Chile is giving away solar energy, for free, because it has so much

[WetEV]

Put another way, hydroelectric dams likely provide a net BENEFIT to society in terms of human lives, even before the power is switched on.

Impact of hydro depends a lot on the site, and the design. A small dam on a river that can't reduce any flood worries and doesn't generate much electric power but does block fish runs might be a net cost.

Veazie Dam in Maine, for example.

 

[RegGuheert]

Put another way, hydroelectric dams likely provide a net BENEFIT to society in terms of human lives, even before the power is switched on.

Impact of hydro depends a lot on the site, and the design. A small dam on a river that can't reduce any flood worries and doesn't generate much electric power but does block fish runs might be a net cost.

Veazie Dam in Maine, for example.

Fair enough. Only some hydroelectric dams can offer the benefit which I mentioned.

 

[GRA]

Could be the case, although hard to quantify.

According to the videos at this link, 300,000 people lost their lives in the century prior to the construction of the Three Gorges Dam due to the floods that occurred. The Three Gorges Dam's PRIMARY function is to eliminate many of these floods and to reduce the impact of those that it cannot fully prevent. As such, it is possible that this single dam may have already saved more lives than all hydroelectric dam failures have ever claimed. And many of those other dams also save people's lives in a similar manner. Put another way, hydroelectric dams likely provide a net BENEFIT to society in terms of human lives, even before the power is switched on

ISTR it's functions were stated as electricity, improving barge traffic on the Yangzte, and flood control. Have a source for flood control being primary?

RE lives saved, that sort of assumes that every thing else has stayed the same in the interim, Reg, which isn't the case. You can, for instance, prohibit people from living in a flood plain, or limit the removal of ground cover to reduce runoff, and various other measures. And then there's the difference in incomes and lifestyles, lesser though they are in most parts of China over that period. If Three Gorges had been built in say the 1870s, then you might be able to conclude that it had saved more lives than a failure might take. The section on the wiki does mention a couple of floods in the area 1954 and 1998 that killed about 35,000 people, and which Three Gorges would have reduced or eliminated. OTOH, when the Banquiao and one other dam failed in 1975, 171,000 people died and 11 million lost their homes. Hopefullly the Chinese are more careful about studying hydrology now than they were then.

OTOH, dams don't necessarily prevent floods; sometimes they can cause them in other areas. From the wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Dam ):

Erosion and sedimentation[edit]
Two hazards are uniquely identified with the dam.[77] One is that sedimentation projections are not agreed upon, and the other is that the dam sits on a seismic fault. At current levels, 80% of the land in the area is experiencing erosion, depositing about 40 million tons of sediment into the Yangtze annually.[78] Because the flow is slower above the dam, much of this sediment will now settle there instead of flowing downstream, and there will be less sediment downstream.

The absence of silt downstream has three effects:

Some hydrologists expect downstream riverbanks to become more vulnerable to flooding.[79]
Shanghai, more than 1,600 km (990 mi) away, rests on a massive sedimentary plain. The "arriving silt—so long as it does arrive—strengthens the bed on which Shanghai is built... the less the tonnage of arriving sediment the more vulnerable is this biggest of Chinese cities to inundation..."[80]
Benthic sediment buildup causes biological damage and reduces aquatic biodiversity.[81]

Earthquakes and landslides[edit]
Erosion in the reservoir, induced by rising water, causes frequent major landslides that have led to noticeable disturbance in the reservoir surface, including two incidents in May 2009 when somewhere between 20,000 and 50,000 cubic metres (26,000 and 65,000 cu yd) of material plunged into the flooded Wuxia Gorge of the Wu River.[82] Also, in the first four months of 2010, there were 97 significant landslides.[83]

Of course, none of this is guaranteed to happen, and odds are the dam will live out its lifetime safely (although putting a dam on an earthquake fault strikes me as taking a huge risk, and is something with considerable resonance here in California; it was one of the reasons the Auburn Dam was never built: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auburn_Dam#Earthquake_and_redesigning

Similar arguments can be made for all sources of electricity and most forms of power, in regards to increases in lifespan/quality of life.

You seem to be misunderstanding what I wrote. I'm not talking about the benefits of the electricity here. I'm talking about DIRECTLY saving lives through the operation of the dam for flood control. In the case of the Three Gorges Dam, that is the primary function. No, there is no other electricity generator out there that that saves more lives than it takes even in the absense of generating electricity.

