How to build more hydropower

From the studios of Postscript Media and Canary Media.

I'm Laura Pierpoint and this is Catalyst. The way in which we're going to increase capacity is, we firmly believe, a shift that moves away from just building mega projects and instead looks at building projects that are more distributed in nature and which means smaller. We're still talking projects that are tens and maybe even hundreds of megawatts. So we're not they they're still substantial projects. They're just not a single 20 gigawatt project in one go.

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The world's first hydroelectric power plant started operation in 1882 on the Fox River in Wisconsin. Before that, of course, humans had been using river power for all sorts of purposes, and even before that, beavers were building dams. Hydropower is not, in other words, a classic example of new technology. It is, however, currently the cornerstone of global carbon-free electricity. It's the third largest source of electricity, period, after coal and gas.

And produces sixteen percent of electricity worldwide, more than all other renewable resources combined. And it's on a roll, or at least it could be. Peer-reviewed research estimates that globally we could theoretically increase hydro production capacity many times over what it is today, and it's already a large slice of generation.

This is huge and not just because this represents enormous potential. This is electricity that is a carbon-free and dispatchable and available virtually all of the time. The challenge, of course, is that done wrong, hydropower is very disruptive to river systems. Altering the state of the river has implications for fish and other wildlife, agriculture, and of course, drinking water. But could we have our hydro power cake and eat it too?

Can we take advantage of the enormous potential of hydro for electricity production and maybe even improve ecosystem conditions and the likelihood of maintaining healthy watersheds for a variety of human purposes? Gia Schneider, co-founder and CEO of Nattel Energy, and I discuss these questions and more.

As always, leave us a voicemail at nine one nine-eight zero eight-five eight two. Or email us at catalyst at postcriptaudio.com. You can also tag us on Twitter. But for now, here's my conversation with Gia.

Gia, it is so exciting to be here today to talk to you about hydropower. Really great to be here as well. So obviously massive potential source of decarbonizing the world's economy. Let's talk about where we are today. How much hydro is there globally? How much are we really reliant on it now for particularly power production? Cause that's really where we're talking about a lot of greenhouse gas emissions. Yeah. So today we have about one point three terawatts of installed operating hydropower.

And that represents about the um it's the majority of renewable energy produced in the world today. It's the third largest source of electricity after natural c uh gas and coal. And in terms of its importance uh in maintaining reliable grid operations.

For example, if you looked last summer in the United States, in every power market where you have hydro, um, and you've you pulled up the dispatch curve, the daily dispatch curve of um assets in a particular ISO, what you'd see is if you have hydro and you have gas, Hydro and gas are the two assets like basically dispatching um in parallel with each other to balance the grid. And that is simply because hydro has such a complete stack of reliability resources.

Um, and uh and I think that's one of the reasons why we're really excited about about the potential for hydro um as we go forward. And we'll definitely get into that. But before we get to that, I realize it might be helpful for folks if we just walk through like how does hydropower actually work. I think it may be obvious to a lot of folks, but maybe you can walk through like What happens like when you build a dam, you build a reservoir, how do you actually get power out of hydro ultimately?

Yeah, absolutely. So just the the basics simply are that um hydropower and the way we produce energy from hydro is um a function of two things. Um so one is kind of intuitively how fast the water is moving. Um, and that's one element. But actually in hydro, unlike wind, that is the smaller element of the resource potential. The other part is

the conversion of the potential energy of water falling a certain distance and converting that to kinetic energy that we can then turn into electricity. And that is the bigger part of of actually where we get energy in hydro. And that then translates to The um the reason why dams historically have been built. Um, because if you build a dam, it's a way for you to

um take the slope effectively of a river as it runs downhill. And if you build a dam, you're finding you're basically capturing that slope change over it at one single point in space. And um and the higher that height, conventionally, historically, that has allowed us to kind of concentrate the energy generation in a single point in time. So basically

We we take water um and we we run it through a turbine and that turbine then spins and that spin it uh that spins a generator and then the generator produces electricity. The rest of the power extraction is all very standard stuff. Really the thing that's different in hydro is we're capturing, we're aggregating the um energy of water moving down a landscape and then taking it out at certain points.

As you're talking, I'm really reminded of the first time I saw the Hoover Dam outside of Las Vegas on the on the Colorado River. And that thing is enormous. Like when you want to talk about scale, you really get a sense looking at how gigantic this thing is, that this is a big deal for power production.

