Energy: The Lifeblood of the World

Our lives revolve around power. Power we rely on to charge cell phones, light rooms, and heat homes. Without power you wouldn’t be reading these words right now. (How sad would that be?) Electricity courses through conduits across the earth, the blood of our modern world. Where blood flows there must be a heart to pump it. And the hearts of our electric blood are power plants, making the earth a giant, multi-hearted beast.

Hearts vary across the planet. Small solar panels attached to a roof, struggling to produce enough power to supply a single home. Large dams spanning mighty rivers, feeding entire cities with a constant electrical rhythm. Wind turbines soaring into the sky. Their electric output a slave to the fickle wind. Coal hearts, burning harvested chunks of the planet and polluting the earth with each shovelful. Nuclear reactors, consuming uranium to give us power, but leaving us with radioactive leftovers that we struggle to safely dispose. These plants range from clean, renewable sources with minimal negative effects, to others burning a finite resource that poison the air, water, and ground both near and far.

Grand Coulee Dam. It produces over 7,000 MW at
peak operation.

We are lucky. Most of our power comes from a clean, renewable source. Hydroelectricity supplies most of Washington State with power. Roughly ¾ of all power generated in the state is from dams. Washington generates nearly 1/3 of all the hydroelectric power in the country. The next closest state is Oregon, and it produces less than half that amount.

I really like hydropower. I think it’s a good, long term source of power. Albeit one with a few flaws that people are working on solutions for.  I realize that not everyone feels the same way about hydropower and the dams that supply it. It blocks the natural flow of rivers and impedes the movement of fish. Silt piles up behind it and at times needs dredging. The river ecosystem both above and below a dam is forever altered. Raised water levels flooded towns. People were forced out of their homes and had to retreat to high ground. But I ask you this. Do you have a solution?

If we tore out the dams what would you suggest we replace their power generation with? Coal or natural gas plants that burn limited fossil fuels, and pump CO₂ into the air and contribute to global warming? Nuclear plants that don’t pollute the air, but leave us with barrels of radioactive waste that remains harmful for thousands of years? I’ve heard a lot of people complain about the negative impacts of dams, but I’ve not heard many sensible solutions. Dams remain the lesser of evils.

There are other clean, renewable energy sources available. Solar and wind power remain underutilized. Geothermal energy remains viable in areas with geology that allows its use. Tidal generation is available on certain ocean coasts.

Even though a wind farm covers large areas of land most of
it remains usable for agriculture or wildlife.

Wind power is renewable, clean, and relatively harmless. Some birds and bats die each year when they run into the large blades (it averages out to a few birds per turbine per year), but it’s just a modern day evolutionary selector. Its impact to the ground it sits on is minimal. A wind farm may cover several thousand acres of land, but after construction is complete, the impacted area is a small fraction of that amount. Another concern is aesthetics, not everyone likes to see an army of spinning blades in their panoramas of the landscape. The biggest issue with wind turbines is supply. The wind doesn’t always blow. Even when placed in an area of fairly constant wind there will be days with no wind. Wind power requires a backup if the wind is still. This often takes the form of another operating power plant capable of taking up the slack when necessary.

Part of the solar array at Nellis Solar Power Plant.

Solar power takes a variety of forms. From photovoltaic cells (which directly convert sunlight into electricity) to concentrated solar power (which focus the sunlight and use it to heat a substance and from there function similarly to other power plants).

Photovoltaic cells are the generic form of solar power. They’re the panels that can be seen on some roofs or as free standing structures. They can be a little expensive, but the costs have gone down from their original prices as well as the efficiency going up. The biggest downfall is when they work. The sun has to be out. Effectiveness decreases under cloud cover and they stop working completely at night. Surplus power must either be stored (in batteries) or an alternate power source must be used during times of low or no generation.

Concentrated solar power relies on heat, as does most generated power. A very basic explanation of how they work is as follows. A field of mirrors (picture one or more football fields) would reflect the sunlight either onto a single tower and heat a substance to a molten flowing state (several hundred degrees), or it would reflect on several different pipes running through the field. This molten substance then is piped through water heating it until it boils, produces steam, and builds pressure. (At this point it becomes like almost all other types of power generation.) This steam is then used to spin a turbine, which spins a generator and produces electricity. (Hydro power is similar except it uses liquid water to spin the turbine instead of steam.) This type of solar power has the benefit of being able to continue working after the sun goes down due to the stored heat in the substance.

A depiction of the different styles of
concentrated solar power.

Tidal power relies on tides flowing back and forth to produce hydroelectric power in ways similar to a dam across a river. Geothermal power uses heat from the earth at active geological sites to produce steam and generate power.

Size also remains a factor. Picture Rocky Reach Dam, it looks pretty big, right? Let’s say the dam and associated electrical equipment takes up ~100 acres. It also creates a reservoir behind it 43 miles long with a surface area of 98,000 acres, almost all of it usable for water activities, irrigation, and other uses. Rocky Reach has a max output of 1300 MW (1 MW is enough to power 225 to 300 homes). So 1300 MW would power anywhere from 292,500 homes up to 390,000 homes. Wenatchee has a population of ~32,000 people. If an average household is 4 people that means there are ~ 8,000 homes in Wenatchee. (Of course I’m leaving out apartments, businesses, etc.)

The Wild Horse Wind Farm outside Ellensburg covers ~10,000 acres and has a max output of 273 MW with 149 wind turbines, enough power for 61,425 to 81,900 homes. It would take nearly 5 wind farms of that size to produce the power of that one dam.

Nellis Solar Power Plant in Nevada produces 14 MW on 140 acres, roughly the size of Rocky Reach Dam. This output is enough to power 3,150 to 4,200 homes. There would need to be nearly 93 plants of similar size to produce the same power as that one dam. And it would need to cover an area of ~20 square miles. Picture the entire city of Wenatchee replaced with fields of solar panels.

A view from the back of Grand Coulee.

My point to all this is threefold. One, there are lots of options for producing power that aren’t as environmentally harmful as current methods. Several options are renewable, clean (more or less), and environmentally friendly (mostly). Second, almost all power generation is going to have people on both sides of the argument. People will be wholeheartedly in favor and vehemently opposed. Third, size is a factor. The fact is some of these options aren’t viable in all location because of the space necessary.