There is a lot of people not understanding what was said (maintly due to the video's fault) so I'll give a little explanation. They are removing OLD and SMALL damns, which were EXPENSIVE TO MAINTAIN, and were MORE TROUBLE THAN IT'S WORTH.
Yes, thank you for clarification of this fact, which the most of the eager leftist radicals (who - as we all know - are all uneducated idiots) failed to understand. The video itself have the same propaganda of letfist ideas
Those 3 little dams in Finland were inconsequential to flood control and electrical generation. Wise decision to remove them for the fish. Other dams throughout Europe have much more important missions as demonstrated by some deadly flooding.
I heard something about salmon "pens". When I was born, salmon was a special luxury. Now it's like hamburger. And with that blessing we have to listen to greener-than-thou idiots who get pouty about raising fish in pens. "Hey tree huggers! Should we outlaw cattle raising and go back to hunting buffalo on horseback????"
@@joaquimbarbosa896 Am I going to get an effing lecture from no-real-job YOU about how I have to contribute slave labor to your stupid sense of "fish diversity"?
@@joaquimbarbosa896 it was a Hydro-power dam, but a very small one in Norwegian scale and it was built in a way that made maintenance a nightmare and it was not easily upgradable making it more costly to keep up to date than what it made in power. also it's in an area of Norway where power is cheaper than the rest making even less economical combined with having a lot of people that hates what is needed to make the modern world going and loves to go about that loudly but loves every bit what it gives.
All dams have a lifetime, so it makes sense to remove them in a systemic way. Not all dams will be removed, but each one will be evaluated for various beneficial uses. PS - Appreciate how this video lays out the options.
I heard something about salmon "pens". When I was born, salmon was a special luxury. Now it's like hamburger. And with that blessing we have to listen to greener-than-thou idiots who get pouty about raising fish in pens. "Hey tree huggers! Should we outlaw cattle raising and go back to hunting buffalo on horseback????"
Misleading intro to the video. Showing some of the largest, gargantuan dams in the Alps. Not a single one of them is being dismantled. The video only shows small weirs or small to medium river dams (even here not really big ones). None of the big dams of the Rhine or the Danube are being dismantled. Dismantling these megadams would ruin renewable energy endeavours and sabotage the relatively eco-friendly shipping lanes … the video is deceiving to the last minute. Not saying the renaturalising small rivers is a bad thing, but this is not what’s happening to the really big and important dams.
Pretty good observation, but it comes down to just using unfit footage for the story. Renaturalising the small rivers is in fact the point, as the power plants on those ones generate hardly anything worth mentioning, while for survival of migratory fish and the ecosystem as whole it is of utmost importance.
these small dams are still an ecological disaster. They are too small scale to produce net energy these days and they obstruct some habitats. Small rivers are still an abundance source of biodiversity, probably even more so than bigger rivers.
California is removing large dams which is adversely affecting the area for wildlife, residents, farmers, and tourism. In the process of removal of the dams in California, countless species of fish died (salmon, bass, crappie, bluegill, trout, carp, etc). Also, countless other species of wildlife died and were affected negatively.
It won't be a revolution until we find a way to create abundant renewable power. Here in Sweden 35-45% of our electricity comes from hydro plants. Solar and wind can produce some energy but not enough and not with a stable enough output that works for industry.
@@WeiglerGodoy I think we need nuclear energy for a long time, but building takes time and most countries should have started building new plants decades ago
@@guerreiro943 The problem with solar and wind is that together they can't provide more than about half of the energy mix if the country has industry that requires precise power delivery.
Removing derelict dams sounds good to me but operational and useful ones? That is a much harder sell but perhaps we will learn how worth it it is now! Also yeah updating and improving dams with fish ladders is a good plan as well
@@bertanelson8062 I heard something about salmon "pens". When I was born, salmon was a special luxury. Now it's like hamburger. And with that blessing we have to listen to greener-than-thou idiots who get pouty about raising fish in pens. "Hey tree huggers! Should we outlaw cattle raising and go back to hunting buffalo on horseback????"
According to the map of dam removal in Europe shown in the video the most dams have been removed in Spain!!!! Spain - where several hundred people were just killed by flooding. Coincidence? - I think not.
0:32 is the Vajont reservoir. The mountain above it collapsed and sent a wall of water down the valley wiping out various villages on the 9th of October 1963. More tha 2000 people died. Since then is has been inactive.
@@Braun30 I heard something about salmon "pens". When I was born, salmon was a special luxury. Now it's like hamburger. And with that blessing we have to listen to greener-than-thou idiots who get pouty about raising fish in pens. "Hey tree huggers! Should we outlaw cattle raising and go back to hunting buffalo on horseback????"
We made a camping trip around the Olympic Peninsula one spring. Both the Elwha and the Glines Canyon dams were still in place at that time. The videos were fascinating. We haven't made another trip after the removals. Maybe soon.
@@philiphorner31 They were not making electricity. They were for originally flood control. The lower dam was so silted up it wasn't any use for that anymore.
I am concerned that many dams being removed will reduce hydroelectricity production. Which is more important, clean renewable hydropower or no electricity? Some day they might build a power plant of some type to replace the lost electrical power , but it will be years later, if ever. Don't forget these dams also provide drinking water and storm water storage. Some dams also allow for ships and barges to transport goods further inland. Fish ladders might be possible at some dams. There are dams that are no longer serving any purpose and are costly to repair or replace and should be removed. Each dam needs to be evaluated fully and not just because it's a man made structure.
But that is exactly WHY they are doing it; to degrade and diminish humanity. Just watch for the RESULTS of this insane policy. Here the Klamath dams were removed, transforming the whole area into what is known as The River of Death. Toxic sediment did not go away, and it has eliminated the local ecology. The miniature dams shown here are just the begining; the goal is to make it impossible for rural folk to live outside the urban hive. This is a MALTHUSIAN offensive, and humanity itself is what they mean to reduce, grind-down and crush.
The literature specifies 150K barriers in the water, including very small ones, but I guess it's too hard to make an accurate video for RUclips nowadays.
Best flood control is reinstating swamps and beaver activity along wetlands and smaller waterways. Let’s relocate the human structures which are within the hundred year flood zones and use them for wildlife and permaculture areas… benefiting everyone!
Common sense is hard to come by. Engineers are typically in charge. Most are hardly environmental educated. Add a biologist and others to produce a much more effective solutions at lower cost.
There’s no reason for power generation. Burn wood and cook fish. That’s what we did thousand years ago and we are very progressively moving backwards. It’s better to be simple part of harmonious nature rather than being exceptionally well off in dead desert.
In Sweden about 90% of the dams only produce 10% of the hydropower simply because most are tiny installations roughly on-par with a wind turbine. Not exactly good resource prioritization.
When you mentioned Ukraine, i started to think about destruction of Nova-Kakhovka dam, which completely drained huge reservoir leaving only a small portion of Dnipro‘s stream. BTW, this demolition wasn’t made in an eco-friendly way and caused massive destruction.
My only issue with this video is there is no comparisons in cost. You tell us how expensive removal is, but is that more than it cost to build it? For that matter tearing them down is difficult, but more difficult than building them?
Concrete in dams naturally degrades over time which is one reason for dam removal and it was mentioned in the video. Better to remove a dam ahead of time as opposed to the dam collapsing and causing more serious problems.
