President Donald Trump signed bills Monday extending the amount of time before construction must start on five hydroelectric dams across five states.
The bills cover dams located in Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. Each piece of legislation gives the Federal Energy Regulation Commission (FERC) the authority to extend the deadline for construction to begin up to six years and reinstate each project’s construction license if it expires.
Hydropower is considered clean energy and does not produce any carbon emissions. Environmentalists often oppose such projects because of the dams’ effects on river ecosystems.
The Hydropower Reform Coalition, an association of 150 different groups, wants significant reforms on hydropower to limit the impact on rivers.
Hydropower is a significant source of renewable energy in the U.S. While only 13 percent of the energy in the U.S. in 2015 was produced through renewable sources, 46 percent of that was produced through hydroelectric dams, according to the Institute for Energy Research.
U.S. hydroelectric facilities are some of the oldest energy generators in the country. The average age of a dam in the U.S. is around 64 years old. The 50 oldest generators in the U.S. are hydroelectric dams built before 1908, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Hydropower accounts for roughly 6 to 7 percent of all electricity generated in the U.S. every year, the EIA reports.
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Red tape has become excessive even in cases where environmentalists do not make it worse. It is reasonable to give the builder of the dams more time.
The article correctly states that hydro electric power is green energy, as if it matters because CO2 emissions are not a problem. However, under California law such power is not green energy. That is because influential environmental groups don’t like hydro electric power.
There may be a reason for this. The driving force behind the climate change movement is to make drastic changes in our society and economy by forcing reduced use of fossil fuels and creating energy poverty. The more hydro electric power we have, the less effective the forced reduction of fossil fuel use can be.