NDIC Site Still Compromised -- Unable To Post Wells Coming Off Confidential List -- Part 2 -- May 22, 2022

Perhaps nothing about the Bakken today.

So, we start off with items trending over on social media or elsewhere.

First, this one from The San Francisco Chronicle, paywalled. A reader sent me the link, thank you. Not sure why this was in the news today -- the plan has been in the works for over a decade; the project finally gets underway "next year."  I believe the project is already several years delayed. 

One might be able to get to this site: largest-ever US dam removal project gets federal agencies' nod. 

Note: plurality of "federal agencies."

That article was dated April 21, 2022. The SF Chronicle article is pretty much a re-writing of the ENR article. 

Project:

• the Klamath River Renewal Corp: nonprofit corporation
• my hunch: the executives will be paid just enough to keep this "non-profit" every year
• four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River, Oregon and California

The Klamath dams project, in planning for more than a decade and considered a proof-of-concept for similar large projects in the U.S., would be historic for its magnitude and complexity. “Never before have so many large dams been removed from a single river at one time in the U.S.,” the Congressional Research Service said March 3, adding that the project could be a model for transferring private dams to states or nonprofits for removal in exchange for liability protection. 

The dams—J.C. Boyle in Oregon and Copco I, Copco II and Iron Gate in California—were built between 1918 and 1962. Three dams on the upper Klamath River in Oregon will continue to operate. The seven Klamath dams produce a total of 169 MW, says PacifiCorp, the dams' utility owner.

Let's put that 169 MW in perspective:

• a standard US coal plant has a nameplate capacity of 500 MW.
• the Prairie Island nuclear plant in Minnesota has two reactors, each with about 582 MW
• a single onshore US wind turbine, mean capacity: 2.75, or 220 wind turbines with nameplate capacity of 600 MW; wind turbines are perhaps 25% efficient, suggesting upwards of 1,000 wind turbines.

Note: I often make simple arithmetic errors and often misread. If this important to you, go to the sources, which I have not linked, for the most part, because I've linked these sources before and I'm losing interest. 

Sorry for the digression. 

The dams are getting older and older, subject to ever-increasing costs to maintain, all to provide 169 MW, or about one-fourth of a standard US coal plant. 

Like the Keystone XL, it takes decades of planning for these projects and preceding this planning, someone has to note something that others may not notice.

With regard to the Keystone XL, the oil companies knew that ... I've talked about this so often, I'm not going to repeat it ....

So, with the Klamath Dam project what was going on decades ago?

Particularly in San Francisco?

SF Gate, January 18, 2014: that was easy. The late 1970's. I remember this well. I was living in California at this era and remember all the radio ads telling folks to shower together to save water. I'm not making that up.

This has nothing to do with electricity. This is all about the costs of maintaining old dams and fighting water wars, between the two quasi-states, "North California" and "South California."

Other notes:

• from wiki, undated:  
• PacifiCorp continues to operate the project for profit, producing a maximum of 169 MW from seven generating stations. The company owns all but one of the dams. As of 2016, four of the project's dams are scheduled for removal by the year 2020, pending approval by the governing Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
• who owns PacifiCorp: Berkshire Hathaway
• who has to maintain these expensive dams? you get three guesses and the first two don't count
  
• many articles on expense of maintaining US dams
• these articles do not include environmental litigation and/or immense costs of a dam failure; how many dams have failed in California? 45 including the catastrophic Francis Dam disaster in 1928.

The Klamath Dam project was initiated for two reasons:

• increasing financial costs to maintain seven dams producing less than a fourth of what one coal-plant could produce;
• the water wars between northern California and southern California

One assumes the non-profit organization responsible for the project will be responsible for managing all "Superfund" costs. This is not going to cost PacifiCorp anything. And look at all that goodwill by saving the salmon or whatever they say they are saving.

Okay, enough of this. Beating a dead horse.