[Scott] Up next on "Energy Switch," the state of hydropower in the U.S., Canada, and abroad.

- Hydropower has a little bit of an image problem regarding sustainability, regarding projects which have not necessarily been done very well in the past.

So we have to get the image out there that hydropower can be done sustainably.

We have the tools to do so.

- This isn't your grandfather's hydropower industry.

This is now an industry that takes environmental sustainability very seriously.

- Yeah.

- The existing fleet is aging.

- Right.

- Which means that half of the non-federal fleet are up for relicensing.

People always assume incorrectly that there's no room for growth, but they also assume that the existing fleet isn't gonna go away.

And I think both assumptions are wrong these days.

[Scott] Coming up on "Energy Switch," we'll talk about hydroelectric power.

[Narrator] Funding for "Energy Switch" was provided in part by, The University of Texas at Austin, leading research in energy and the environment for a better tomorrow.

What starts here changes the world.

[upbeat music] - I'm Scott Tinker, and I'm an energy scientist.

I work in the field, lead research, speak around the world, write articles, and make films about energy.

This show brings together leading experts on vital topics in energy and climate.

They may have different perspectives, but my goal is to learn, and illuminate, and bring diverging views together towards solutions.

Welcome to the "Energy Switch."

Hydropower, using the movement of water to turn a turbine and generate electricity, has been a staple in our electricity system for over 100 years.

In this episode, we'll talk about large, conventional reservoir dams, run-of-river power generation, and pumped hydro storage.

We'll look at the state of the hydropower fleet in the U.S. and Canada, as well as potential for growth here and internationally.

And we'll look at challenges that hydro faces.

My guests are: Malcolm Woolf.

He's the president and CEO of the U.S. National Hydropower Association, formerly senior vice president at Advanced Energy Economy, another industry association.

Debbie Gray is senior energy policy manager at the International Hydropower Association.

Before that, she spent 20 years at Hydro-Quebec as a manager and engineer.

On this episode of "Energy Switch," we'll hear all about hydropower.

Well, welcome.

Really glad you both are here with us.

Important topic and I would say one that's a little underrepresented maybe in the national and international dialogues even.

We always like to start with this thought for our viewers of why should people even care about hydropower?

Start with you, Debbie.

- Sure, it's a proven technology, which shows that it can provide both base load energy, and even more importantly, it can provide a lotta flexibility to the electricity grid.

- Got ya.

- That is ever-more important when we have more and more wind and solar coming onto grids, which are both great energy sources, but they're intermittent.

So you need something to back it up when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining.

- Got ya.

Anything to add to that, Malcolm?

- Well, I just reinforce it, you know?

If you care about streaming the internet at night, if you care about climate change, if you care about affordable 24/7 power, hydropower really is an essential part of a 24/7 zero-carbon grid.

- Got ya.

What different kinds of generations are there, and how do those work, in kind of in a big picture sense?

- There's traditional reservoir hydropower, like some of the pictures behind us.

There's also a lot of-- - Right, we've all seen those.

- We've all seen those.

Hoover Dam is kinda the classic model in the United States.

- Okay.

- But there's an awful lot of run-of-river hydro.

So there's no dam.

The, you know, the river runs unimpeded, but it generates power as it flows through the river.

- So it's capturing the motion of a river to turn a turbine?

- Exactly, exactly.

- Okay.

- There is a really critical technology called pump storage hydropower, which I hope we'll talk about later.

- Okay.

- Two different dams and you can create power just from releasing it from one to the other and just shift the water back and forth and create power when you need it.

- So the pumping is pumping it up the hill?

- Pumping it up the hill when the grid has too much power.

- Got it.

- And releasing it exactly when the grid needs it.

- Stuff to add to that, Debbie?

- No, I think, it's just probably important for your viewers to remember that to make electricity, most of the time, the exception is solar photovoltaic, you need to turn something.

So in our case, we're using water to turn the turbine.

- Right.

