Opinion - Hail, hydro

The ongoing nuclear disaster in Japan has sparked new conversations about how to meet future energy needs here in America.

A new blanket of fear cloaks nuclear plants. Since the Three Mile Island disaster, this country has turned away from nuclear generating plants. Then, as anxiety over nuclear plants was easing, the Fukushima plants went into meltdown.

Wind power, solar power and natural gas will not be enough to provide energy for the country. Alone or in combination, they fall short of demand.

Coal, of course, is environmentally suspect and requires expensive transport from mine to generator.

That leaves us with hydropower. So many Americans have been inculcated with an antipathy for hydropower that little positive is said about it. In fact bashing hydropower seems to earn one the badge of environmental purity.

Nevertheless, hydropower is a vital part of any energy strategy.

Dams in the Snake and Columbia rivers system power most of the Pacific Northwest, with enough excess electrical power to sell to other areas.

Hydropower is clean. It is renewable. It provides other advantages such as recreation and farm-to-market access.

The environmental concerns regarding fish species can be solved. An enlightened, objective and non-politicized approach could solve the problem for a mere fraction of the money that rolling blackouts, runaway nuclear reactors and blackened skies ultimately cost.

If America is ever to have an intelligent energy strategy, tried and true hydropower must be included as a linchpin of that policy.

And, now is the time to convince the doubters.

Gordon Forgey

Publisher