And I think the other thing that really struck me looking at that was it was built before computers existed. Like this is something that we've known how to do and have done for a very, very long time. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean and hit the history of Hydra is interesting because, um, for example, uh if you look at when a lot of the big dams were constructed in the Pacific Northwest.

um they coincided with completion in the early like late thirties, early forties. And that really um let you know, put us in a position actually entering World War Two where we had this enormous chunk of electricity capacity that could go immediately into aluminum production, which was like a critical thing in you know, being able to

produce materi you know aircraft in particular um fast enough as the US entered World War Two. So like there's just all this history around hydro, um good and bad. And uh and I think that uh uh but one thing that is kind of incontrovertible is that as a energy source, it has a r really full stack of characteristics, um, in terms of being able to to provide, you know, black start, which is like start up a grid. It can provide um voltage regulation, reg up, reg down, it can provide spinning.

reserves because there's a lot of inertia um in the machines. And it it just has a lot of characteristics that make it like a full stack um reliability resource. And the challenge then it again is then how do we How do we do two things? Like how do we take this really large existing but old installed base that we have globally and modernize it for the future? And then how do we unlock this potential? How do we really get to this 20 gigawatts a year of new build?

Yeah. So let's get into both of those topics. And I think as we do, let's talk a little bit about kind of the benefits and drawbacks of hydro because I think that gets into like why build or why don't build. Right. So

Um, so the benefits, some of them you've already listed. This is kind of a unique kind of resource for the grid and that it can provide pretty much, you know, any type of resource the grid needs on a number of different timescales. Um, what else would you put in that category? It's carbon-free nature, I guess would be one of them. Yeah, absolutely. It's uh it's yeah, so it's it's carbon free. Um

And very controllable. And then, you know, when you get outside of the energy story for for water in particular, most hydropower large hydro projects also have a water resource and water management component to them, whether it's water for um uh you know water storage, for whether it's for agriculture or human consumption. Um some cases it's also for flood control. Most a lot of the times that you basically have these large projects that full function as multi-purpose um uh facilities.

But from an energy s energy perspective, I think is the the key thing far and away is it's just a full stack um resource.

Well let's dive into that piece a little bit, the fact that there are potential benefits around, for example, you know, controlling floods and agriculture and things like that. But this is also sort of rear veers into drawback territory, depending on how you define things, right? Because I think sometimes

at least I've heard it pose that it can be a zero sum game between are you using the water for energy production versus agriculture versus frankly for environmental purposes to kind of keep rivers flowing. So how do you see the relationship between sort of the benefits and drawbacks that are kind of mired in that stew of characteristics there? Yeah, it's a super complex um question and one frankly for which there is not often a

one size fits all answer for all projects. It it it really is important. Actually is most things are context dependent. And so you do it is important to understand the geographic characteristics and constraints of of where each project is located. Um, that being said, I think that there we know a lot more about how to manage water resources and

uh and in particular how to leverage natural infrastructure processes to support healthier river function. And that is coming out of something completely unrelated to hydro, just river restoration and conservation work. And I I one of the things that we're really excited about is to leverage the lessons learned, to take the lessons we've learned from removing dams, from restoring rivers.

and integrate that into planning um both for improving existing hydropower as well as building new. And I think that's just gonna be a critical element. At the end of the day, um the majority of our rivers globally, unfortunately, are heavily modified and in exist in a state of severe, you know, mild to severe um disruption and disconnection. And

finding ways to restore those rivers and their function is going to be a critical element of adapting to the changing water patterns we see anyway with climate change. And so again, I think that's where Hydro has this really cool ability to because it's multi-purpose and can function in a multi-purpose way, that actually we can incorporate into Hydropower Projects. things that will also help make river landscapes and river um ecosystems more resilient to climate.

Hmm, interesting. Okay. Definitely want to dig into that. I think before we before we do though, let's talk a little bit more about what specifically you mean when you say river disruption, right? Because I think Um, there are two elements that I know about. One is that when you build the dam, obviously you're creating a pretty big lake. And um it's actually a random side story. I wrote a report when I was in, I wanna say fifth or sixth grade about uh the temples at Abu Simbal.

Um, that basically were had to be moved because of the Oswan High Dam on the Nile River. And um and there was an amazing array. of technological options and ideas that people threw out all the way from like you just put like a membrane to protect them from like the silt in the water and then have people like scuba dive to go visit. Uh so really wild stuff. So so there's the question of what happens with the lake and also potential carbon emissions as trees uh essentially are taken out.

um by the fact that you have this growing lake in addition to a piece that I know you know well, which is how fish adapt to a disrupted river. So can you say a bit about kind of what are the ecosystem impacts of a dam and hydropower in particular, all the way from like What happens when you do dam construction to the ongoing impacts? Uh, some of the things that we need to think about as we're and potentially mitigate as we're building out hydropower. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. So I mean D disruption in ri in rivers from hydro really does come from uh the the fact that we're building an obstruction um in and an an obstruction that's very different than the obstructions that existed in rivers naturally. So just as a quick sidebar. in the US, if you were to rewind the clock um several hundred years, what you would have found in the US is a landscape full of rivers, full of obstructions. But those obstructions were things like

um naturally occurring log jams and beaver dams. And they could be quite significant. So so in nature you will find, you know, just even natural log jams that can represent really substantial civil structures. um that create ponds um and then and et cetera. And same thing with beaver dams. Um but the uh but again they function in a way that actually generally is contributing to river health. So for so for example, those types of

um pieces of natural infrastructure, so to speak, they will create a more fully connected um uh floodplain for the river. That's really helpful when you have spring storms and floods because it gets the water out of the landscape. That helps drive groundwater recharge.