- And what better way to do that, with the water which is flowing naturally from up to down.

- Yeah.

- But you don't always need a big dam or a big height differential.

For example, in run-of-river hydropower, if you have a lot of volume, you can have a very efficient, a very effective hydropower plant.

Think the St. Lawrence River.

- Got ya.

- A number of power plants on the St. Lawrence River.

- Got ya.

How much do we have compared to other generation?

Give me a feel for scale of that in North America.

And then we may, if we can, go globally with that as well.

- So we have a lot of hydropower in Canada.

In terms of numbers, is 83 gigawatts.

[Scott] Okay.

- In the United States, actually, there's a little bit more.

There is just over 100 gigawatts.

However, the difference between Canada and the United States in terms of hydropower is, in Canada, it serves about 60% of our electricity needs.

So it is the number one producer of electricity in Canada.

Whereas in the United States, there is more hydro in terms of installed capacity, but it only provides about six percent of your electricity needs.

- We just consume a lot more.

Well, more people.

- Well, you have a lot more people in the United States, of course.

- Right.

- So maybe another way to frame the size of the industry.

- Right.

- In the United States, we say that the 100-gigawatt capacity of hydropower provides power to about 30 million American homes and businesses.

We mentioned earlier the 22-gigawatt capacity of pumped storage.

That's 96% of our long-duration storage in this country today.

- So we have, I didn't note that, 22 gigawatts of pumped hydro in the U.S. today?

- Pumped hydro in the U.S. - And do we do pumped hydro in Canada as well?

- Not very much - Not much.

- because we have a lot of conventional reservoir storage in Canada, so there hasn't been much of a need of pumped hydro.

However, pumped storage, I would say, is very present in China, in Japan, as well as a complement to their nuclear fleets.

- Okay.

- As well as in Europe.

And it's undergoing what I would say is a little bit of a renaissance, because of, as Malcolm was saying, because of the increasing amounts of solar and wind.

- Yeah, and pumped hydro is essentially a big battery.

- Exactly.

- It's a giant water battery.

That's exactly how we refer to it.

And the benefit is, not only does it create a lot of storage capacity that can run for eight, 10, plus hours.

The device itself can last, it's a forever asset.

It can last for 100 years or more if you maintain it.

- Right.

- As opposed to batteries, where you're gonna have to replace it.

- Yeah.

- Periodically.

- Yeah.

- And it's unfortunate people don't think about pumped storage hydro, because it's been around for just about 100 years as well.

In this country, it was mainly developed at huge scale, correct me if I'm wrong on this, in the 1970s and '80s as a complement to nuclear power.

- Oh.

- 'Cause you cannot turn on and off a nuclear power plant with the flick of a switch.

So at night, when you don't have a lotta load, people are asleep, factories might not be running, it's better to keep the nuclear power plant running, use that excess electricity to pump water uphill.

- Right.

- And then you can release it in the morning when everyone wakes up and puts their toast in the toaster.

Then it comes downhill and produces electricity.

- Interesting.

- So the flexibility so that it can respond to what the grid needs - Right.

- is this huge benefit.

Pumped storage is also having a moment here in the United States.

As I said, it's 96% of our utility scale generation.

- Yeah, it's incredible.

- But we haven't built any in over 20 years.

These are big upfront capital projects.

[Scott] Right.

- They last forever, but they are an upfront cost.

But something's changed in just the last few years, and I think it's growing recognition in grid operators that, if they wanna balance all of that variable wind and solar, they need that long-duration energy storage.

- Yep.

- So there are now 95 projects in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission pipeline for approval for new pumped storage.

- Really?

- Most of those won't actually get built.

- Right.

- But if we can even get, you know, a half dozen or so of these projects through the pipeline, - Right.

- it would be huge.

It's over 50 gigawatts of new pumped storage are being proposed - Proposed.

- in the United States.

And critically, most of those projects use existing infrastructure.

And it could be a game-changer.

[Scott] Why won't they get built?

- These are big upfront capital expenditure projects.