My point is merely What did it cost to build? They said is costs $XX to tear down, is that more or less than it cost to build? That is it. Not if it should be or not. Hell, I live in Alaska, near a Salmon breeding area. I get the damage that they do. All I asked for was the building cost folks.
Some dams are important. But it has long been recognized that dams destroy rivers in the long term. We should be more selective about when we use them. There is a similar situation in Japan, where there are too many old, obsolete dams, that neither generate a lot of electricity nor can they continue to provide adequate flood control in their diminished state.
There must be a negative impact from removing these dams. They were built for a purpose so it would be interesting to know why those purposes are no longer valid.
Electricty generation, flood control, water supply. We can look forward to ever higher energy and water bills, higher insurance costs to pay for all the flood claims, and more expe4nsive food, since these dams are often the source of water for agriculture.
@@hugheaston7598Most dams that need removal are smaller, maybe generated a dozen KW of power, or were built to run water mills, make large basins for canal boats and feeding canal systems. I'd scarcely think anyone's going to remove something that's making hundreds of KW to MW's of electricity, particularly when stable dispatchable generation that a large hydro dam provides is increasingly valuable.
I'm thinking the Hydro-Electric dams were built long before they had the technology for Nuclear Reactors all over Europe. So, at least those dams are likely not needed anymore, or at least, not as many. Not sure about all the smaller ones though?
@@hugheaston7598 Many of those power generation dams haven't been in use in years some decades, one I know of in Czechia (that barely produced a few kW); over 100 years...
Europe’s Energy Policy : Get rid of Coal, Get rid of Nuclear, Use lots of expensive compressed NG, Get rid of Hydroelectric. That is ASTRONOMICALLY STUPID
If Europe had hoped that others will follow its example, that is delusional and a miscalculation, didn't Yanis Varoufakis recently said that, Mexican president told him that Europe is irrelevant ?
I find this comment thread odd and I think it is getting spammed by bots. Almost every comment says the same thing in a similar kind of way and the vast majority of the usernames associated with the comments have exactly the same format... Fake but negative comments. Why?
Other videos I've watched have a lot of pro-dam removal comments. I'm pro-hydropower so am interested in keeping dams that provide a lot of low-carbon emission electricity. These seem too small to be relevant to that.
Regarding the same format - was it just the basic YT nickname that everyone got several months ago, when YT did some unknown updates to our nicknames? I remember everyone getting this strange mess instead of personal nicknames, and most ppl since didnt bother changing those abominations
It's great that the natural flow of rivers is being restored but what are the solutions regarding power generation? What I've heard is that dams contribute a great amount to a country's ability to produce green power. With so many dams being removed, doesn't that go against the transition to green power? I don't know if I'm right about this but from my understanding, you'd need a lot of wind turbines to be able to generate the same amount of power that you can get from hydro energy, depending on the size of the dam of course. Which power generation alternatives will Finland / Europe rely on to continue meeting power demands after the removal of so many dams?
With a delusional mindset of California government and the increasing illegal immigrants adding to the population, California will be in drought soon enough.
Water problems and telling it's because of "climate change" ........ But it's because of cloud seeding removing dams ect ............. Removing the carbon and the carbon is you Bill Gates.... 🐑💉🧬💀
..believe that the secret of power extraction from rivers is the ancient principle of never taking more than a tenth from Nature. In the case of the river this means a tenth at one time since it is flowing and when it rebuilds its speed through natural gravitation the power can be extracted again further downstream. It just needs a horizontal wheel situated within the stream with appropriate armature to direct the flow to point of maximum advantage and for a honeycomb arrangement to be fixed within the wheel (and within the armature) so that the weight of the fly-wheel is provided by the water itself and if necessary can be variably controlled…guess this has been done in history but know of no examples..
what about a run of river power production system where a part of the total flow is directed in suc a way as to completely circumvent the natural water way. thi has been done in some places.
If you remove the hydroelectric dams that are at the end of their life are you likewise replacing them with other hydroelectric dams elsewhere??? Because you’re obviously NOT replacing them at the same place. If not doesn’t that cut down on the energy production?? Especially since it’s a “green” source.
We in South Africa are still building them and adding hundreds of illegal ones to the many legal but unsustainable number. Would that people had any idea of the damage we have done and are still doing.
For much of their lengths, many, if not most rivers in Europe were tamed not just by dams and weirs, but concrete banks along the edges. Then the 'safe' and dry land gets tarmacked and concreted for houses and businesses. Oh, and what then, FLOODS, because the straightened rivers run too high and fast and the concreted ground cannot soak up water
Being from Spain, it is not a good idea to loose the dams we have as we are a country prone to droughts and i`m sure we are going to suffer the consequences of this mistake. But hey, at least the fish will be happier i guess
Debatable , how can you tell if a fish it's happy ? Are we supposed to just project human concepts or associate them with an animal. Just look at that fish face, it's so fishy , so unhappy like .
This is horrible. As an engineer and an avid outdoorsman/ fisherman I care and understand our environment. Please do the calculations. Hydroelectric is the cleanest most dense energy source we have available. We need to focus other engineering solutions for wildlife. Also consider, what other energy sources are replacing these powerplants. I've seen many fossil fuel plants take their place. Cui bono?
1-Its not the cleannest 2-They barely lost any eletrical power. An engineer can't understand that 100yo dams don't produce eletricity anymore? Most dams were beyond their usefull life or to small to producw relevant ammounts of power
@@joaquimbarbosa896 I would do nuclear as 2nd choice. My only beef with nuclear is that it dumps a significant amount of thermal energy into our atmosphere via cooling towers or river systems in order to create the low pressure side of the turbine system. Hydroelectric does not add heat to our atmosphere or rivers to create power.
@@superlacrosseguy That barely makes a difference in the local atmosphere, it literally makes no difference in the global atmosphere. Also nuclear for one does not stop river flow...
How are you going to charge a 76 kilowatt Testla when the average house uses maybe 6 kilowatts per day if you remove the hydro dams and shut down the nuclear reactors. That's 11 times more power needed for electric cars. I know, ban cars. That's next. watch.
You have to ask yourself which ecosystem is more eco-friendly? A free flowing river or the reservoirs and straits from a controlled river? Then add the free energy into the equation.
I heard something about salmon "pens". When I was born, salmon was a special luxury. Now it's like hamburger. And with that blessing we have to listen to greener-than-thou idiots who get pouty about raising fish in pens. "Hey tree huggers! Should we outlaw cattle raising and go back to hunting buffalo on horseback????"
@@hg2. A fish ladder does not work for the majority of species and for the species that it does work is still prety bad. And no, its not just for "stupid salmon" its for entire ecossystems. And farming fish does not make the tiver ecossystem better
I'm very ok with that... but.. how about the floods? They were controlled, somehow, by these dams. Will it not affect the localities that are on the course of the river?
Many dams are not made to control floods. These kinds of small dams were built all over when we started electrifying for explicit purpose of electricity generation.
Scientists estimate nearly 1400 genetically-isolated Pacific salmon populations once spawned from California to southern British Columbia. Due to dam building and other alterations of lakes and rivers, 406 or 29 percent of the salmon populations have become extinct in the last 240 years. Surviving salmon species are heading toward extinction unless changes are made. Besides the human consumption of salmon, there are many other species impacted by the loss of salmon. The salmon haven't and can't adapt to dams. They simply spawn less or go extinct.
