Earth Equity News

Retrofitting Dams for Power. By Kate Galbraith, NYTimes, August 19, 2009. "Environmental opposition often means that new hydropower facilities are non-starters. But there may be a way around that: retrofitting existing dams. Only 3 percent of the 80,000 dams in the United States are used to generate power, according to Norm Bishop, a vice president at MWH, a water engineering firm. They were built for other purposes, like flood control, recreation, irrigation or water storage. To expand the nation's hydropower capacity, 'We should be looking at the dams in the 97% range that have no existing power facilities,' Mr. Bishop said. One such effort is happening along the Ohio River. American Municipal Power, a large power supplier based in Ohio that is working with MWH, broke ground earlier this month on the first of five planned hydropower retrofit projects on the river. The total cost will come to around $1.9 billion, according to Marc Gerken, AMP's chief executive, and the projects should be completed between 2013 and 2015. Total power production will be 350 megawatts, enough to supply 350,000 homes."