And that in turn bolsters more perennial river flow because if you have high groundwater tables, if you've got a really robust groundwater situation, you will have more consistent river flow year-round, which then helps to mitigate droughts and helps mitigate wildfires.

Um And so the a a lot of the to bring it back to hydro, a lot of the things that we're looking at on a more systems basis with our work is where how can we connect um experts and practitioners in river restoration who really deeply understand how

some of those natural dams, so to speak, function and incorporate that into the design of hydro for the future. Because the way we've built hydro historically, those the dams we've tended to build for hydro are ones that represent this very like hard um and monolithic break in the river's flow without often um very straightforward ways or or more natural ways for sediment, for fish, for um uh

various types of material to move within the river in a natural way. And then that disruption is what creates a cascade of other negative impacts. Um in the Aswan example that for example, there's so much silt moving in the river that that you know, a side effect of that dam is that it rapidly, unfortunately, became a lot less productive as a hydropower asset because it filled up with silt and there wasn't a plan for how to manage it, how to ensure

that that um that silt would keep on moving through the system as it had done for thousands of years before and will need to continue to do. So I think That's the that's a key piece of is is where how do we actually take that, learn from lessons and and as we as we improve hydro for the future, um ensure that we're incorporating things that that maintain more of that river connectivity with respect to sediment, fish, etc.

Mm-hmm. That's super helpful. And I really appreciate by the way that you helped like end the story for me on the Oswan High Dam because I did have not done a good job since this grade of checking in with like what the scene is over there. But um so I'm interested to know some of the some of the history there.

That's great. Okay. So as we're thinking about then what it's going to take to get to, you know, basically it sounded like what you said was basically a tenfold increase, at least theoretically, in the capacity of hydro worldwide. Clearly, we're going to need some portion of that to become real to hit our decarbonization goals. Um, so Why why would that be challenging or why is that challenging? Do you think it really comes down to in large part the ecosystem impacts associated?

with building dams and how different societies and geographies are processing that, or are there other like sort of headwinds or other reasons that it's challenging in some cases to get more hydro? It's a mixture of things. And so I think one one element is that the um the hydr hydro if you look at the arc of history of hydro, so we're going back maybe a hundred or so years when some of the first hydropower projects that still are operating today were built.

Those projects tended to be fairly small. So we're talking, you know, a couple megawatts, five megawatts, ten megawatts. Then Um, the plants, you know, fairly quickly became big. So by the time we got to the 30s, 40s, 50s, we really started to see projects that were hundreds of megawatts. And then fairly soon thereafter we started to see projects that were, you know, multiple gigawatts in size.

And then finally in the 70s and 80s, we, you know, started to see projects where, you know, we had literally some projects built where we where a single project was 15 gigawatts or 20 gigawatts in a single project. Um so really massive mega projects. And Um what's happened is that the massive mega projects carry with them just an enormous set of challenge. They're just so enormous. The um they've become very hard to estimate costs correctly. They take

a very long time. We're talking 10 to 15 years to build and

That time compounds the cost estimation challenge because a lot of things can happen in ten years. Um, as we've seen in the last week, a lot of things could happen even in just a few days that that have massive impacts on all sorts of things. And so The way in which we're going to increase capacity is, we firmly believe, a shift that moves away from just building mega projects and instead looks at building projects that are more distributed in nature and which means

smaller um by moving to smaller projects and we're still talking projects that are tens and maybe even hundreds of megawatts. So we're not they they're still substantial projects. They're just not a single 20 gigawatt project in one go. And Um, but moving to more distributed projects allows allows a much tighter control over all of the things that end up driving cost on the project. And I think that's one important piece. We just have to find ways to better.

cost estimate, get projects done in a shorter and more timely fashion and um and keep keep, you know, m budgets under control. That's one. And then the environmental piece is absolutely critical and is in some places a direct, you know, regulatory thing. So you can or cannot build, depending on how you perform from an environmental perspective. But there are plenty of places in the world where you don't have necessarily um hard and fast rules around uh certain environmental requirements.

