Marc Reisners Cadillac Desert. I hope that this gave you some appreciation of:

a. the vast effect of dams on the American landscape (particularly in the American West)
b. the importance of US hydroelectric power generation not only in our modern energy portfolio but also in the development American and even world history
c. some of the working conditions that were endured during the construction of some of the major public works project that still provide us with some of our energy needs decades later

Some questions for the day...

1. What is the great American dam? What is the largest American dam? What external forces helped to allow for the construction of the Hoover Dam in only three years? What external forces allowed the projected surplus power generation from the Grand Coulee Dam to be consumed decades before predicted? When did dam construction in the USA peak? What was going on at the Hanford Reservation that required so much power? What is the one thing that humans can do to a river that nature cannot undo? What river is "like a forty-pound wolverine that can drive a bear off its dinner"?

2. Do hydroelectric dams function as base load or peaker plants? What are the relative capital and operating costs of a hydroelectric facility vs. a coal or natural gas plant? Is there room for expansion for hydroelectric facilities in the USA? What about the world? What is the average life of a North American dam (according to the American Society of Civil Engineers)? How does this "lifespan" bode for existing US hydroelectric infrastructure? How are dams responsible for the flux of anthropogenic greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere?

3. How does the EROEI of a dam (or any power plant, for that matter) change as a function of time?

4. What is river-basin "accounting"? Who "pays the bills" in river-basin "accounting"? What use(s) get(s) subsidized in river-basin "accounting"? Why is river-basin "accounting" important in the construction of large hydroelectric projects like those in the American West?

5. What is a pump storage plant (PSP)? How does a PSP work? How is a PSP different from a "normal" hydroelectric dam?

Slides shown in lecture today are on Sakai. Excerpts from Cadillac Desert are also on Sakai (Cadillac Desert.pdf). Your reading assignment for Wednesday is the first three sections of How the African Diamond Trade Works by Alia Hoyt