Region-Specific Energy Policy Helped Hydro. It’s Needed Again.
In 1937, FDR knew he needed farmers’ votes. So when it came time for Congress to fund the Rural Electrification Act, he didn’t take chances. He invited the key players to negotiate and sat them down until a deal was had. Agriculture and electrification boomed, and FDR was re-elected. Hydro became critical to the Western U.S. as a whole and the Pacific Northwest (PNW) in particular.
Dams and hydropower spawned an agricultural boom and industries like aluminum smelting (Benner, 2022). In an example of how natural resources are often both a blessing and a curse, they also created environmental injustices like salmon loss. Yet energy path dependence means that hydro’s continued use and optimization is critical for reaching regional 2040 clean energy goals (NPCC, 2021).
The Pacific Northwest’s elected officials understand hydro’s importance. Yesterday’s smelters have largely been replaced by other big energy users, notably server farms, but the draw is the same; hydropower is a bedrock of the regional economy. So officials have worked to ensure that national energy policy, which focused on fossil fuels for decades, doesn’t overlook or conflict with hydro-specific needs. However, the power of regional representation has waned at an inconvenient time (Schultz, 2022). Climate change is altering seasonal river flows. That’s shifting and limiting how much hydropower and pumped-storage hydro are available at different times of the year. Current national energy policy isn’t equipped to deal with the change.
Based on evidence such as the documented effects of conflicts over energy and energy injustices, projected river flows, and the physics limiting solar and wind efficiency, I argue that hydropower is a critical resource whose proper management requires resuming region-specific policy during the push toward 100% renewables.
In one sense, Pacific Northwesterners are fortunate to have access to a large source of energy close at hand whose operating impact is largely GHG emissions-free. The need for high-output power sources has driven conflict over oil (especially) since Churchill converted the British Navy from coal—committing his island nation to a Persian supply line ad infinitum (Yergin, 2009). The effects of extractive colonialism overall are well-documented.
At the same time, energy poverty’s ill effects on health are equally established. Energy and access to electricity are associated with longer, higherquality of life. Energy injustice and environmental injustice frequently intersect as well, with salmon population devastation but one example. In Los Angeles, oil derricks were purposefully located away from predominantly white neighborhoods. When fuel comes from one location and is used in another, the risk increases of harming some people while delivering the benefits elsewhere.
Hydro’s outsized importance to the PNW means that electric utilities have long paid attention to weather and climate forecasts. Month-to-month and seasonal variations have to be accounted for, lest load imbalances overwhelm the system. This investment in meteorology and climatology has given the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and other power providers ample warning of changes to come.
Although solar + storage is helping grow distributed generation, we’ll be using the hub and spoke model of centralized generation for a while yet. The system as-is has created path dependence on hydro in particular. The implication for the modern energy system is that we’ll need to get the most possible out of hydro for several decades. That will require adapting to those monthly and seasonal river flow and water availability changes.
Physics itself argues for optimizing existing power generating sources through policy. Adam Schultz, who covers energy markets for the Oregon Department of Energy, has noted the jaw-dropping renewables requirements for the western U.S. to meet its 2040 clean energy goals: 350 GW of new renewables, compared with 250 GW in current nameplate capacity. Part of the reason for the mammoth buildout is that, compared with (e.g) coal, whose efficiency is close to 1:1, solar and wind are less efficient. Given the goal, it will be difficult to decommission any current generating source while meeting demand.
In considering implications of the modern energy system, energy demand and consumption are the biggest question marks. Given that we’ll be hard-pressed to build out enough solar and wind to replace hydro within our lifetimes, demand and consumption will come under increasing scrutiny. As analysts and policy-makers do their level best to keep the lights on and affordable, they are increasingly looking at energy savings in the form of efficiency as a resource—now second only to hydro in the PNW. Addressing actual demand, instead of merely using more energy more efficiently, will be viewed as a requirement rather than as a nice-to-have.
The BPA says that although projected regional population and electrification increases will be larger drivers of electricity consumption than climate change (e.g. increased air conditioning use in the summer), seasonal power demand could still shift through the 2040s. With no FDR-like New Deal-level state spending on the horizon, managing hydro into the future is likely to be as much about reducing usage and waste as it is about flashy capital projects.
References
Banse, Tom. February 1, 2022, Oregon Public Broadcasting. “Green aluminum? Complex deal seeks to restart the last aluminum smelter in the Northwest and cut pollution”.
Benner, Janine. 2022. Oregon Department of Energy timeline presentation.
Bonneville Power Administration. February, 2021. Fact Sheet: Preparing for a resilient Columbia River hydropower system.
Hammarlund, Jeff. 2022. Portland State University presentation.
Herringshaw, Vanessa. “Natural Resources—Curse or Blessing?”. New Economy. Vol. 11, Issue 3.
Mohai et al, Environmental Justice
Nelson, Hal. 2022. Portland State University presentation.
Northwest Power and Conservation Council, 2021 Northwest Power Plan.
Schultz, Adam. 2022. ODOE presentation.
U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, Energy Kids’ Page: Energy Facts.
Yergin, Daniel. 2009. The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, & Power. New York Free Press.