And there, I think the reason why we're also very focused on safe fish passage and environmental performance is because bottom line, if we can deliver the same power performance at a similar or lower cost. While being uh while being safe for fish, while maintaining river connectivity or in some cases restoring river connectivity. Then

then why not? Even if there is no rule requiring that, at a minimum, just from a financial perspective, you are or a risk management protects perspective, you're future proofing against coming regulations. And at the end of the day

just from a sustainability perspective, we need to move our management of water resources in a more sustainable direction. And so that's why we think this the the path forward for hydro is one really where we we are We use both a combination of smarter and more sustainable design of projects.

including things like what we're working on with fish safe fish fish safe turbines, but more broadly, I think it's just a it's incorporating again a lot of these lessons learned of how we can design projects. that fit into a river ecosystem more sustainably. So that's one really important component. And then the second layer is is a is really defining projects that again can can fit into a size that is uh better suited for management of both time and budget um to completion.

Interesting. Okay. So basically I'm sort of hearing three categories here that Ideally, to really take advantage of kind of these, you know, this potential that exists out there for hydro. It's about reducing cost.

It's about reducing the environmental impacts, at least the negative environmental impacts. And it's about I don't know how else to say this, like picking the right project in the right spot in the river and sort of making sure that you're doing and that the that things are sized appropriately, which is probably related to the other two. Yeah, and and that can e absolutely. And the when and and the sizing question, the last point there is that

for for there was a there was a big progression in hydro development that was was kind of built into the mantra that bigger was always better. Right. That and at the end of the day to get bigger the simple math way to think about or the simple kind of way to diagram it is that water runs down a landscape.

And you can put your hydro project at any point in that path of the river. And if you put it at the bottom of the hill and build a massive dam, you only have one project. You're capturing the entire slope. The bottom of that hill in one in one massive mega project, you could approach that by building five projects, you know, at different intervals down that slope. And um where the pendulum has swung with.

materials costs, labor costs, et cetera, in general is that moving to projects that are a little bit more distributed, a little bit more bite-sized, is um beneficial in many cases for managing the other aspects, cost and environmental impact.

I love this. It's fitting with sort of a general theme for the current era of clean tech, which is I would say like bigger is not necessarily always better, which I kind Um not in all cases, but certainly in some cases for some of the text out.

Um, but let's get into this. Let's get into some technology and to some ways because you know, what you described sounds a little bit like magic, right? How do you reduce costs, get more distributed and protect the fish and the ecosystems all in one go? So Um so talk about some of the advances in hydropower technology. Maybe we can actually start.

Um, by talking about run of river hydro, um, because this is something that certainly sounds good in practice, right? That you're just using the kinetic energy of the water, so less about the potential energy of the gravity, right? But um But getting but potentially getting some power out of a river without necessarily building a dam at all. Is that how to think about this? And how viable is run of river hydro?

Yeah, so I would there's there's two things actually that often get put into runner river. One is hydrokinetic and hydrokinetic is where as you were describing, there is no dam. We it's like taking a windmill and instead of having a windmill turn in the air, I have that windmill turn in the water. Um, it looks different than a wind windmill, but yes. And so um for hydrokinetic, the the there are a number of interesting opportunities. The challenge for hydrokinetic.

is simply put that. Um in rivers there are There's all sorts of debris that moves in rivers in a way that's very different than wind. Um, and so anything that goes in a river um or in a tidal current has to have be protected from large things that move in water, logs, debris, etc. And that protection of the power generation equipment is then adds a whole layer of additional cost and civil works and complexity'cause you need to also then keep your

keep it clean, you need to find a way to clean debris off of the thing that's protecting it. And so at the end of the day, um the challenge in hydrokinetic is simply water can move through your turbine or around your turbine. You have to still protect your turbine. And so

What we've generally seen is that hydrokinetic is makes sense in very certain specific applications, but it's been hard to get costs to the point where it's as broadly applicable as we'd love it to be. Um And so the other run of rien red run of river is used describes what is more conventional hydro, but where in the sense that there we're where there is um a a conversion of potential energy to kinetic energy, we have a a drop or a dam of some sort. Um

But what we don't have is a massive reservoir that is that is storing water for months at a time, right? Because once you get to reservoirs that are storing water for many months at a time, that is another way in which hydro disrupts. a river's flow. And uh so run of river is generally applies actually to a lot of existing hydro today, where the the the dams, if you will, are more like like a beaver pond. Like I mean, um drawing the analogy a little bit a little bit roughly. But

We have plenty of examples where we have ponds and those ponds kind of ebb and flow depending on what's happening with the river flow. Uh, but in the context of a beaver, those are not those do not necessarily have to result in, again, a a um a an impact on the river that is 100% negative. Now, one of the conundrums is that, or one of the interesting things that again, as we've dug into this more, is that there it does, it it seems very clear as you dig into the science around the fact that

There are small dams um that have major negative impacts. It's not a size thing. You could have big dams, you could have small dams. Um it really comes down to the ways in which water moves around and uh you know through that structure. So if you have good bypass channels, like but good areas where fish can move upstream and downstream, if you have

good ways in which sediment can c continue to move through the river system and you're not just locking sediment up. Um, if you have ways in which debris again is managed, because uh uh one of the things that rivers do is they distribute sediment and logs and you know, vegetative matter throughout a landscape. And that is important'cause it helps helps distribute nutrients across the landscape. And so, um

It's just a there's like once you start to get into it, rivers are kind of like they're like arteries, right? So they they trans the transport fluid for for many things through the earth. And um and so thus it gets quite it becomes quite a systems problem when you start to think about like what's the right way to design them to maintain that.

