99 Year Old Hydroelectric Plant Coming Back Online
In our search for new clean technology, it’s important to pay attention to inventions of the past. A tiny hydroelectric plant in the Yorkshire Dales area of England is coming out of a 60 year retirement next summer to create renewable energy.
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The Linton Falls hydroelectric plant will work with the use of two Archimedean screws. Originally designed to carry water up as they rotate, the screws will generate renewable energy by spinning at high speeds when river water flows through them.
The plant will generate a reasonable 510,000 kWh of energy each year— not bad considering the structure has been sitting dormant for decades. Eventually, the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority wants to use up to 50 sites for similar schemes.
While hydroelectric dams may not be appropriate everywhere, the Linton Falls plant proves that we should pay attention to the tools we already have before building new ones.
Photo Credit: The UK Daily Mail
Hydroelectric power is an ecological disaster. It ruins enormous parts of the terrain by flooding them. Al plants and trees die, and all animals are forced to leave (and usually end up dying because they have nowhere to go). People are forced to leave too. These valleys with beautiful scenerios get destroyed for a few kilowatts. Sediments determine that the hydroelectric plants usually cannot operate for more than 60 years (but the terrain remains destroyed nonetheless). In some cases sediments contaminate the water and it ends up being useless for both drinking and watering. All things considered, hydroelectricity is not an option.
nna : I think you are missing the point. This doesn’t require flooding a valley, it just sits in a river.
It’s more like a water wheel than a dam.
Yeah, this picture of the plant looks awful. Disastrous. I think I can see those sheep in the background crying.
OMG hyrdroelectric power is gonna kill the world!
Seriously though could you be anymore melodramatic?! Linton Falls hydroelectric plant will operate using a free running river, there is no dam in this scenario, therefore no backlog of water and no flooding. I agree that where hydroelectric plants require massive flooding (such as Three Gorges Dam) this is not a viable application of the technology. IMO it’s best used when the natural flow of the river is able to generate sufficient amounts of power on it’s own. This way we can harness the power of gravity without having too much of impact on habitats etc. I don’t think it should be ruled out completely as you suggest.
This is within the Yorkshire Dales which is a National Park. There are strict laws about what you can do there.
To the right in the picture you can see a natural weir. So they’re only harnessing nature, not re-engineering the landscape.
I agree that hydro electric has a bad history, mostly driven by World Bank loans. But the scale of this is much smaller and IMO more appropriate.
Do not forget the very bad influence of methane gases. All of the dead plants & trees will rot and generate huge amounts of methane gasses. And methane is much more worse for the environment than C02.
Wow, clean energy! I love it.
Jiff
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nna, Yes in some case hydroelectricity can do more harm than good, but in this case it is a small scale project that is simply reinstalling the electricity generation capacity to an old dam with what will be minimal disruption to wildlife and no homes to relocate, (esspecially true knowing the UK planning system…)
If you want to have a look at the location, then here it is on google maps:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?geocode=FZ74OAMdRH7h_w&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=6.881357,14.941406&ll=54.067158,-2.002687&spn=0.000935,0.002071&t=h&z=19
Put another way, this will not be a 3 Gorges dam!
I’d beg to differ. If sediment’s can contaminate a river to the point it’s useless for both drinking and watering.. well, northern Canada would be pretty much left without drinking water. Believe it or not, we manage to survive just fine.
Also, I believe this plant + dam is already in place, and this is simply a matter of using something that is ALREADY THERE. Would you prefer we burn some more coal?
to nna:
But this one is already built, they are simply turning it on.