Ninety-thousand dams in the U.S., perhaps. It depends on whose count you use. But, one wonders, if there are 90,000 dams, how much electricity could be generated if we equipped as many of them dams as possible with turbine generators?
Then, one learns that electricity cannot be saved. So, your output at any one time can only equal what the public is using at that moment. You have to open the gates, and let the water thru without it hitting the turbines. Or, shut the gates, and don't let any water thru. We can see how that could be complicated if you had 10,000 dams to deal with. You'd have to coordinate which ones would be turned off and which ones wouldn't. Perhaps it wouldn't be as hard as one might imagine, though. Perhaps you would leave all the smaller ones running, to simplify, and just regulate the large ones.
The day is coming when dams will have batteries, allowing them to store the energy. They've already been developed, to a large degree. One wonders why we are not hearing more on the implementation of them. Are we pressing the point? Are we pressing our utilities to install the batteries?
Hydro power is an energy we should be stressing. We should be wary of the downsides, where it affects the eco-system. But, when the hydro plants are acceptable, we should have them. If we can add more, we should. If we can utilize the ones we have better, we should. If we can install power generators where they are not already at on existing dams, we should. Who knows how much power is out there, being untapped. Studies have been done, it is true, but we must wonder if they have neglected the full potential.
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