If they worried about the natural flow of rivers why not try to make an alternative path that allows the natural flow while still giving the power dams give from the water
If they’re now not getting their power from hydro, possibly the cleanest way to produce electricity, where are they getting it from…?? Also, riddle me this… why are man made dams which flood areas creating new eco systems bad, but flooded areas, creating new eco systems, created by freshly imported beavers (UK), is the greatest idea since the invention of the wheel…??
I mean if they are failing anyway they have to be removed before they collapse, i just dont understand why they had to be bought from the electric companies, it should be their job to remove them at their cost, they made profits for decades with it and now taxpayers have to buckle the cost of demolition?
Talking about fish we need to remember 100 years ago counties did not have border, only time will tell what’s going to be the impact on our global ecosystem.
Don't listen to idiots and demagogues, (like your PM Souteneur Trudeau) and you would not have concerns. I am an electrical engineer, who worked on over a dozen of Hydro-Electrical plants upgrade in the US. Yes, or course the electrical and mechanical equipment has to be periodically replaced with new, but -so far - even a 100-years old dam concrete structures hold very well.
With Europe losing water in recent years due to global warming, this might end up not being very bright idea. Especially since desalination plants are expensive (i expect somebody proposing more desalination within next decade and it will turn into blooming business throughout Europe).
Because the so-called greens don't actually give a stuff about the climate or the environment. They're communists in disguise, who are using the environment as an excuse to make us all poor and hungry so we'll be obedient little slaves.
Nothing. Listen once more to what he said. And look through the boolshit and decorations into a sense behind them. All the dams removed were old and small. Not optimal, not producing any energy or producing very little of it. NOONE is removing big, modern dam that produce significant amount of energy. They were way to important for safety reasons. Well, noone but russian army.
Are the waters in rivers with dams really more dead than in "natural" rivers? I think that the ecosystem adapts to the new rythm of waterflows. And I am not a racist when it comes to discriminating against life that thrives thanks to dams.
yes. it has to do with the water height. lakes are not common because water tends to "want" to run to lower altitudes and ends up destroying the sides of a lake through erosion over hundreds if not thousands or millions of years. and when they're natural most of the water in them flows underground. dams pretty much stop the water in an artificial lake made on a river, which if it is there it's probably because there's some material preventing the infiltration of all that water (not all of it mind you). This means we're accumulating water and organic matter in a place were naturally it would not occur as the amount of water flowing would clear them up. this is how swamps are made btw...a river flows into a field or a blockage makes it inundate the surrounding area turning the place into a swamp thus stopping the water and accumulating organic matter which incentivizes the growth of anaerobic bacteria and even makes those nice naturally formed methane reservoirs which then bubble up and you can see videos of people igniting for fun.
@@pedromoura1446 But is there LESS life in artificial water reservoires? Or is there just DIFFERENT life in them? Is there any objective measure of how that change of one perfectly inhabitable environment to another perfectly inhabitble environment "is bad"? In Scandinavia, forest areas that are industrially clear-cut have much greater ecological diversity than the natural hegemonic pine forest that monotonically covers 95% of the place. Could it be that dynamic human interaction with the environment can actually stiulate its diversity? CO2 additions to the atmosphere certainly stimulates all kinds of life on the entire planet. Especially in the Arctic and in the deserts. So hydroelectric power plants might be bad in the sense that they compete with accelerated CO2 emissions, I could give you that!
@@bjorntorlarsson on your first question. It depends on how the lake is formed and maintained but generally speaking it's worse because you need to compensate for the damage you caused. You need fish ladders to maintain the current habitats and even then a dam is a barrier preventing local aquatic species from moving around, you need machinery to constantly remove the sediments from the bottom and place them over the dam to prevent problems like bridges falling or beach erosion, invasive water species accumulate in these reservoirs which you then need to remove and eliminate least they spread, all the organic matter from wateaver was in that area is now being slowly decomposing in anaerobic conditions, etc. But you're also right, It's a different environment, not necessarily a worst or better one. that's a human evaluation of the current local fauna and flora because we know that we can make very rapid changed that most species cannot adapt to. and yes. There is a method to measure that :) it's measured in biodiversity. Generally speaking if something man made increased the number of species in a place without putting a strain in another species. for instance... Imagine you eliminate mosquitoes in a place but your work added 1 or 2 other species of animal to the location, mosquitoes are considered common enough that it wont affect their population and 2 other species moving in means you succeeded in increasing biodiversity of the location. This is a generalization ofc since usually biodiversity increase means you created the conditions for species that feed and control the less desirable or more common ones to move in, you do not eliminate them. The opposite is also true... By knowing we reduced the amount of species in a location we know we did something wrong and we need to repair or at least minimize the damage. I hope this also clears your second question.
@@bjorntorlarsson on your 3rd point... Unfortunately no... Co2 is to plants what sugar is to humans. We use sugar as the most basic energy form to feed our cells but you're only healthy because you have a balanced diet. If someone came and force fed you sugar assuming that because your cells use it then more of it would surely be good then you'd probably fall ill and eventually die. Plants react pretty much the same way to co2 (I can go into more detail about the mechanism by which plants consume co2 and why too much is bad for them if you want but I believe there's some youtube videos by veritaseum or scishow...?... that can illustrate it better than I could in a comment)... They've adapted to the current co2 levels and would take thousands of years for entire species to adapt to today's levels of co2 without facing extinction (especially bad if those provide food for us). Then there's indirect problems... Higher temperatures increase solubility of some minerals which can atrophy existing mechanisms or diminish the capability fauna and Flora has to absorb those essencial minerals, co2 disolves in water which acidifies it and has pretty much messed up the calcium carbonate (limestone) cycle which not only released more co2 (one of the many ways an increase in co2 concentration causes more co2 to be released) but also prevents animals that rely on shells from growing and reproducing (corals, molusks, zooplancton...) which in turn removed the food that other animals relied upon and with their numbers dwindling those above them in the food chain suffer as well, those animals are also responsible for depositing co2 through their life cycles so removing them also makes it harder to remove co2 from the atmosphere. And it's also going to make life harder to most of us by removing land mass, agricultural land, increasing the strength of natural disasters, expanding tropical diseases to places that didnt have them, reducing water supplies and even increasing human migrations because 90% of humans live near the coast and if their houses disappear they're not just gonna move inland and call it a day, they're gonna need money to recuperate financially and/or they're just going to move to places they see as both less likely to see that happen again and were opportunity to find a job and remake their lives is easier in their eyes (that means Europe, US, Canada...). Obviously not everything or even everyone is going to die unless we crank co2 production like a James bond supervillain trying to destroy the world (which, To be fair... I can almost see oil companies do since they are being almost cartoonishly evil...) people with money will live somewere protected and separated from those of us and life will adapt and evolve, even if only extremophiles survived life would find a way... But at the very least millions of human beings will die for no reason other than someone wanting more of a piece of paper for their piece of paper collection and the rich themselves wouldn't be much better in a bunker or a fenced property spending inordinate amounts of money and time guaranteeing the resources they need to survive instead of traveling and enjoying a sky trip or eating luxurious foods (which are also disappearing ironically or not). And it's not only not natural but unnecessary and preventable... Anyway... Sorry for the rambling by the end... Professional hazard.
