The United States can generate an additional 70,000 megawatts of electricity by upgrading existing hydro facilities according to U.S. energy secretary Steven Chu.
The juice would come from newer, more efficient turbines and other technologies that would goose more energy without having to undertake megaprojects and risk additional environmental damage.
This further dims the prospects for the Lower Churchill as the Americans are looking at a wide range of ways to meet future energy needs.
It also reinforces the idea that megaprojects like the Lower Churchill just aren’t considered to be green anymore.
The Americans are developing real energy plans. That is they are developing ways of meeting their energy needs in environmentally friendly ways and by encouraging ingenuity.
By contrast what is called an energy plan locally is nothing more than justifying a bunch of decisions already made to produce a megaproject called the Lower Churchill and create ways of stymieing any development that isn’t controlled by a large, ponderous government monopoly.
h/t RenewNewEngland.
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