- Oh, so it's an economic?

- And it's economically, the short-term cost, they're expensive.

The long-term cost, particularly when you realize that they can last 50, 100 years and beyond, they're an amazing asset.

And we've been doing this, successfully proven it, for over 100 years.

There's more hydropower in pumped storage globally than all other forms of renewable electricity combined.

[Scott] Combined, okay.

- It's really interesting, actually, because it was called by the IEA the forgotten giant of the renewable sector.

And I really love that term because it's true.

It's a giant and it has been largely forgotten.

[Scott] Yeah, yeah, fascinating.

- Perhaps because it's been around for 100 years.

Perhaps it's not the new, exciting, the next thing, but it's a good old workhorse, which has been serving us very well for 100 years.

- Right.

Well, let's talk about some more of the benefits.

I mean, we've talked about no emissions.

We've talked about the fact that it can be pumped and serve as a battery.

- Hydropower, particularly with reservoirs, is creating a large body of water.

That large body of water can be used for many different uses.

For example, recreation, irrigation, flood control, drought mitigation.

Hydropower tends to be very low-cost, particularly the historic hydropower.

And that low cost has attracted industries, such as, for example, the aluminum refining industry, which uses electrolysis.

It's a very electricity- intensive industry.

It's no coincidence that there are a lot of aluminum refineries in Quebec, who have come to Quebec because of the low cost of electricity.

- Right.

- Another huge benefit of hydropower that we haven't yet touched on is that it provides essential grid services that are often overlooked.

One example of this, when the grid goes down, in order to restart the grid, it actually takes a little bit of electricity - Oh, interesting.

- to restart all of those coal and gas and nuclear plants.

- Right.

- Where does that first bit, they call it black start?

- Yeah, yeah.

- In the United States, hydropower is about 6 1/2% of overall generation, but 40% of our black start capability.

- Interesting.

I've heard often, "Hey, we built all the dams we can build.

In fact, we're tearing some down."

That's a pretty standard line.

- Yes, that is.

- Tell me about it.

- That is a standard line that is incorrect.

- Correct the misconception.

- Absolutely.

The Department of Energy did a study a few years ago, found that largely using the existing infrastructure, we can build about 50 gigawatts more of hydropower, largely using either dams that right now exist but don't have power generation or closed-loop or off-river pumped storage.

So pumped storage facilities where it does not require damming up an existing river.

- Okay.

How 'bout Canada and then maybe global?

Debbie, can do some fill there?

- Sure, there's tremendous greenfield potential in Canada.

- Greenfield being brand new build.

- Greenfield being brand new hydro.

- Okay.

- I'd say in the past 10 years or so in Canada, we've put on thousands of megawatts of new hydropower, mostly in new stream reaches, actually.

So Canada's a place which is still looking to hydropower to meet our electricity needs.

- Okay.

- And in other parts of the world, I can point to Africa, for example, only 10% of its hydropower potential has been tapped so far.

Only 10%, so that leaves 90% to be tapped.

And bear in mind that in Africa, in sub-Saharan African, almost half the people still do not have access to electricity.

So their number one priority is actually providing electricity to their citizens, as well as energy security.

- Sure.

Let's get into some of the challenges of hydro.

Let's start with what's there, the existing fleet.

All good, gonna last forever?

Are there challenges to that, U.S.?

- Yeah, for starters, the existing fleet is aging, which means that half of the non-federal fleet are up for relicensing in the next decade.

So we've got over about 450 facilities that licenses expire.

People always assume incorrectly that there's no room for growth, but they also assume that the existing fleet isn't gonna go away.

And I think both assumptions are wrong these days.

There's also the threat that these facilities will simply shut down because of the licensing process is just Byzantine.

And the reason is simple.

For a nuclear facility, we've got one agency in the United States that's responsible for it.

Water is a shared resource, so we have lots of agencies.

- Wow.

- And if there's not improvements to the licensing process, it's more than just half the non-federal fleet that's at risk, it really is the reliability of the grid.

