HYDROPOWER CONCEPTS

The last speaker of the session was Professor Mann, an Electrical Engineer who sagaciously presented some of the developmental possibilities of the Salmon River Basin. His presentation started with the thought that if it weren't for the Salmon run, there would be no need to worry about opportunity costs except above Freedom Pool, a proposed damsite on the lower Salmon River. The fishery has been the deterrent that has kept the lower Salmon River from being developed along with the Snake River. The power market will give dollars for development, and the Salmon River contains about 30% of Idaho's total hydroelectric resource. (It also supports approximately 30% of the Columbia River's anadramous fish run.) If you put a large dam anywhere in the system, revenues from power and lake recreation as opposed to river recreation would begin to appear. Congress has been led to look for favor upon these things because benefits could be shown, current dollars, for such things as flood control, irrigation, recreation, and so forth. He also pointed out that the first estimates for recreation on these projects was pretty low. Since then, recreation benefits have proven to be substantial.

He explained that the total difference between developing some hydropower in the lower Salmon or developing the same power in thermal plants somewhere else is not too great in the first economic grouping. However, after the dam is paid off, the additional costs of producing power by thermal means is very high. This is because you only have a relatively small maintenance cost on the dam, whereas the thermal generating costs remain the

same.

Other problems are inherent with thermal systems. If you use nuclear power there is bound to be an impact on the water temperatures downstream. This is undesirable, but the addition of a cooling tower costs 5% of the total plant cost. This tower will deplete someone's water resources by 20 to 30 thousand acre feet per year, for each million kilowatts, and this limits the number of places you can put the plant. If you put the plant in southeast Idaho that would mean five thousand acres of potential irrigation foregone per million kilowatts. Now, if you build the plant on the lower Columbia,

this amount of water is no problem, but the high humdity in the area will cause the cooling tower to give off a fog plume causing problems with local communities. The next concept is to move back into the interior, and then there is objection to transmission lines. Put the lines underground and costs get prohibitive. In residential areas this is done, but the increment cost per family is pretty low. In a high voltage area the incremental cost per mile would probably build a six-room elementary school, so this is not merely an added cost, it is a multiplied one.

The power industry is beginning to feel very frustrated, because there is a responsibility to supply energy for air conditioning, lighting, industry, etc., and yet all at once there is not only a reaction against hydropower, but also against all the alternatives!

As a point of interest, an alternative usually not mentioned is that of pumped storage. This would utilize small natural areas for special purpose plants, say for peaking power. Up in some ridge or small valley you could have a small reservoir, and use small generation plants for special uses. Seasonal plants of this nature might be a possibility, and an example of this would be in the Warren Creek area. There is a possibility of a large seasonal plant there, with space to store about 10% of the annual flow of the Salmon River, the majority of which could be taken off during surplus flows. This involves some intrusion on the river, but a minimum. The contribution would be 800,000 to 1,000,000 acre feet of fall and winter water to the lower Salmon, Snake and Columbia for temperature regulation, power generation, etc.

In the future the energy systems will probably be thermal, and there are just a few places that hydropower could be developed anyhow. These hydro sites could be utilized anytime in the future when there is either desperate demand for water regulation, or energy. In the meantime, the differences in cost are going to depend on where and how some of the alternatives get accepted, and how expensive they will be.

To compare hydropower with thermal, go to the dam, find out what it's benefits are, cost of construction, operation, and amortization for a reasonable length of time. Then the costs, net benefits, and differences in annual cost of the most economical alternate thermal plant are compared. Some of the side effects to consider when making these comparisons are: with hydropower at the end of the computation period you have the existing

dam, power plant, and reservoir, whereas with a thermal system it is likely that the plant will be worn out and obsolete. There is some salvage value in thermal plants that is seldom considered and should be considered in the future. Other considerations would be that with a thermal plant you use fuel over the computation period, either coal or uranium, and your total supply is ultimately that amount smaller. When looking at the total resource picture, with a hydroplant you would still have in the ground the equivalent coal or uranium, plus the use of the water because it is a flow

resource.

Professor Mann also predicts that we will have to increase the efficiency of the breeder reactors for thermal production, or soon this type of energy will have to be rationed just as the Salmon River is being rationed today!

When it was pointed out that an irreplaceable resource would be drowned out by a dam, Professor Mann said that he was merely a devil's advocate, and then argued that although flatwater may not be as attractive as flowing water, it is surely worth a portion of that value, maybe only a tenth, but it still has a value. He also questioned the premise that a reservoir averaging 300 feet in depth could drown out a 5,000 feet deep canyon.

Mr. Giffen said that if surplus flows could be diverted from the Salmon during the high water and still be in keeping with the objective of a free flowing and scenic environment, you might enhance the use of the river. He urged that we keep in mind that development may not be only for other uses, but might serve to enhance the environment we wish to preserve. Although conservationists have been at odds with the power companies for years, don't preclude the possibility that there are some good men in these companies who will listen, and satisfactory compromises quite likely can result.

Professor Mann next mentioned the efficiencies of the resource system. Coal is more efficient, at 40%, while nuclear energy is still dumping 70% of its energy into the environment. Whether air or water is the environment makes little difference except in plant cost. It has to go somewhere. Plant efficiency then, is one of the areas that needs work but is technically very difficult. The power companies are also changing their thinking about their areas. The old idea of operating a private power lake no longer holds.