@@pedromoura1446 CO2 level has never been as low as now (or 100 years ago, the oil industry has restored a more natural level thanks to recycling carbon to the atmosphere). When CO2 level was more than 4 times higher, a level that the oil industry unfortunately never can achieve, 100 million years ago, we had mega flora and mega fauna. Life was thriving as never before or hence. Politically manipulated computer models that have been totally wrong in every respect for over 35 years now, are of course nothing but obviously lying propaganda. The climate doomsday fraud is fortunately dying now. In a couple of years no one will even mention global warming or CO2 emissions any more. Now the uneduated looting psycopaths are going for the war economy fraud instead as their means to abolish all human rights and all industrial wealth in the Western world.
Until a freak flood raises a question - where's that old dam that protected us for a whole century? And if floods are not a threat (they are not in my area), media won't say a word, ever.
Good presentation. Thank for this. Three cheers to European dam removers! Starting small and working carefully are good strategies. Please keep up the good work!
So instead of maintaining those dam's pool, cleaning deposits and building water ways for the fish they just demolish everything and spended tons of money doing so as well future spending's all for sake of some1 doing all those jobs and fish industry.. In other words it called corruption and im almost sure those private donators are connected to fuel importers and sellers.
the fact that they could dismantle a dam with just 750,000 euros is so shocking to me as an American where it would probably cost us 10 million for something as simple as that
I'm not saying that there aren't places where dams harm the ecosystem, but what cannot be done is pressure for all countries to do the same without taking into account that there are dams that help alleviate drought and that they are in rivers where they cannot. There are fish that need to have free passage. Something similar has happened in the United States, in semi-desert areas, where beaver habitats have been restored, and by recreating their dams, the vegetation has been recovered.
Couldn't agree with you more!! Spain is comitting suicide by leading all European countries in the massive destruction of thousands of their irrigation dams, arduously built over the last 4 centuries, particularly in the driest southern two-thirds of the Iberian Peninsula. Utter nonsense!! (There are "water steps" devised for fish, so that they can climb even the largest and tallest dams since the 18th [Yes! Eighteen Century Spain, King Ferdinand VI, commencement of construction of the Canal of Castille, and many other hydraulic projects that came afterwards, all planned with extremely sound common sense], as you and anyone aware of some basic History in general know (or should know): The benefits of conserving water in a drying-up country + the benefits of keeping rivers alive). The explanation to the super-fast destruction of dams in Europe and particularly in Spain, and the 4-decade long blockage of the connection of the most important Spanish watersheds nationwide is thus clearly political - we all know the end sought by them global politicians with the help of illiterate local prime ministers: The killing of Europe (& the West in general) by way of the destruction of its component parts, i.e. the established European nation-states, and by the by, as many of their native citizens as possible).
That makes much more sense. There is no hard choice dam or salmon, there are ways to reduce or eliminate the ecological impacts while still benefiting from the dams. I wonder if sometimes the obosolete dam owners don't stirr up public support into financing the removal for ecological pretexts instead of having to remove or maintain them themselves.
In the map that he shows it says "removed barriers" , that's what is being done by creating canals and elevators for the fish , old dams have to be tared down because they are dangerous , every single country is building new dams and in the rivers that they are demolishing the old ones probably new , larger and more efficient will be built.
@@terra7066 That's what I suspected, there was a safety reason for taking the dams down, not the fishies. And yes, the owners were very smart to get the tree-hugging public to pay for the demolitions. Nationalize costs and privatize profits.
Fish ladders are just not as effective as complete removal of the obstacle. So if it's somehow possible, just remove the dam to restore former conditions.
I live in the UK and all we can say about our rivers is that farming effluent and human sewage due to illegal releases from water company owned treatment plants have all but killed our rivers. I used to fish the River Weser when I was stationed in West Germany in the 70s. It was clean then and is probably even cleaner now.
How is the loss of electricity replaced? It’s not going to be wind or sun as it can not generate that much electricity plus very unpredictable. Solutions needed before actions. Don’t make it up as you go
Considering the cost of complete damn removal, perhaps just releasing the lower water gates and draining the high level of trapped water is sufficient in many cases while still retaining the road bridge facility. What has not been mentioned is the loss of the reservoir’s water sports and lakeside luxury property industry that can often provide essential tourism dollars to the local area.
I think the key word here is Luxury. The ones benefiting from such would be the richer minorities, while restoring the ecosystem benefits the planet as a whole. Also, ask anyone who lives in a turistic location, tourists are the dirtiest, most disrespectful group of people that will kill your endanger animals for a kick photo and care not for what they leave you to deal with. Japan literally banned tourists from whole historic districts because the damage they did to the mental health of the geishas and maikos was not worth the buck.
They are taking Europes water storage away. Already there are never before seen droughts in Europe. Fish and power and flood control are only the side effects of damn. They are there to Store water ... No water no Farming.
I think this is fantastic! And, for those talking about Fish Ladders, it's about more than just repopulating Salmon. I can't wait to see the changes these removals bring.
I have often wondered if mining operations as well as the creation of dams would, even minutely, impact the earth’s wobble, with potentially catastrophic outcomes, as billions of tons of materials are collected in selected areas? Could these also potentially impact geological activity? I don’t have an answer, just asking the question to any erudite geology scholars out there. I have heard that the numerous pyramids around the world could have been constructed in specific locations to stabilise the earth’s wobble, but as far as I know that was only a theory. In any case, as we have seen in the past and recent years, dams can be potential targets for belligerent factions, the destruction of which could have massive potential to devastate huge areas and population centres. Possibly this is another reason they are dismantling some of these structures as the politicians seem hell bent on provoking wars.
Nation can go for multiple stairs dam or second river for habitat concept but distortion is not a solution as we need more power , We can study how to build dams that are in much favour towards nature than old ones .
How is this a great video? It's purely one-sided like some sort of anti dam extremism, not showing any rational discourse around dams, just cheering at their destruction for refutable reasons.
What surprises me is anyone thinks dams are green in anyway, never mind the enormous amounts of petroleum to make them. Companies pay to build them? In Canada "government"/taxpayers pay to build them, pay to operate them and pay for hydroelectric from them, companies pay little except wages, nice wages and benefits too. What if electricity can be harvested from the aether?
This is a good video for low information people that want to stay uniformed. There are ways to provide access for fish to get where they would like to go for spawning. They mentioned rerouting a river, well you can add a secondary or rerouted portion of the river or add a fish ladder and keep the clean energy source. And producers, you lose a lot of credibility when you show dams hundreds of meters high and then use 4 meter high dam removal as a key feature of your video.
Im wondering if gov. keep dismantling these dams, then how will they replace the energy they were producing plus what mssg. will third world countries take, because they built their dams with borrowed money decades ago, and now they are perplexed because on the one hand they have to provide cheap electricity to their population and on the other hand deal with consequences of soil getting infertile because of trapped silt and wildlife management...
There is a lot of people not understanding what was said (maintly due to the video's fault) so I'll give a little explanation.
They are removing OLD and SMALL damns, which were EXPENSIVE TO MAINTAIN, and were MORE TROUBLE THAN IT'S WORTH.
This.
Yes, thank you for clarification of this fact, which the most of the eager leftist radicals (who - as we all know - are all uneducated idiots) failed to understand. The video itself have the same propaganda of letfist ideas
Thank you!
Thank you, for providing the context so I don't need to watch the whole video
Thank you for explaining it clearer than the video
Those 3 little dams in Finland were inconsequential to flood control and electrical generation. Wise decision to remove them for the fish. Other dams throughout Europe have much more important missions as demonstrated by some deadly flooding.
