The ironic, paradoxical, and hilarious relationship between hydroelectric energy and climate change.

Rob Hoffman
Jul 10, 2017 · 2 min read

As the Energy Information Administration reported on Thursday, “Record generation from both wind and solar as well as recent increases in hydroelectric power as a result of high precipitation across much of the West over the past winter contributed to the overall rise in renewable electricity.

Oh, the irony: an increase of renewable hydroelectric power due to high precipitation — a notable result of climate change.

Is this year’s high level of precipitation a result of climate change? Maybe, kind of, sort of. Changes in weather patterns usually have multiple causes, and in general, trying to trace back the sources of these changes is complicated business. Still, research tells us that rainfall is increased by 5% — 10% for each degree C of temperature increase. How much have global temperatures risen so far? According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “The globally averaged combined land and ocean surface temperature data as calculated by a linear trend, show a warming of 0.85 °C over the period 1880 to 2012.”

Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, has also noted that “Given the very large reductions in Arctic sea ice, and the heat escaping from the Arcitc ocean into the overlying atmosphere, it would be surprising if the retreat in Arctic sea ice did not modify the large-scale circulation of the atmosphere in some way…We now have a healthy body of research suggesting that we may indeed be already seeing this now in the form of more persistent anomalies in temperature, rainfall, and drought in North America.”

According to the EIA, hydroelectric generation represents “the largest source of renewable electricity in most months,” and “totaled 30 billion kilowatthours in March, the highest level in nearly six years.” Do you see what’s going on here? It’s the hydroelectric paradox: climate change = more precipitation = more hydroelectric energy = less climate change = less precipitation = less hydroelectric energy = more climate change = more precipitation = more hydroelectric energy…And round and round we go.

Is this a completely speculative, surface level, and useless observation on the cycle of climate change and hydroelectric energy? Probably. I still think it’s funny.

* (All emphases in the quotes used in this article are mine.)

Written by

English/Spanish speaking journalist and documentary filmmaker. Bylines in @Fusion, @POLITICOMag, @ThinkProgress and @ClimateDesk. Instagram @Robhoffman

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