this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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Hydropower is one of the most widely available and effective sources of non-fossil fuelled electricity generation. If we're going to have a chance to stop climate change we need to use it to its fullest..
It's super destructive to the ecology of waterways though.
Climate change is also super destructive to the ecology of waterways - and also to everything else, so I'm gonna say sacrificing a few fish for the good of the rest of the fish is probably a good idea.
Same issue as nuclear though, building a dam takes years, time we don't really have.
Sure, the best time to start building more hydro/nuclear was 10 years ago, but I'll bet that we will still be using fossil fuels in 10-15 years at this rate, so the second best time to start building is today.
We need to be building all kinds of clean energy production everywhere all at once - we can't afford not to.
Sure, we are terribly behind schedule and will take losses for it (in what form I do not know, but for sure it won't be pretty).
But we need more and more energy and will need more, and even that growth in that graphic is not enough to prevent fossil fuel use from growing. At least until people wisen up that we'll just need to learn to make do with less energy per capita... I'm not convinced that part will ever happen.
Not to mention I'm not sure how much wind and solar you can do at the same time in the world. At some point everyone will need the same materials...