SGL endorses hydro power

EPHRATA — The news of SGL Automotive Carbon Fibers carbon fiber plant shows a favorable view of hydropower.

Announcements like this “continue to highlight hydropower’s value, where there’s a recognizing of future benefits,” said Andrew Munro, Grant County PUD’s external affairs director and National Hydropower Association president.

Hydropower’s availability in Grant County was a main factor in attracting the company, officials said.

Once built, the company will buy hydropower produced at the utility’s Columbia River dams and manufacture carbon fiber used for BMW car parts.

“It helps continue to position us very favorably,” Munro says. “I believe hydropower is widely viewed as renewable.”

He called hydropower “a terrific clean energy resource.”

“It creates jobs, not only with construction and businesses (but) industries it supports,” he comments.

He cites a 2009 jobs study done by Navigant Consulting, in which an additional 7,000 jobs could be created.

It could be done by adding 60,000 megawatts of hydropower capacity to the nation’s current capacity of 90,000 megawatts.

“Hydropower’s benefits, like clean energy production and job creation, align perfectly with our county and state’s energy, economic and environmental priorities,” he says.

“I believe there’s a renewed interest in our state and nation for sustainable hydropower development.”

In fact, all resources are getting “a fresh look,” he comments.

There was an inaccurate view that there wasn’t enough growth in hydropower, he said.

“That pendulum is changing,” he said. “We’re talking about modernizing existing hydropower products, which creates greater efficiencies. We’re talking about adding generation to non-generating dams.”

Of the 80,000 US dams, just 3 percent are hydropower dams, Munro comments.

Hydropower received positive attention on March 25 when Energy Secretary Steven Chu said, “I’m for hydropower, because I’m an environmentalist,” according to Munro.

His comment came with the US Department of Energy, US Department of the Interior and the US Army Corps of Engineers talk of developing hydropower resources.

There are fish and wildlife enhancements at the dams that occur because of hydropower.

At Grant PUD, the utility was noticed because it was proactive and built a fish bypass before the new federal license.

Proposed federal legislation is giving more recognition to hydropower.

The House and Senate have nearly identical language, in which all existing hydropower is removed from the renewable requirement.

For Grant PUD, any requirement is zero because its portfolio is mostly hydropower, Munro said.

But in Washington state, Initiative 937 does not list hydropower as being renewable.

I-937 requires 15 percent of the state’s energy meet the definition of renewable by 2020, according to the Washington Policy Center’s Web site.

There are some ideas being developed that would have raised targets in exchange for flexibility for meeting those targets, he said.

No new state legislation was passed this year.

John Seebach, director of hydropower reform initiative, with American Rivers, said he lobbied with the NHA on qualifying hydropower for renewable energy credits on the federal level.

“We focused on new capacity, not existing hydropower,” Seebach said. “We felt building new dams was not renewable. We also felt there was a lot of hydropower you could get by using the current infrastructure.”

An example to increase hydropower capacity would be to replace turbines and generators at existing dams.

“We support capacity added to existing hydropower dams and capacity added to non-hydropower dams,” he said. “We figured that was pretty doable.”