I'm sure removing the 100yo dam in Norway was also a good decision
I heard something about salmon "pens".
When I was born, salmon was a special luxury. Now it's like hamburger. And with that blessing we have to listen to greener-than-thou idiots who get pouty about raising fish in pens. "Hey tree huggers! Should we outlaw cattle raising and go back to hunting buffalo on horseback????"
@@hg2. You do understand dams don't affect jusr salmon?
@@joaquimbarbosa896
Am I going to get an effing lecture from no-real-job YOU about how I have to contribute slave labor to your stupid sense of "fish diversity"?
@@joaquimbarbosa896 it was a Hydro-power dam, but a very small one in Norwegian scale and it was built in a way that made maintenance a nightmare and it was not easily upgradable making it more costly to keep up to date than what it made in power.
also it's in an area of Norway where power is cheaper than the rest making even less economical combined with having a lot of people that hates what is needed to make the modern world going and loves to go about that loudly but loves every bit what it gives.
All dams have a lifetime, so it makes sense to remove them in a systemic way. Not all dams will be removed, but each one will be evaluated for various beneficial uses.
PS - Appreciate how this video lays out the options.
It's all for those stupid salmon???
We have fish farms for those.
Why can they just build a fish ladder?
I heard something about salmon "pens".
When I was born, salmon was a special luxury. Now it's like hamburger. And with that blessing we have to listen to greener-than-thou idiots who get pouty about raising fish in pens. "Hey tree huggers! Should we outlaw cattle raising and go back to hunting buffalo on horseback????"
@@hg2. I think maybe, that 'those stupid salmon' may have a higher intellect
@@thejollygreendragon8394
Female?
[This is the type of anamist/pagan/human-sacrifice religion I can't stand.]
Leave it to the Beavers!
Misleading intro to the video. Showing some of the largest, gargantuan dams in the Alps. Not a single one of them is being dismantled. The video only shows small weirs or small to medium river dams (even here not really big ones). None of the big dams of the Rhine or the Danube are being dismantled. Dismantling these megadams would ruin renewable energy endeavours and sabotage the relatively eco-friendly shipping lanes … the video is deceiving to the last minute. Not saying the renaturalising small rivers is a bad thing, but this is not what’s happening to the really big and important dams.
Pretty good observation, but it comes down to just using unfit footage for the story. Renaturalising the small rivers is in fact the point, as the power plants on those ones generate hardly anything worth mentioning, while for survival of migratory fish and the ecosystem as whole it is of utmost importance.
you can report it for misinformation. I do that sometimes when it's about an area where I'm confident in my knowledge.
these small dams are still an ecological disaster. They are too small scale to produce net energy these days and they obstruct some habitats. Small rivers are still an abundance source of biodiversity, probably even more so than bigger rivers.
California is removing large dams which is adversely affecting the area for wildlife, residents, farmers, and tourism. In the process of removal of the dams in California, countless species of fish died (salmon, bass, crappie, bluegill, trout, carp, etc). Also, countless other species of wildlife died and were affected negatively.
@aliikane When did this happen?
It won't be a revolution until we find a way to create abundant renewable power. Here in Sweden 35-45% of our electricity comes from hydro plants. Solar and wind can produce some energy but not enough and not with a stable enough output that works for industry.
there is nuclear power.
ruclips.net/video/lhHHbgIy9jU/видео.html
Nuclear…
@@WeiglerGodoy I think we need nuclear energy for a long time, but building takes time and most countries should have started building new plants decades ago
Solar, wind, geothermal and nuclear are all good options.
@@guerreiro943 The problem with solar and wind is that together they can't provide more than about half of the energy mix if the country has industry that requires precise power delivery.
Removing derelict dams sounds good to me but operational and useful ones? That is a much harder sell but perhaps we will learn how worth it it is now! Also yeah updating and improving dams with fish ladders is a good plan as well
Fish ladders are areas where fish predators wait. They are not a very good option.
It's all for those stupid salmon???
We have fish farms for those.
Why can they just build a fish ladder?
@@bertanelson8062
I heard something about salmon "pens".
When I was born, salmon was a special luxury. Now it's like hamburger. And with that blessing we have to listen to greener-than-thou idiots who get pouty about raising fish in pens. "Hey tree huggers! Should we outlaw cattle raising and go back to hunting buffalo on horseback????"
@@bertanelson8062
As if bears don't stand in the water falls waiting to grab the fish as they jump?
@@bertanelson8062 Bears wait at the top of the falls the salmon would cross anyways, so are the ladders really that much worse?
I'm wondering what's the cause of all these floods lately ... 🤔
Possibly not building a proposed dam and not dredging the rivers
Nonsense!
According to the map of dam removal in Europe shown in the video the most dams have been removed in Spain!!!! Spain - where several hundred people were just killed by flooding. Coincidence? - I think not.
Migliaia di morti, danni incalcolabili , era questo che volevate per le vostre politiche neomalthusiane di ridurre la popolazione!
Dam it
It sure was a great Dam video
You God dam right!
0:32 is the Vajont reservoir.
The mountain above it collapsed and sent a wall of water down the valley wiping out various villages on the 9th of October 1963.
More tha 2000 people died.
Since then is has been inactive.
It's all for those stupid salmon???
We have fish farms for those.
Why can they just build a fish ladder?
@@hg2. they are, at least in Switzerland we are not tearing dams down.
@@Braun30
TG... so good to hear SOMEBODY in Europe still has some sanity.
@@hg2. actually a salmon "farm" is in a dam.
They grow salmon in sweet water.
@@Braun30
I heard something about salmon "pens".
When I was born, salmon was a special luxury. Now it's like hamburger. And with that blessing we have to listen to greener-than-thou idiots who get pouty about raising fish in pens. "Hey tree huggers! Should we outlaw cattle raising and go back to hunting buffalo on horseback????"
We made a camping trip around the Olympic Peninsula one spring. Both the Elwha and the Glines Canyon dams were still in place at that time. The videos were fascinating. We haven't made another trip after the removals. Maybe soon.
In Washington state, US?
@@Andrew-df1dr Apologies, yes, Washington State. There are videos of the dam removals and subsequent recovery of fish, wildlife and vegetation.
@@catherinespencer-mills1928 Fascinating. The Olympic Mountains a high on my list of places to visit of i ever come to your country.
You won't be making the trip using electricity made at the dam that's gone.
@@philiphorner31 They were not making electricity. They were for originally flood control. The lower dam was so silted up it wasn't any use for that anymore.
Europe wanting to speedrun deindustrialization.
europe want suicide
Couldn't have said it better
You haven't got a clue about Europe, have you?
Bro didn’t watch the video, which explains why
@@smallpeople172 he is not wrong, but (small) dams are not a very relevant part of that
I am concerned that many dams being removed will reduce hydroelectricity production. Which is more important, clean renewable hydropower or no electricity? Some day they might build a power plant of some type to replace the lost electrical power , but it will be years later, if ever. Don't forget these dams also provide drinking water and storm water storage. Some dams also allow for ships and barges to transport goods further inland. Fish ladders might be possible at some dams. There are dams that are no longer serving any purpose and are costly to repair or replace and should be removed. Each dam needs to be evaluated fully and not just because it's a man made structure.
But that is exactly WHY they are doing it; to degrade and diminish humanity. Just watch for the RESULTS of this insane policy.