If we don't have these facilities, how are we gonna firm up all of these gigawatts of wind and solar?

How are we gonna have storage more than what lithium-ion batteries can provide?

- Right.

- And inevitably, that's gonna hit our, not only our reliability, but our checkbooks.

It's a real threat.

- Yeah.

Debbie, you said you're still building resources in Canada.

Are there some at risk that are existing?

- Well, a lot of our fleet is aging as well.

And so they're undergoing a lot of refurbishment right now.

But we don't have the same relicensing process that you have down here in the United States.

- Right.

- So for us, the risk is not so much in the relicensing process, but it does need love and care and it does need some dollars to refurbish it and to make sure that it's going to last to its full lifespan.

And there's something I'd like to say, actually, about refurbishment.

Because this is actually an opportunity which might be missed in the United States, as well as in other parts of the world, with aging fleets.

When you refurbish a turbine and you take out a rudder which was built 50 years ago, you can put in a much more efficient rudder today.

So with the existing civil infrastructure, you can increase the output of your plant anywhere, I've seen studies in Brazil, up to 15 or even 20%.

- Wow.

- So it's not negligible.

So the same drop of water can produce that many more kilowatt-hours using the same civil infrastructure.

Nothing changes in the flow of the river.

Just by having the better, more modern technology.

- Got ya, interesting.

Let's hit some of the environmental issues.

I mean, you're obviously flooding a river and filling up a big lake or different sized lakes.

What are some of the challenges when you think about environmental components to this that you recognize and also other people don't like?

- Okay.

- Yeah.

- When you're building a hydropower plant, you're putting a physical infrastructure in a river.

And if you're building a power plant with a reservoir, then you're transforming a river into what is more analogous to a lake, for example.

So depending on the fish species that live in that river, you might be impeding their migration patterns, for example, or you're changing the flow of the river.

So you might be changing the flow at critical times in the year, for example, when fish spawn.

- Gotcha.

Gotcha.

- It's important to know for your U.S. viewers that we haven't been building those kind of facilities in the U.S. for 50, 60 years.

That era of dam building in the '50s and '60s is long gone.

- Okay.

- Typically, when we build those facilities, even back then, it was for other purposes, for flood control, for irrigation.

We do things very differently now.

The community outreach, the engagement, the role of different stakeholders, but also the technology.

- Okay.

- There's been some amazing innovations with fish-friendly turbines.

- Yeah.

- So that fish can actually swim right through the turbine and have a 99-plus percent survival rate.

- Right.

- So this isn't your grandfather's hydropower industry.

This is now an industry that takes environmental sustainability very seriously.

And the fact that the fleet needs to be modernized, that it is aging, and that the existing fleet is going through relicensing, creates an opportunity to retrofit some of the older facilities where we have the opportunity both to increase the power production, as well as increase the environmental sustainability.

- What about communities, you know, things that are displaced?

Do you get pushback that way?

- So again, since we're not building new in the United States, the issue is actually reversed.

It's that they built a lake.

Now, there's a community.

Now there's recreation.

It's brought in jobs.

People have come to those communities.

That's where they built their lakefront houses.

- Interesting.

- They needed it for other purposes.

- Yeah, interesting.

- So you may not need the power generation at that particular location, but you still need or want the reservoir.

- Yeah, interesting.

Internationally, however, they are building big new ones still.

Do you see that kinda thing internationally, where people are really concerned about the Indigenous communities and what was there?

Is that legitimate pushback?

- It's legitimate based on examples where things have not been done well in the past, I would say.

- Okay.

- But we've developed some how-to guides on how to do resettlement properly.

Sometimes it's inevitable, but the first thing you should do is, when you're looking at the project, is there a way that you can do the project so you're not obliging a community to move?

If there is no choice but to ask some villagers to move, then the resettlement program should be done sustainably and should be done in conjunction with the local people.

