[awqrre]

why do you exclude hydroelectric?

[yessql]

Too geography dependent, and we will probably never build another large hydro project because of the environmental impacts.

[Animats]

Great quote: "All the good dam sites were gone by 1940".

The ideal dam site is Hoover Dam. One dam at a narrow point created a large lake with a high drop for power generation. No population to displace; the surrounding land is desert. Few other sites in the world are that good.

There's nothing anywhere near that good left in the US. China has some good hydro sites in the west, and they're building hydroelectric dams there. Million-volt DC lines going thousands of kilometers are being used to move the power to the loads in eastern China.

[danmaz74]

Not the OP, but usually hydro is excluded because it's "old renewable" and most potential sources have already been developed.

[ska]

Due to silting, most hydro isn't really renewable either iiuc. It's just looks that way for long enough that we tend to talk about it that way.

[snowwindwaves]

Reservoirs filling with silt may reduce storage which would turn the dam in to a run of river plant. Less control over when the electricity is made. Also reservoirs could be dredged out to allow the silt to continue its way downstream.