Dams’ power not needed

Thu., June 13, 2019

According to BPA.gov, the lower Snake River dams produce 5% of the total hydroelectric power in the region. Furthermore, hydroelectric power comprises 59% of our total energy production. This means that removal of the Snake River dams would reduce our power production by 3%.

Part of this could be made up by reducing the curtailments on wind and solar that are now in place. When there are high river flows, wind and solar harvests are shut down so as not to overload the electrical grid. Curtailment is one of the reasons why not all the windmills are spinning on a reasonably windy day. More importantly, we export the equivalent of 21% of our hydroelectric power to Canada and other states (EIA.gov).

The need to replace the power produced by the dams is a bogus argument.

Jeffrey Joswig-Jones

Pullman

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