In other words, the best practice is not to show up and say, "Okay, next year we're gonna move you and here's a check for your troubles."

Yeah, no, obviously that's not the best way to do it.

But involve the community from the outset.

Get their input on where might they want to move to.

What are their livelihoods which might be affected by the move and how can you mitigate any problems that they might have?

- Sure.

- I think climate change as well has changed the equation.

Here in the United States, the National Hydropower Association is working closely with something called the Uncommon Dialogue to try to bring in other voices, other views, environmental groups, tribal nations, other communities - Right.

- so that we can do hydropower in a very different way.

And I think both or all of these communities recognize that, because of climate change, everything's changed.

- Let's talk about cost, building them, construction time, workforce.

What do we see there?

- Yeah, these are major infrastructure projects.

The upfront costs are significant.

The construction times can take five-plus years.

- Right.

- Even after you've done the licensing and the financing and everything else.

- Sure.

- But once you've got them built, in the United States, they're licensed for 50 years.

And I've visited facilities that are 100-plus years - Right.

- and still operating efficient and effectively.

- Right.

- So if you're comparing them and thinking about them as an energy asset, the ROI may be challenging if you're trying to compete with a 10-year solar project.

But if you think of it as an infrastructure project that's gonna be around for 50 or 100 years, providing benefits to the grid as the grid evolves, then it becomes a really compelling case.

- Yeah.

And then, a lotta cement and steel goes into these things.

Those are major industries.

And so I guess on the environmental side, there might be some impact of that kind of industry as well.

- Well, when you do a full lifecycle analysis, which includes the extraction of the raw materials, the transformation, the construction, and then the disposal at the end of lifetime and in that, hydropower compares very favorably to all of the renewables.

- Yeah, I would think that's true, yeah.

- The National Renewable Energy Lab did that comparison from a CO2 basis.

And it found that pumped storage was by far the least CO2-intensive of any of the storage technologies.

- Interesting.

[Malcolm] When you look at a lifecycle perspective.

- Because you don't have the, you know, it's a lotta concrete, but it's not rare earth minerals.

It's not some of the other challenges.

- Right.

- And it's locally produced concrete as well.

[Scott] Yeah.

- That's right.

Which does get to another challenge for the hydropower industry, which is workforce.

[Scott] Yeah, let's talk about that.

- To the extent that you are building new or retrofitting existing, these are major projects.

In the United States, they're mostly union projects.

And really, a wide array of jobs.

You know, you've got your more typical construction jobs, but then you've also got undersea welders, and it's a whole array of skills and trades that are really very cool.

- Yeah.

- And we see that internationally as well.

It affects the hydropower industry, but it affects other industries that there's a lack of people with the appropriate STEM skills.

So the science, technology, engineering, and math skills.

There is a lack of those people graduating from schools.

And if we're going to succeed in the energy transition, the hydropower industry is going to need them.

And the wind, the solar, all the renewable energy transitions are going to need them, so there's a lotta competition for these people.

So I think one of the challenges is to attract people to the hydropower sector.

- Interesting.

What about the challenge of drought?

Is it renewable when [laughing] the water levels are way down, like we had in Texas or we see out in California?

How do we deal with that?

- Climate change is water change.

It's real.

We're seeing it.

You know, you've got atmospheric floods in California one year and great resources in the Pacific Northwest.

So we do have a grid in the lower 48.

- Yeah.

- So overall, as a resource, there are wetter years or drier years.

- Sure.

- But it's a pretty steady, reliable resource.

- Yeah.

What haven't we talked about in terms of challenges?

What have we missed?

- In terms of challenges, I would say hydropower has a little bit of an image problem.

Hydropower is being part of the solution to climate change.

It's not the technology that people automatically turn to.

As well, we have a bit of an image problem regarding sustainability, regarding projects which have not necessarily been done very well in the past.

So we have to get that image out there that hydropower can be done sustainably.

We have the tools to do so.

[Scott] Yeah.

- I don't think most Americans recognize that we have hydropower generation in 49 of the 50 states.