Yeah. But on the point of runner river, sorry, it's just um uh the key characteristic there is just that we don't have a massive reservoir where we're storing many months of water. Are you tired of overpaying for big name PR firms but not really knowing what they're delivering? Is your comms team wasting time reviewing lengthy messaging briefs and decks?

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So let's talk a bit then about about DMs and about this piece, like what can we do from a technical perspective or from a systems perspective to make sure that we're designing them to the degree possible to be supportive and not detrimental to the ecosystems.

So what is what is the answer there? Are there cool new new technologies that help us do that? Is it really about planning? Is it about technologies that help with planning and design? Um what are the things that are that are on the table to help us do a better job of of making dams that that help and don't hurt? Yeah. It great question. And and the answer is there are a number of things. And some of it is tech, and some of it is more what I think of as um

As having a different approach when it comes to civil and environmental engineering. And and um again, dams are kind of this, this, um this monument is your reaction to Hoover Dam that you mentioned, right? There it's a monument to human engineering and like the ability to build, you know, massive

things, but they're they're very much not natural. Um and so an area that that I've already alluded to that I think again is very exciting is fighting that tendency that we have to build, you know, massive um uh artifacts uh that that are

are not natural but very human. Um, and instead say, Okay, we can look at a lot of things that we understand now today much more deeply about how reverse function Um looking at beaver dams, looking again at natural log jams, looking at all of this stuff and that we we now have a deeper understanding of the hydrology of how how healthy rivers function, and design those things into the civil structures that we're we're using for hydropower.

Um we have talked about we talk about things like making ensuring that there's a you know good amount of leakage through a dam, which his you know and again has to be done carefully because

You say that too from a civil engineering and dam safety perspective, and it can sound quite alarming. It's important that you'd have to approach it in the right way, but at the end of the day, finding ways so that water, what we mean by that is that there's connectivity, that water can move through the system and that the pathways that that water finds to move through the system are ones that also support um uh off main channel transport of fish because

And if you go and look at a beaver dam where fish are typically moving upstream and downstream through that beaver dam is not jumping over the dam itself. Um, though certainly salmon, for example, can do that, but you've you have multiple side channels where the water velocity is slower, it's easier for particularly young fish to navigate, um, things like that. So that's one element that's more like systems-y environmental engineering type stuff.

Um another element that uh I think is really exciting for the future is better um tools to understand what's happening with water flow. And there's some really exciting things out there in hydrology and forecasting that I they think have a ton of potential to help us better manage the water resource. So that As we are both

taking existing structures and upgrading them them for the future. For example, we know we're gonna face more extreme, you know, swings between lots of precipitation and then not enough precipitation. That has a whole host of implications for how to better invest.

uh in the existing infrastructure to manage through that. Um if, for example, I expect my probable maximum flood to double as a result of climate change, but at the same time, I might see a situation where I could also see my drought chance double. then what's the right answer? Do I do I need to throw a lot more concrete onto my structure because because my PMF is my probable maximum flood is doubled, I now need to make sure that that civil structure is gonna stay there and not float away.

and uh in a flood, so I've gotta put more concrete on it. That would be a very traditional approach. Or do I use better forecast methodology to give me a heads up so that I can start releasing way in advance. And I don't have to, I can I can do more of a digital infra approach to to manage the system. And that applies to uh uh broadly across hydro and water infrastructure as well. Um

Can I can I pause you on that one for a second? I know there's some other things too that that we're gonna wanna manage, but let's just get into the this question about the climate impacts because I think Listening to you talk, one of the things that that sounds like it could be concerning is exactly as you said that now now water patterns are getting more extreme, right?

And so you might have this twin problem that you want to shore up your dam with more concrete, but also that you may not get as much revenue out of it as you were expecting because of drought years. So is this

I'm I mean, is this something that's really manageable through modeling or do you think like are there going to start to be cases where dams don't make as much sense anymore because of the swings and uncertainty, meaning they're just there's probabilistically too many cases where you can't make money with a dam?

Oh yes. I mean there absolutely will be cases like that where it doesn't make sense anymore. Um there are places, unfortunately, geographically, where there's a clear drying and a rudification trend that over some time period will mean that, you know, an existing hydro facility will probably need to be downsized, um, or or entirely um uh reimagined. Um

the there are other places where we're seeing a definite increase in in precipitation. And uh in those case in those places, like hydro is a increasingly attractive resource. So the And the blunt reality of climate change is we're gonna see both happen and uh and it definitely hasn't has, you know, implications for where you want to invest and what you want to invest in from a resource perspective.

