Ontario approves Niagara hydro expansion

[treepig]

Ontario approves Niagara hydro expansion

Canadian Press


Toronto — A Niagara Falls generating project that will power the annual electricity needs of an estimated 160,000 Ontario homes has been given a green light by the Ontario government.

The Niagara Tunnel Project, expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, would expand the capacity at the Sir Adam Beck hydro generating station by boring a new tunnel under the city of Niagara Falls to divert more water from the Niagara River to the station.

The new tunnel would increase the amount of water flowing to the existing turbines at the Adam Beck station, allowing it to produce an estimated additional 1.6 terawatt-hours of renewable electricity per year.

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040625.whydr0625/BNStory/National/

sounds ok, i suppose - but does anybody know if this means less water going over the falls? and if so, aren't they shooting themselves in the foot wrt tourism?

[gulfcoastliberal]

1. Niagra Falls

The falls are already heavily regulated in terms of the CFM allowed over the falls. It is so tightly controlled because if they allowed all the water to flow over the falls, it would rapidly erode and cause a major geological event and a human disaster. A new dam probably wouldn't be noticeable, considering most don't even know about the current flow control in place.

[treepig]

2. hmm, i did not realize there was a dam there

must have been designed by different folks than those who built the hoover or grand coulee dams.

[NNadir]

3. It is already possible to shut the falls down completely.

I believe it's been done.

The falls must have been magnificient before they were exploited for power. (They're still impressive.) Personally, I don't think hydroelectric systems (in most cases) are even worth their aesthetic, never mind environmental, cost.

Niagara Falls as a commercial enterprise, though, is exactly what I think the Bushies have in mind for every other place of natural beauty. The area around the falls the last time I was there had a certain strip mall quality. I personally can't wait until they rename Bridalveil falls in Yosemite "The Comcast Bridalveil Falls," attaching a huge neon sign to El Capitan to designate it as such.

You might think I'm joking and I wish I were.

[treepig]

4. i haven't been to niagara since the 70's

seemed to be tacky enough back then - like you say, highly commercialized, at least on the canadian side (drove right thru buffalo without stopping - apparently that city's in a bit better shape right now).

i wonder if they've gotten around to selling literature on the creationist origins of the falls - like they now do at the grand canyon (there's a thread on that topic somewhere in this forum). i suppose an argument could be made that at the natural rate of erosion, the falls would have long ago moved well up the line (maybe into lake superior?) if the earth really was billions of years old.

[Dogmudgeon]

5. Niagara Falls would probably have eroded away by now ...

... if there had not been a major program undertaken to reinforce it. Most of the American Falls has been replaced by reinforced concrete.

I'd suspect that the entire complex was created as the icecap during the last ice age retreated, making the falls about 11,000 years old. Before the ice melted back, there were even more amazing geological sights to be seen.

Geologists have already identified at least two major glacial lake breakthroughs on the icecap, one that flooded Washington State, and another one breaking out of Newfoundland into the North Atlantic at the start of the Younger-Dryas period. There were also enormous glacial lakes in the upper midwest that dwarfed the Great Lakes -- and even today, nobody is really certain where their boundaries were.

There was also a huge, 50 mile wide ice-free corridor running from Alaska into the Pacific Northwest which is presumed to be the main route taken by the paleo-Amerindians from Siberia and Beringia (the Bering Strait land bridge). It must have been an amazing sight to the migrating people to see walls of ice on either side of this unusually lush strip of land. Even 25 miles away, a two-mile-high wall of ice would be breathtaking.

--bkl

[NNadir]

6. A link to the geologic history of Niagara falls.

http://www.iaw.com/~falls/origins.html#a

According to this link, it is estimated that the falls would last 8000 years.

I was surprised to learn that the hydroelectric facilities in the area produce only a total of 4,000 MWe. I thought (from the number of electrical lines in the area) that the amount would have been much higher. This is the equivalent of about 4 normally sized nuclear plants.

I'm sure we could get Dick Cheney to embrace the "Save The Falls Initiative" in which we completely shut down the falls and use all the water to generate electricity (for Halliburton of course). This would completely prevent the future erosion.

[Dogmudgeon]

7. That's better than I thought

8000 years appears to be a high figure, but it's still in a much bigger ballpark than I had thought. So, some good news for once.

Mind you, if the next ice age gets cranked up soon, all bets are off :)

I don't have much of a perspective on the sizes of generators, but I wouldn't have thought that any electricity was generated near the falls at all. Then again, I've never been there.

--bkl

[NNadir]

8. The electricity is not generated at the falls, although the powerplants

are necessarily nearby.

Climate change, no matter what form it takes, will certainly affect the Falls, but I suspect that compared to the other impacts, the Falls will be among the smallest of our worries.

[TO Kid]

9. Not the falls themselves

They divert water from the Niagara river just south of the falls and feed it to a reservoir. The water flows from the Beck powerplant to outlets near the base of the Horseshoe falls. There is an agreement in place that regulates the amount of water that each country can divert from the river and they reduce the amount in the summer tourist season.