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We seem to forget that no technology is perfect and that there are always trade-offs.
Wind-generated electricity is wonderful, except there
are people who are annoyed by the presence of nearby wind
turbines, and beyond that, dead bats and birds have a way
of accumulating under the blades. Large-scale solar
generation is clean, renewable energy, but those
transmission lines can turn into a NIMBY issue along the
corridor. Compact fluorescent lamps save electricity but
contain toxic mercury. Cloth shopping bags cut down on
plastic litter, but may come from sweatshops in China. Name
just about any green
way, and you can find somebody
who has a problem with it.
The first time I had to think of this came about 25 years ago. I had written a story for a national magazine (Country Journal) about a rancher in Custer County, Colo. He had designed and built his own small hydro-electric plant on tiny Hennepin Creek, which flowed fast down the steep east side of the Sangre de Cristo mountains.
He did it because the local electric co-op wanted thousands of dollars to extend service to his remote ranch house. He figured he could do it better and cheaper on his own.
The rancher diverted most of the creek water for about 450 feet. It ran down some irrigation pipe parallel to the creek bed, and entered a small shed. There he had a pelton-wheel turbine and a generator. The water returned to the creek, and he had enough clean electricity to heat and light his house. It was also more reliable than the local co-op's power, whose lines were vulnerable to lightning and wire-downing windstorms.
His system sounded like a pretty good deal, but the magazine got a letter, which it forwarded to me, from someone who wondered why I hadn't addressed the fate of the fish on account of the diminished flows in a stretch of Hennepin Creek.
I checked with the rancher, and with the state wildlife department. Both said the creek was too steep to have ever supported any significant fish population.
So all was well enough on the fish front, but it does illustrate that even a tiny effort at a self-sufficient and sustainable electrical system comes with potential trade-offs. We have to make decisions, and it's safe to predict that not everyone will be pleased, no matter what we do.
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