And I think some of the tools I was mentioning have a really important role in helping inform that decision making for folks who are deploying infrastructure capital. Then is it C I mean, I I think the other piece that's true and we we're seeing this already in the Western US, for example, last year, um, you know, the West has been in drought for for a number of years, um, hopefully not coming out of this year, but Um last year I think one thing that was kind of

probably a surprising statistic if you dug into it further is actually that um hydro, despite the West being in an overall drought, it was a pretty great year for hydropower. And it was because um the conditions for hydro in the Pacific Northwest were s were solid and those assets were able to were p you know played a critical role, frankly, in balancing the grid. Um and because of the interconnection, the inner tie between

Northwest and California, that power could cycle every day to help balance out um hype, you know, California um and and the duck curve. So Bottom line is as as is gonna be the case, frankly, in making a fully renewable grid work, is that resource diversity and interconnection is the name of the game because um, you know,

We know every day that the sun will shine for some hours and not shine for others. We also know that the wind will blow and not blow on maybe l not quite as predictable a path and then hydro has its own resource cycle. And we're going to have to find ways to stack all of that together. Um Uh, depending on what resources are available to which geography.

Makes sense. And so to bleed for a second into the question of of water management, I remember you said something once to me that was very chilling, which is that it's possible that by twenty thirty California could see all of its precipitation as rain.

Um, and as someone who likes to drink water here in my house in California, I found that very concerning. So is I mean, do you think that a potential answer to that problem is building a whole lot of dams and more reservoirs such that we can actually sort of replicate the snowpack, I guess, as our water storage system. Uh I so I think that I think that that is the um it is the natural and immediate first conclusion.

to draw because if we receive all of our water in thirty days of the year and it's all coming as rain, uh, we have to find w some way to capture that that and and uh so that it can be used through the other, you know, three hundred and thirty days of the year. Um so

I I think where a where we see a lot of and there are some new reservoirs that are being proposed in the state of California that are moving through the development process. And I think that the urgency around those reservoirs has increased. As some of the science has become more clear that the prospect of a snow-free Sierra is something that unfortunately is probably not hundreds of years away, but is, you know, something again that's maybe decade plus away.

It will be interesting coming out of this winter to see if recency bias impacts this because again, it's just always like we have a we we like it's hard as humans to not have recency bias and like right now we're staring down record snowpack and et cetera. Um The approach though that we think is is more durable is not Only building new reservoirs in a traditional sense, but instead investing in distributed approaches that help.

That can incorporate hydro, but that importantly look to bolster groundwater recharge. At the end of the day, water in the ground. for the last for all of California's recent history actually going back decades. Ground we have we have had a net draft on groundwater pretty much every year of something like a million acre feet a year. Without groundwater, we we need groundwater. So at the end of the day, groundwater becomes the reservoir. And the challenge is how do we get

precipitation into the ground. And frankly, I think that's going to be the place that we have to focus on to maintain our water supply and water security, not just building nutrition.

Really quickly, functionally, how can we do that? Because you mentioned this earlier that beavers have helped with this, right? That if you reshape rivers, you can help recharge groundwater. Can you say bit a bit more about how that works or how we would know how to do it in a way that is actually recharging to groundwater? Yeah, well...

So it's it's as I mean it's getting water on the landscape. Um so r and and um the the it's happening already. So there's some really interesting programs that um uh number of irrigation districts and California State Departments have are already implementing to work with farmers to have farmers agree to flood their fields in with the winter with winter rains.

happening right now as a result of um all the water that we have or all the rain that we've received. And we just need to do a lot more of that. That's that's like step one because we can just do that today and we need to do as much as we can of that.

Um there's proven track record around around that uh in terms of a actually resulting in water going into the ground, which then um eventually comes back out um and it and is accessible. Um the the beaver piece is one which we again there's lots of um projects that have been done to reintroduce beaver into streams that are going dry every year in the summer. And once beaver are reintroduced, you have reperenalized flow. Again, that's just simply a matter of getting

having water sit on the landscape for a longer period of time, more of it goes into the ground. Once the water table is risen enough, you have stream flow year round. Um And and that is something where we again it's it's uh it it's funny because these are all solutions that don't

require new technology. These are just solutions that require implementing practice changes and land use changes. And and so, and I should remove the word just and replace it with like politically intensive stakeholder negotiations, because that's what that means, more than necessarily a technology.

Right. Yeah. So not easy, but I think we're creating an interesting sort of playbook here for how to make hydro helpful and not hurtful, which helps to expand it. So you've mentioned, you know, basically creating the right sort of like river diversion or leakage, you know, to help maintain the flow for animals and fish.

