A wildly optimistic estimate of new hydro power potential released last spring by the US Department of Energy has been hung out to dry by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
Members of the four-state power council - it includes Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana - were amazed to read a report commissioned by the Energy Department. It found that un-dammed rivers in the Pacific Northwest could produce upwards of 25-thousand megawatts of new, clean, non-carbon-emitting energy. That's equal to nearly three-quarters of the existing hydropower capacity in the region.
An Oregon consulting firm, asked by astonished council members to double-check the report, came to a startlingly different conclusion.
The Northwest Hydroelectric Association study said the new hydropower capacity in the inland northwest is only about 200 megawatts in un=dammed streams and conduits - not 25,000. Another 400 megawatts could be squeezed out of existing dams, and perhaps 2,600 megawatts can be produced by three large pumped-storage reservoirs, one of which is already in operation.
Why the sharp difference? Northwest Power and Conservation Council engineers said the federal study failed to take into account environmentally sensitive areas. state and federal scenic water programs, or protected areas designated by the council.
In all, about 44,000 miles of northwest streams and rivers are protected from hydropower development.