Dams and other hydro projects have large environmental footprints.

It hits home to me here in California, especially with this new zero carbon initiative.

Existing hydro capacity built on natural water channels is bad enough. I'd hate to see more.

I celebrate dam removal projects.

"We had to destroy the natural environment in order to save it," arguments don't fly with me.

That's what the "better than coal" argument is.

Most anything is better than coal, including some things that are still quite horrible.

Riparian ecosystems are rare and fragile, covering only a small fraction of earth's surface.

These are the last places we ought to be disrupting in our quest for zero carbon energy.

The effectiveness of fish ladders is highly overrated.

If we choose to live in a zero carbon high energy industrial consumer economy I think the only intellectually honest way to achieve that is nuclear power.

If we choose to live in a lower energy zero carbon economy we don't need new dams.

The only hydroelectric projects I can support are off-channel energy storage schemes in which the few remaining natural riparian environments are left alone. Water already diverted for agricultural and urban use is pumped uphill when there's a surplus of electricity, flows downhill to generate electricity when there's a deficit, the same water cycling back and forth.

California's large water distribution system has been extensively optimized to pump water uphill when electricity is inexpensive, and release it downhill for agricultural and urban uses, generating electricity along the way when electricity is expensive. The system has further potential to store solar energy from photovoltaic inputs without further damage to our few remaining natural riparian ecosystems.

I do not understand the enthusiasm self-described environmentalists have for wind or hydroelectricity schemes that are clearly detrimental to natural bird, bat, and fish populations.