We've talked about using technology to do a better job of predicting exactly what your output is going to be, what sort of needs you have as you're building your dam. We've talked about working with the beavers and the farmers to make sure that everyone's on board with groundwater recharge. Um, to ask you another leading question, what about fish? So fish obviously need to be able to traverse the river, but they also ideally need to be not harmed by dams and turbines. So what do we do there?

Yeah, absolutely. So we on on the fish side of things, um, upstream passage is one which is a so so fish fish are a matter of both getting fish upstream when they need to go upstream, downstream when they need to come downstream. Upstream passage right now is generally addressed through fish ladders or bypass net more naturalistic bypass channels that fish can also navigate um upstream. And those are become increasingly they they

for for salmon, so so again, this is where context is really important. Some fish species do really well with kind of the classic fish ladder. If you've ever been to a hydropower plant in the West. Um, many of them have them. They've all they were all designed for salmon because that is the kind of primary species that obviously every year needs to move up upriver. Um

And uh and they do work. They don't work perfectly, and they don't work perfectly. The w ones that are designed for salmon do not work for eel or for other types of sp of fish. And so one of the things that has broadened over the last decade or two is more different types of upstream passage that becomes more appropriate for different types of fish species. And that's just an important consideration. At this point, there are a number of things that now we can use to help get fish upstream Um

Downstream passage is an entirely different challenge because at the end of the day for a hydro plant in general, we're trying to run as much of the water as we can through a turbine to produce power. Um But we obviously don't want to put fish through, well, conventional turbines unfortunately are not, you know, result in fish that. often have a quick end to their life. And so as a result, we don't want to put the fish through those existing turbines.

to to prov to avoid doing that, the traditional approach um that has started to become used in the last decade or so is what are called fine fish screens. Um these are meshes basically where you're trying to like really keep fish from getting through. Problem with screens is that they're not just expensive, um, but they also clog frequently. Like they by definition, you have to keep them clean. And so it becomes like a cap this is not just capex, but opex.

Um and then finally, unfortunately, screens have been increasingly shown to not necessarily keep as many fish out. Um there's a very rigorous study that was just completed in Germany and Austria that um just

shedding a little bit more light on the fact that a lot of stuff gets through screens that you might not think. So Um so I think one of the things that w so we've focused on that and say said simply if we can put fish through a turban safely, then then that's a that's a solution that is Uh again, kind of a lot of our mantra is if we can allow hydropower, enable hydropower plant owners to continue operating a hydropower plant, but

but make it just part of their operation that they're not no longer harming fish, then that is a um uh a good thing to do. Um So what we have done is is yes, and and I think I think there's been a lot of interesting work done to show to lead the way.

And um I've been fortunate to work with a team that has I think really added some important um advancements to the body of work showing that it is possible to actually design high performance fish safe turbine blades. And what we mean by that is that You don't compromise on power output. You are able to pass fish at near hundred percent um uh passage directly through the turbine and um

I mean those are the two things. So basically'cause at the end of the day, if you don't have to compromise on power, fish go through safely. Um and you don't obviously and then cost so it's cost parity to conventional, um, but you don't kill fish and you generate the power. So how do you do that? What is it about your turbines that enables you to maintain that power output without killing fish?

Yeah, it's it's all in design of the blade shape. So the blades themselves specifically have a very thick leading edge. That thick leading edge creates um what is called a stagnation zone in front of it, but very like simply you can think of it as a almost like an airbag in front of the blade, and that airbag basically deflects fish.

as well as debris around the blade as opposed to a conventional thin blade which results in a really sharp strike. So that's one part of the design. And then the other part of the design is that the blade itself swoops forward. And that is important because it addresses, it allows us to keep the impact of a strike the same as we move from the hub of the turban to the tip.

And if you've ever been on a merry-go-round, you know, if you're out at the outside edge of the merry-go-round, you're going a lot faster than if you're at the inside of the merry-go-round. And um and so to deal with that physics. The swoop of the blade forward basically makes um any strike out at the tip a glancing and deflecting um impact as opposed to a a blunt sharp impact. And those two things.

basically you know, create a turbine blade that has now been shown many times over to be greater than 99% safe for fish passage. That's awesome. And so the fish safe solution that you speci specifically have it, Natal, is that is that something that you could theoretically put onto any dam in the world or are there certain places where it kind of fits or doesn't?

Yeah, no, it it it wouldn't be for every dam. Um the operating space it's quite broad, um, but but not for all. So the operating space we work in is up to about a hundred and twenty five feet of head, um, which is a

large dam for for from but there are hydro projects that are, you know, uh have much higher uh structures yet still. Um but if you're in that range under 125 feet of head, um that's the top end. And Um and yeah, we can do turbines from you know, probably the largest project we're contemplating right now would be over a gigawatt, where there's many um uh you know, we're talking

m you know, you're talking ten m a lot of these bigger hydro projects have particularly the run of river ones where again you can have five hundred megawatt, gigawatt runner river projects. Um They're on big rivers, they have many turbines in them. Each of those turbines tend to be, you know, somewhere between 20 and maybe 80 megawatts in individual unit output. And then you'll have anywhere from 10 to 20 turbines in a plant.