So called "environmentalism" that only looks at costs and not benefits gets things wrong more often than it gets them right. This is a perfect example and your link to the UCS article demonstrates that myoptic approach in spades.

Reg, you should see what they have to say about nukes, if you are accusing ME of being myopic and not considering benefits as well as costs. The southwest's population increase was dependent on the power and water from dams, albeit they overallocated the Colorado and other drainages and are now scrambling to find enough water.

 

[RegGuheert]

ISTR it's functions were stated as electricity, improving barge traffic on the Yangzte, and flood control. Have a source for flood control being primary?

Your memory is not correct. While you gave no support for your statement, I already gave my source on the previous page:

For Three Gorges Dam:

First Target of Three Gorges Project is Flood Control.

The project can effectively adjust the upstream flood of Yangtze River, which will assure a flood control standard of the Jingjiang section, a downstream reach to Three Gorges of Yangtze River, arise from currently preventing 10-year flood to controlling 100-year flood. Even in case of a rare occurrence of 1000-year flood, mass damages or injuries can still be prevented. At the same time, social problems such as environmental deterioration and epidemics related to the flood or flood diversion can also be avoided. Thus the project will protect 1.5 million hectare of farmland and towns, and 15 million of people from flood damage at Jianghan Plain and Dongting Lake area. And also the project will raise the reliability of flood control in the mid and lower reach of Yangtze River, relieve the sand silt of Dongting Lake and create favorable conditions for dredge of the lake, and prevention and cure of the schistosomiasis epidemics in the lake area.

In fact, that's what I see from all the hits I find. Here's a documentary including the following quote from one of the civil engineers on the project:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8cCsUBYSkw[/youtube]

The Three Gorges Dam produces more power than any other, but that's not the main reason it was built.

The Yantzee River is notorious for its really severe flooding. Over the last 2000 years, there have been about one major flood every 10 years. In 1931, there was a really bad one. It killed about 135,000 people, destroyed almost two million homes. And , so, this is the main reason why they built the Three Gorges Dam: is to control this terrible flooding problem.

 

[GRA]

ISTR it's functions were stated as electricity, improving barge traffic on the Yangzte, and flood control. Have a source for flood control being primary?

Your memory is not correct. While you gave no support for your statement, I already gave my source on the previous page:

For Three Gorges Dam:

First Target of Three Gorges Project is Flood Control.

The project can effectively adjust the upstream flood of Yangtze River, which will assure a flood control standard of the Jingjiang section, a downstream reach to Three Gorges of Yangtze River, arise from currently preventing 10-year flood to controlling 100-year flood. Even in case of a rare occurrence of 1000-year flood, mass damages or injuries can still be prevented. At the same time, social problems such as environmental deterioration and epidemics related to the flood or flood diversion can also be avoided. Thus the project will protect 1.5 million hectare of farmland and towns, and 15 million of people from flood damage at Jianghan Plain and Dongting Lake area. And also the project will raise the reliability of flood control in the mid and lower reach of Yangtze River, relieve the sand silt of Dongting Lake and create favorable conditions for dredge of the lake, and prevention and cure of the schistosomiasis epidemics in the lake area.

In fact, that's what I see from all the hits I find. Here's a documentary including the following quote from one of the civil engineers on the project:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8cCsUBYSkw[/youtube]

The Three Gorges Dam produces more power than any other, but that's not the main reason it was built.

The Yantzee River is notorious for its really severe flooding. Over the last 2000 years, there have been about one major flood every 10 years. In 1931, there was a really bad one. It killed about 135,000 people, destroyed almost two million homes. And , so, this is the main reason why they built the Three Gorges Dam: is to control this terrible flooding problem.

Thanks for the links. My memory was reinforced by a quick look at the wiki, but it didn't list any priorities between the three. Of course, there's the 1.3 million people which the Three Gorges didn't protect from flooding, as they lived upstream of it and their housing has been inundated by the reservoir, but when you're a totalitarian state you can get away with a lot, especially when they can decide how much (if any) compensation to pay. It's mildly interesting to imagine what the response would be in the U.S. if the government were to propose a dam that would require the forced relocation of 320,000 people (same % of the total population).

BTW, although it was for only a short period in the late '60s or early '70s IIRC, there was a time when the Sierra Club was also in favor of nukes instead of dams. before they decided they were against pretty much everything except variable intermittent renewables, and those only where it doesn't impact them.