Hydroelectricity - Energy Policy Analysis: A Conceptual Framework - page 155

Figure 8.3 The Costs of Utilizing Hydroelectric Technologies

$

Environmental
costs

Dollar
costs

National security
costs

toxic waste that must be isolated from the human environment for millennia, and therefore do not
produce materials useful to terrorists. The only national security risk from hydroelectricity is that
presented by large dams upstream of substantial population concentrations, which are few in the
United States and probably more difficult and less desirable targets to hit with a large airplane than
a tall building in a major city. Consequently, the national security costs of utilizing hydroelectric
technologies are very low.

SUMMARY OF COSTS

The costs of utilizing hydroelectric energy technologies are summarized in Figure 8.3. Overall,
the environmental costs for producing and using hydroelectric technologies are “moderately
high” compared to most conventional fuel technologies in use today. The environmental costs for
producing electricity from power plants depending on large reservoirs are substantial, due to the
high costs of disruption of relatively large acreages of land that must be dedicated to such facili-
ties. Environmental costs for utilization of small hydro are much lower, but these technologies
appear to be on their way out, as older river dams are increasingly being removed to allow return
of fishing and recreational opportunities throughout the United States.
Dollar costs for decentralized application of hydroelectricity are “low” and quite competitive
today with other conventional fuels, but most of the available large hydro sites are already in use
or off limits due to previous policy decisions. Because the larger hydro facilities were mostly