Only Mississippi does not generate some power - Is that right?

- from hydropower.

So you know, you often think about it as the Pacific Northwest or New England.

as the largest, which is correct.

[Scott] Right.

- But it's actually a resource that is providing power in every state.

And I can't tell you how many communities I visited where they drive over the bridge every day and don't realize - Don't realize.

- that the water underneath that bridge is actually producing power.

[Debbie] Turning a turbine.

[Scott] Lifting the gate for 'em.

- Exactly.

- Well, given these things, where do we see it?

Where is it gonna head internationally?

We've talked a lot about U.S. potential and Canada, but thinking bigger, where do you see it going internationally?

- Well, if we're serious about meeting our climate goals, hydropower is going to have to double between now and 2050.

So we're going to have to build as much in the next 25 or so years as we've built in the past 100 years.

- Right.

[Debbie] So the challenge is enormous.

- And that includes base load.

- Yes.

- And also the pumped?

- And pumped storage.

- That's a combination of both?

- Yes, exactly.

- It's an amazing and daunting challenge.

How are we going to create the clean energy grid that everyone seems to want?

- And we've already talked, I think, quite a bit about where it could grow in North America.

Anything to add to that?

- The IEA estimates that about 75% of all future hydro growth will be in Africa and in Asia, actually.

- Okay.

You've mentioned subsidies a few times.

Should this qualify for that kind of thing?

And if so, why and how would that affect the potential for growth?

- Electricity's a public good.

It's always had subsidies.

[Scott laughing] It's always had, whether it's insurance supports for the nuclear industry, or R&D to help support fracking.

The hydropower industry has long been frustrated that we don't get parity with the other technologies.

Fortunately, in the Inflation Reduction Act, we actually do get treated like all other carbon-free resources for any new development.

There actually is legislation to do just that, to provide some support for the existing fleet, specifically for dam safety improvements and environmental improvements.

And we've gotten bipartisan support.

- Right.

- But not gotten over the finish line yet.

- Okay.

Well, now's the chance when you get to say some final thoughts.

What would it be?

Malcolm, we'll start with you.

- I would love it if your viewers walk away thinking of hydropower as that friendly neighbor who's reliable, available when you need them.

We complement wind and solar by providing that power when the sun doesn't shine and the wind isn't blowing.

And the industry is at risk, which makes the grid at risk if we don't provide parity and support for the existing fleet.

- Yeah.

Debbie?

- What I would want your viewers to remember is that, if we're serious about our climate change goals, we need more hydropower and we have to start now.

Because hydropower projects take a long time to build.

So we need to get going on that, and we need to have the policies in place in order to incentivize the building of more hydropower.

And the second thing I want viewers to remember is hydropower can be done sustainably.

We have a number of tools for it, and in fact, the International Hydropower Association members have all bought onto the pledge that going forward, the only new hydropower should be sustainable hydropower.

- Yeah.

Really appreciate the dialogues.

It's been enlightening, actually, for me.

A lot of things I've learned in conversation.

Scott Tinker, "Energy Switch."

Hydropower has been reliable and carbon-free for decades, but is now especially valued to back up intermittent wind and solar.

Some large dams were built decades ago.

Operating costs are low and the water is free, so their electricity is extremely cheap.

But many old plants need to be relicensed, a challenge in the U.S., since water is overseen by many agencies.

Though that's also an opportunity to upgrade to more efficient turbines.

Pumped hydro storage, like a giant battery, makes up the large majority of electricity storage on the grid.

Some studies show we could double hydro in the U.S., often using existing facilities, though it would be expensive and finding the capital is difficult.

Other challenges could include interfering with fish and wildlife habitat, reshaping topography, displacing communities, and long-lasting drought.

But we may need more hydro to increase grid reliability in the future.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [Narrator] Funding for "Energy Switch" was provided in part by The University of Texas at Austin, leading research in energy and the environment for a better tomorrow.

What starts here changes the world.