Here the Klamath dams were removed, transforming the whole area into what is known as The River of Death. Toxic sediment did not go away, and it has eliminated the local ecology. The miniature dams shown here are just the begining; the goal is to make it impossible for rural folk to live outside the urban hive. This is a MALTHUSIAN offensive, and humanity itself is what they mean to reduce, grind-down and crush.
The poi t is to remove your electricity
@@junicohen7918 Yes, can't have the peasants getting too prosperous, now can we? =/
They are removed only old dams to save high maintenance cost only
Dams have lifespans though and end up full of silt.
europe has 150 000 dams... europe has 155 000 obsolete damn. flawless
Source?
@@realcryptcthis video
The literature specifies 150K barriers in the water, including very small ones, but I guess it's too hard to make an accurate video for RUclips nowadays.
It's just another of the crap fact verse type channel with absolutely no effort
Best flood control is reinstating swamps and beaver activity along wetlands and smaller waterways. Let’s relocate the human structures which are within the hundred year flood zones and use them for wildlife and permaculture areas… benefiting everyone!
Common sense is hard to come by. Engineers are typically in charge. Most are hardly environmental educated. Add a biologist and others to produce a much more effective solutions at lower cost.
And they replaced the power generation with nothing
Windmills when there's no wind and solar panels at night.
How much electricity was lost then you reckon?
Huge gains opening up migration of species in and close to the river.
i guess finland replaced them with a nuclear plant?
Most are small dams 3-5 meters high located on secondary streams, the production of electricity is negligible
There’s no reason for power generation. Burn wood and cook fish. That’s what we did thousand years ago and we are very progressively moving backwards. It’s better to be simple part of harmonious nature rather than being exceptionally well off in dead desert.
In Sweden about 90% of the dams only produce 10% of the hydropower simply because most are tiny installations roughly on-par with a wind turbine. Not exactly good resource prioritization.
When you mentioned Ukraine, i started to think about destruction of Nova-Kakhovka dam, which completely drained huge reservoir leaving only a small portion of Dnipro‘s stream. BTW, this demolition wasn’t made in an eco-friendly way and caused massive destruction.
My only issue with this video is there is no comparisons in cost. You tell us how expensive removal is, but is that more than it cost to build it? For that matter tearing them down is difficult, but more difficult than building them?
Building cost already recovered by producing enargy
Concrete in dams naturally degrades over time which is one reason for dam removal and it was mentioned in the video.
Better to remove a dam ahead of time as opposed to the dam collapsing and causing more serious problems.
My point is merely What did it cost to build? They said is costs $XX to tear down, is that more or less than it cost to build? That is it. Not if it should be or not. Hell, I live in Alaska, near a Salmon breeding area. I get the damage that they do. All I asked for was the building cost folks.
"How (And Why) Europe Is Removing Its Dams"
So they can re-discover why they built them in the first place.
They act like the people who built them were crazy. I am afraid that it is the other way around.
@@marof6 Its planned by the World Economic Forum. Alot of conspiracy theories about them. Like plans sounding good have a dark purpose in reality.
@@marof6 💯
Some dams are important. But it has long been recognized that dams destroy rivers in the long term. We should be more selective about when we use them. There is a similar situation in Japan, where there are too many old, obsolete dams, that neither generate a lot of electricity nor can they continue to provide adequate flood control in their diminished state.
you mess with the rivers and sooner or later nature will take revenge. It is already upon us.
1 meter tall structure is called a dam in Europe 😂😂😂
😂😂😂
1000 dams the remove now.look at spain
And is correct
Meanwhile in Romania, companies pump entire rivers thought pipes just for the renewable energy grants they get for the construction 😢
Dams have a high environmental impact, but in the end, can be greatly beneficial to humanity. We currently need dams.
Flooding Valencia region October 2024
There must be a negative impact from removing these dams. They were built for a purpose so it would be interesting to know why those purposes are no longer valid.
Electricty generation, flood control, water supply. We can look forward to ever higher energy and water bills, higher insurance costs to pay for all the flood claims, and more expe4nsive food, since these dams are often the source of water for agriculture.
@@hugheaston7598Most dams that need removal are smaller, maybe generated a dozen KW of power, or were built to run water mills, make large basins for canal boats and feeding canal systems.
I'd scarcely think anyone's going to remove something that's making hundreds of KW to MW's of electricity, particularly when stable dispatchable generation that a large hydro dam provides is increasingly valuable.
I'm thinking the Hydro-Electric dams were built long before they had the technology for Nuclear Reactors all over Europe. So, at least those dams are likely not needed anymore, or at least, not as many. Not sure about all the smaller ones though?
Valid is Agenda 2030. You have nothing!
@@hugheaston7598 Many of those power generation dams haven't been in use in years some decades, one I know of in Czechia (that barely produced a few kW); over 100 years...
Europe’s Energy Policy : Get rid of Coal, Get rid of Nuclear, Use lots of expensive compressed NG, Get rid of Hydroelectric.
That is ASTRONOMICALLY STUPID
If Europe had hoped that others will follow its example, that is delusional and a miscalculation, didn't Yanis Varoufakis recently said that, Mexican president told him that Europe is irrelevant ?
Spot on! 👏
@@Silvina46 If you find better options why not?
I find this comment thread odd and I think it is getting spammed by bots. Almost every comment says the same thing in a similar kind of way and the vast majority of the usernames associated with the comments have exactly the same format... Fake but negative comments. Why?
Other videos I've watched have a lot of pro-dam removal comments. I'm pro-hydropower so am interested in keeping dams that provide a lot of low-carbon emission electricity. These seem too small to be relevant to that.
Regarding the same format - was it just the basic YT nickname that everyone got several months ago, when YT did some unknown updates to our nicknames? I remember everyone getting this strange mess instead of personal nicknames, and most ppl since didnt bother changing those abominations
@@MonochromeChromosome Yes you've got a point. I now see they've stuck a number on the end of my name too.
There are bots, look at braun30 he spams the same text @@kitten_processing_inc4415
Its full of bots, and that is clear in their responses
It's great that the natural flow of rivers is being restored but what are the solutions regarding power generation? What I've heard is that dams contribute a great amount to a country's ability to produce green power. With so many dams being removed, doesn't that go against the transition to green power? I don't know if I'm right about this but from my understanding, you'd need a lot of wind turbines to be able to generate the same amount of power that you can get from hydro energy, depending on the size of the dam of course. Which power generation alternatives will Finland / Europe rely on to continue meeting power demands after the removal of so many dams?
In CA we urgently need to BUILD more dams!
CA? what does that mean?
@@reapersmercy7283 the golden state
With a delusional mindset of California government and the increasing illegal immigrants adding to the population, California will be in drought soon enough.
Water problems and telling it's because of "climate change" ........
But it's because of cloud seeding removing dams ect .............
Removing the carbon and the carbon is you Bill Gates.... 🐑💉🧬💀
That state has much bigger problems. 1.6 trillion dollars in debt. Who is going to pay for the dams.
i hve been contacting local councils about removing dams to improve fish stocks. We also have a video on our channel about it.
They should do that with the Aral Sea.
Yes yes!!!