Um and so it's a pretty classic upgrade situation where um we think we've screening those plants is very challenging. Um, but if we again can replace old turbines in a plant like that. You can all of a sudden have a massive impact on environmental performance while also repowering it with efficient modern turbulence.

Let's really kind of tie all of this together. So globally, headwinds and tailwinds, like from sort of like a policy perspective or just sort of generally, like how how do you feel about the outlook? Are you feeling bullish? Like hydro has what it needs and it's really gonna take off.

Um, are you concerned about some of the challenges in places where there are, you know, I don't know, I guess environmental or other kinds of concerns that are gonna potentially present serious headwinds, um, particularly for perceived and not real risks? Or what are you thinking about kind of the overall picture for hydro?

Yeah, I am very excited about the future for Hydro right now. I think that we face a there's a real material opportunity um to transform a massive chunk of the existing installed base. There's something like 130 gigawatts or so of hydro that is going to turn over here in the next decade. And i.e. existing operating assets need new s new equipment, um, real opportunity to make sure that those plants Stay online. We do not want to lose those megawatts.

um and that we can upgrade them uh for the next forty years of their life with fish safe equipment, with better forecasts, better, you know, better um data and analytics uh to improve their operations. So so very excited about that. It's massive opportunity. Um really important to make sure that it happens. I do think the concern is that um if we is on both sides, if we don't move fast enough to really make a difference in those upgrades, then we risk having

projects that continue to have more negative impacts on their on the river ecosystems. And I think the risk that extends from that is simply Um, more negative environmental performance will result over time in curtailment of the asset, which means then we're losing really good energy, um r you know, reliable energy that we need, um, which then impairs the transition to a uh zero carbon grid. So

Um, I think it's a risk. Uh we do have a very big chunk of plants that need these upgrades in the next 10 to 15 years, and that represents a massive opportunity, which we're really excited about. About that makes a ton of sense. So just to bring this then a little bit more closer home too in the US here, um, what's kind of the policy landscape these days? Are there incentives for hydro in the IRA in some of the other recent legislation?

Are you part of the team that's concerned about permitting reform? What are some of the sort of good news and bad news stories with respect to policy? And what what in your dream world would you see with respect to US federal policy for hydro? Um So yes, I think in the infrastructure bill, which was passed two years ago, there was a very big chunk of money directly for upgrading hydro and making various um improvements and uh in in in existing hydro as well as advancing development.

something like two and a half billion dollars um of you know directed uh federal dollars out through the DOE primarily. Um So that's one very positive. And then in the um IRA um There hydro was included in the uh broad extension of the um tax credits that support renewable energy deployment. So that was a very positive uh move. And then there was also a big chunk of funding that went to

Again, through the DOE to a set of programs that are helping to fund um environmental improvement specifically at hydropower. So uh at hydropower plants. So some really good movement on policy. That's awesome. Okay. And anything that you're that you're waiting for, that you're hoping for, how do you feel about permit reform? Do you need any of that stuff? Uh regulatory reform would be

really great. Yes. I think the thing I'm more concerned about actually though is interconnection. I think overall I I mean, yes. Regulatory form, absolutely critical. But frankly hydro is um has been uh working hard on regulatory reform for a decade or more already. Um and we've I think made some good progress working with a number of stakeholders in the environmental community. So I think actually there's some really good momentum there.

Um interconnection is the thing. Interconnection is to me the element for new build, not for repowering, but for new build is really, I think, the thing that is is going to be a a huge issue and continue. Yeah, it it already is today and will continue to be a m major issue that has to be dealt with if we're going to achieve the velocity that we all really want to see with respect to um transition to a clean grid.

Well, you're certainly not the first person to say that in the context of renewable energy. So that might be that might be worth a whole catalyst podcast one day. Yeah. Um, but thank you so much, Gia. This has been a really fun conversation. I learned a ton and wish you all a ton of luck. Yeah, well thank you. It's a real pleasure to be here. Um I really appreciate it.

Gia Schneider is a co-founder and the CEO of Nattel Energy. The show is a co-production of Postscript Media and Canary Media. You can head over to canarymedia.com for links to topics we covered today. And as always, Postscript is supported by Prelude Ventures, a venture capital firm that partners with entrepreneurs to address climate change across a range of sectors, including advanced energy, food and agriculture, transportation and logistics, advanced materials and manufacturing.

And advanced computing. This episode was produced by Daniel Waldorf. Mixing by Roy Campanella and Sean Marquand. Theme song by Sean Marquand. I'm Laura Pierpont.