Briefly:
Financially no-one wins (The Torrs (first UK Hydro scheme) has made a loss for 3, and possibly all 4 out of the four years it has been up and running.)
This despite being heavily subsidized by feed in tariffs, which cost us all dearly in increased bills. Daily mail article asked "Why does my granny have to pay an extra £40, and rising, for YOUR solar panels (and hydro!...JZS) ?
Schemes are unlikely ever to recover the carbon cost of the initial installation.manufacture.
They shred fish, if not fitted with well maintained fish filter screens. And some are not fitted/maintained, as several pictures of dead fish shoals already testify.
They will probably damage/kill all, or very nearly all, fish trying to ascend the river using the screw. There is no possible water path upwards through an Archimedes screw, so fish just crowd near the blades. You are bright enough to not try and get through a rotating fan blade. Fish are not. But they ARE attracted to the rush of water exiting the turbine during migration.
Water diverted into the screws is not available for fish migration. Water levels at weirs fall, thus making it harder for fish to ascend. Ecology near the weir is affected, especially the fish and bird populations that are dependent upon the weirs. (EG the dippers at Pear Mill)
Settle Hydro also seems to now have a fair body of evidence that noise from the turbine is scaring migrating salmon back downstream, and away from their spawning beds. Sea trout? Coarse fish?
So the worst case scenario is that on some rivers migratory fish could well become extinct, in order to supply 1/2 a kilowatt to each of a few tens of houses, if only when suitable river levels permit.
This is not people being green. It is people trying to make money from feed in tariffs at the expense of the environment. And there are idiots in government and in local councils who are allowing it to happen, because they do not understand the issues.
The installers, people like H2ope understand them very well. They know their schemes will never be TRULY profitable (ie profitable without tariffs)....but they also know that if they can persuade the local population, the community, to pay for the installation, then the company will not be risking anything at all of its own money. They cannot lose...unless the schemes are rejected.
Local councils like it because it gives the councillors something else to trumpet about. "Community Hydro, see how green we are in Stockport". Sounds better than "Look, we got you a new waste paper bin at that bus stop on Wellington Road North". Does it not?
__________________
__________________________________________________ ________________________
No trees were damaged by this e-mail, but a hell of a lot of electrons were severely disturbed by it.
|
Hydro waste
Linear Mode