..believe that the secret of power extraction from rivers is the ancient principle of never taking more than a tenth from Nature. In the case of the river this means a tenth at one time since it is flowing and when it rebuilds its speed through natural gravitation the power can be extracted again further downstream. It just needs a horizontal wheel situated within the stream with appropriate armature to direct the flow to point of maximum advantage and for a honeycomb arrangement to be fixed within the wheel (and within the armature) so that the weight of the fly-wheel is provided by the water itself and if necessary can be variably controlled…guess this has been done in history but know of no examples..
what about a run of river power production system where a part of the total flow is directed in suc a way as to completely circumvent the natural water way. thi has been done in some places.
Was that a damn Dam revolution?
*grabs his coat...*
Why removing it cost us again... Just keep the gates open....
Free flowing water is also cooling down the global temperature! A dam is like a huge heat accumulator.
They gonna to burn coal instead ? 😅
They will cut forests and build huge fields of solar panels.
Why would removal of what is essentially a 10m wall cost on average 6 million dollars?
What solution is europe using to tackle energy shortages after demolishing a dam.
If you remove the hydroelectric dams that are at the end of their life are you likewise replacing them with other hydroelectric dams elsewhere??? Because you’re obviously NOT replacing them at the same place. If not doesn’t that cut down on the energy production?? Especially since it’s a “green” source.
We in South Africa are still building them and adding hundreds of illegal ones to the many legal but unsustainable number. Would that people had any idea of the damage we have done and are still doing.
That is a toxic ecoextremist view.
Brilliant...Very informative
For much of their lengths, many, if not most rivers in Europe were tamed not just by dams and weirs, but concrete banks along the edges. Then the 'safe' and dry land gets tarmacked and concreted for houses and businesses. Oh, and what then, FLOODS, because the straightened rivers run too high and fast and the concreted ground cannot soak up water
Europe or norse countries?
Being from Spain, it is not a good idea to loose the dams we have as we are a country prone to droughts and i`m sure we are going to suffer the consequences of this mistake.
But hey, at least the fish will be happier i guess
Why is Europe so ideological braindead? Is it because you were successful for too long
Debatable , how can you tell if a fish it's happy ? Are we supposed to just project human concepts or associate them with an animal.
Just look at that fish face, it's so fishy , so unhappy like .
@@akmon3490 Forest , trees keep water from migrating fast. There are plenty of ways to keep drought from happening.
Dams should only be built by Beavers, Man is seriously asinine to mess with nature.
look at spain flood
This is horrible. As an engineer and an avid outdoorsman/ fisherman I care and understand our environment. Please do the calculations. Hydroelectric is the cleanest most dense energy source we have available. We need to focus other engineering solutions for wildlife. Also consider, what other energy sources are replacing these powerplants. I've seen many fossil fuel plants take their place. Cui bono?
1-Its not the cleannest
2-They barely lost any eletrical power. An engineer can't understand that 100yo dams don't produce eletricity anymore? Most dams were beyond their usefull life or to small to producw relevant ammounts of power
@@joaquimbarbosa896 What is the cleanest?
@@superlacrosseguy nuclear
@@joaquimbarbosa896 I would do nuclear as 2nd choice. My only beef with nuclear is that it dumps a significant amount of thermal energy into our atmosphere via cooling towers or river systems in order to create the low pressure side of the turbine system. Hydroelectric does not add heat to our atmosphere or rivers to create power.
@@superlacrosseguy That barely makes a difference in the local atmosphere, it literally makes no difference in the global atmosphere. Also nuclear for one does not stop river flow...
Netherland needs to do this too, who agree with me?
How are you going to charge a 76 kilowatt Testla when the average house uses maybe 6 kilowatts per day if you remove the hydro dams and shut down the nuclear reactors. That's 11 times more power needed for electric cars. I know, ban cars. That's next. watch.
What's a Testla?
@@ThenakedfinisherTesla company
You have to ask yourself which ecosystem is more eco-friendly? A free flowing river or the reservoirs and straits from a controlled river? Then add the free energy into the equation.
I think the video footage starting at 35 sec is from the Klamath River in Oregon, US.
Priority should be given to unnused, or abandoned dams. Those are just useless, increasing evaporation and disrupting river flow
It's all for those stupid salmon???
We have fish farms for those.
Why can they just build a fish ladder?
I heard something about salmon "pens".
When I was born, salmon was a special luxury. Now it's like hamburger. And with that blessing we have to listen to greener-than-thou idiots who get pouty about raising fish in pens. "Hey tree huggers! Should we outlaw cattle raising and go back to hunting buffalo on horseback????"
@@hg2. A fish ladder does not work for the majority of species and for the species that it does work is still prety bad. And no, its not just for "stupid salmon" its for entire ecossystems. And farming fish does not make the tiver ecossystem better
@@joaquimbarbosa896
Please spare us your attempts to impose human sacrifices base on you eco/animist paganism based on superstition.
@@hg2. When did I try to make human sacrifices? Removing non working or small dams is a no brainner
I'm very ok with that... but.. how about the floods? They were controlled, somehow, by these dams. Will it not affect the localities that are on the course of the river?
Many dams are not made to control floods. These kinds of small dams were built all over when we started electrifying for explicit purpose of electricity generation.
If the salmons could survive for centuries after building the dam, they have already adapted thenselves for survival
For eco warriers salmons are more important than people
Scientists estimate nearly 1400 genetically-isolated Pacific salmon populations once spawned from California to southern British Columbia.
Due to dam building and other alterations of lakes and rivers, 406 or 29 percent of the salmon populations have become extinct in the last 240 years. Surviving salmon species are heading toward extinction unless changes are made. Besides the human consumption of salmon, there are many other species impacted by the loss of salmon. The salmon haven't and can't adapt to dams. They simply spawn less or go extinct.
@@Silvina46 some people are less equal than others, so to speak 😉
The dams haven’t even been in place for centuries, so I don’t know what kind of point you think you’re making here.
If they worried about the natural flow of rivers why not try to make an alternative path that allows the natural flow while still giving the power dams give from the water
These ideas are far better than some ideas which has cost the USA billions.
It’s also helpful so when Russia invades they won’t have a target to attack
If they’re now not getting their power from hydro, possibly the cleanest way to produce electricity, where are they getting it from…??
Also, riddle me this… why are man made dams which flood areas creating new eco systems bad,
but flooded areas, creating new eco systems, created by freshly imported beavers (UK),
is the greatest idea since the invention of the wheel…??
I mean if they are failing anyway they have to be removed before they collapse, i just dont understand why they had to be bought from the electric companies, it should be their job to remove them at their cost, they made profits for decades with it and now taxpayers have to buckle the cost of demolition?
A lot these dams have way gone past their useful lives. It'll be easier to eventually just build a smaller number of larger dams in the future.
More ecological and more efficient
Talking about fish we need to remember 100 years ago counties did not have border, only time will tell what’s going to be the impact on our global ecosystem.
I think the real pain is the operating cost is escalating…
Wait, hydro-electric dams have a limited lifetime? As a Québécois, I find this very, very concerning
Don't listen to idiots and demagogues, (like your PM Souteneur Trudeau) and you would not have concerns. I am an electrical engineer, who worked on over a dozen of Hydro-Electrical plants upgrade in the US. Yes, or course the electrical and mechanical equipment has to be periodically replaced with new, but -so far - even a 100-years old dam concrete structures hold very well.
@@arney444 the last thing I'd do is listen to Trudeau, he screwed us and future generations :(
@@Welv1987 Thank you, you made up my day! Of course, we in the US must do our part and get rid of of that mentally deteriorated Joe
With Europe losing water in recent years due to global warming, this might end up not being very bright idea. Especially since desalination plants are expensive (i expect somebody proposing more desalination within next decade and it will turn into blooming business throughout Europe).
Our leaders are malevolent idiots.
What does everyone have against clean renewable energy?
All the lies it's been built on getting exposed now. Thats what.
Those dams were barely producing any eletricity
Because the so-called greens don't actually give a stuff about the climate or the environment. They're communists in disguise, who are using the environment as an excuse to make us all poor and hungry so we'll be obedient little slaves.
Blocking rivers isnt clean.
They could just use water pressure through turbines for electricity production
Nothing.
Listen once more to what he said. And look through the boolshit and decorations into a sense behind them.
All the dams removed were old and small. Not optimal, not producing any energy or producing very little of it.
NOONE is removing big, modern dam that produce significant amount of energy. They were way to important for safety reasons. Well, noone but russian army.
Man can u imagine the look on the fishermans face who doesnt know they are doing this and the moment it finally bursts hes going for a bumpy ride
Are the waters in rivers with dams really more dead than in "natural" rivers? I think that the ecosystem adapts to the new rythm of waterflows. And I am not a racist when it comes to discriminating against life that thrives thanks to dams.
yes. it has to do with the water height. lakes are not common because water tends to "want" to run to lower altitudes and ends up destroying the sides of a lake through erosion over hundreds if not thousands or millions of years.
and when they're natural most of the water in them flows underground. dams pretty much stop the water in an artificial lake made on a river, which if it is there it's probably because there's some material preventing the infiltration of all that water (not all of it mind you).
This means we're accumulating water and organic matter in a place were naturally it would not occur as the amount of water flowing would clear them up.
this is how swamps are made btw...a river flows into a field or a blockage makes it inundate the surrounding area turning the place into a swamp thus stopping the water and accumulating organic matter which incentivizes the growth of anaerobic bacteria and even makes those nice naturally formed methane reservoirs which then bubble up and you can see videos of people igniting for fun.
@@pedromoura1446 But is there LESS life in artificial water reservoires? Or is there just DIFFERENT life in them? Is there any objective measure of how that change of one perfectly inhabitable environment to another perfectly inhabitble environment "is bad"?
In Scandinavia, forest areas that are industrially clear-cut have much greater ecological diversity than the natural hegemonic pine forest that monotonically covers 95% of the place. Could it be that dynamic human interaction with the environment can actually stiulate its diversity?
CO2 additions to the atmosphere certainly stimulates all kinds of life on the entire planet. Especially in the Arctic and in the deserts. So hydroelectric power plants might be bad in the sense that they compete with accelerated CO2 emissions, I could give you that!
@@bjorntorlarsson on your first question. It depends on how the lake is formed and maintained but generally speaking it's worse because you need to compensate for the damage you caused. You need fish ladders to maintain the current habitats and even then a dam is a barrier preventing local aquatic species from moving around, you need machinery to constantly remove the sediments from the bottom and place them over the dam to prevent problems like bridges falling or beach erosion, invasive water species accumulate in these reservoirs which you then need to remove and eliminate least they spread, all the organic matter from wateaver was in that area is now being slowly decomposing in anaerobic conditions, etc.
But you're also right, It's a different environment, not necessarily a worst or better one. that's a human evaluation of the current local fauna and flora because we know that we can make very rapid changed that most species cannot adapt to. and yes. There is a method to measure that :) it's measured in biodiversity. Generally speaking if something man made increased the number of species in a place without putting a strain in another species. for instance... Imagine you eliminate mosquitoes in a place but your work added 1 or 2 other species of animal to the location, mosquitoes are considered common enough that it wont affect their population and 2 other species moving in means you succeeded in increasing biodiversity of the location. This is a generalization ofc since usually biodiversity increase means you created the conditions for species that feed and control the less desirable or more common ones to move in, you do not eliminate them. The opposite is also true... By knowing we reduced the amount of species in a location we know we did something wrong and we need to repair or at least minimize the damage. I hope this also clears your second question.
@@bjorntorlarsson on your 3rd point... Unfortunately no... Co2 is to plants what sugar is to humans.
We use sugar as the most basic energy form to feed our cells but you're only healthy because you have a balanced diet. If someone came and force fed you sugar assuming that because your cells use it then more of it would surely be good then you'd probably fall ill and eventually die. Plants react pretty much the same way to co2 (I can go into more detail about the mechanism by which plants consume co2 and why too much is bad for them if you want but I believe there's some youtube videos by veritaseum or scishow...?... that can illustrate it better than I could in a comment)... They've adapted to the current co2 levels and would take thousands of years for entire species to adapt to today's levels of co2 without facing extinction (especially bad if those provide food for us).
Then there's indirect problems... Higher temperatures increase solubility of some minerals which can atrophy existing mechanisms or diminish the capability fauna and Flora has to absorb those essencial minerals, co2 disolves in water which acidifies it and has pretty much messed up the calcium carbonate (limestone) cycle which not only released more co2 (one of the many ways an increase in co2 concentration causes more co2 to be released) but also prevents animals that rely on shells from growing and reproducing (corals, molusks, zooplancton...) which in turn removed the food that other animals relied upon and with their numbers dwindling those above them in the food chain suffer as well, those animals are also responsible for depositing co2 through their life cycles so removing them also makes it harder to remove co2 from the atmosphere.
And it's also going to make life harder to most of us by removing land mass, agricultural land, increasing the strength of natural disasters, expanding tropical diseases to places that didnt have them, reducing water supplies and even increasing human migrations because 90% of humans live near the coast and if their houses disappear they're not just gonna move inland and call it a day, they're gonna need money to recuperate financially and/or they're just going to move to places they see as both less likely to see that happen again and were opportunity to find a job and remake their lives is easier in their eyes (that means Europe, US, Canada...).
Obviously not everything or even everyone is going to die unless we crank co2 production like a James bond supervillain trying to destroy the world (which, To be fair... I can almost see oil companies do since they are being almost cartoonishly evil...) people with money will live somewere protected and separated from those of us and life will adapt and evolve, even if only extremophiles survived life would find a way... But at the very least millions of human beings will die for no reason other than someone wanting more of a piece of paper for their piece of paper collection and the rich themselves wouldn't be much better in a bunker or a fenced property spending inordinate amounts of money and time guaranteeing the resources they need to survive instead of traveling and enjoying a sky trip or eating luxurious foods (which are also disappearing ironically or not). And it's not only not natural but unnecessary and preventable...
Anyway... Sorry for the rambling by the end... Professional hazard.
@@pedromoura1446 CO2 level has never been as low as now (or 100 years ago, the oil industry has restored a more natural level thanks to recycling carbon to the atmosphere). When CO2 level was more than 4 times higher, a level that the oil industry unfortunately never can achieve, 100 million years ago, we had mega flora and mega fauna. Life was thriving as never before or hence.
Politically manipulated computer models that have been totally wrong in every respect for over 35 years now, are of course nothing but obviously lying propaganda. The climate doomsday fraud is fortunately dying now. In a couple of years no one will even mention global warming or CO2 emissions any more. Now the uneduated looting psycopaths are going for the war economy fraud instead as their means to abolish all human rights and all industrial wealth in the Western world.
I live in France and had never heard of this
The media never speaks of it
Until a freak flood raises a question - where's that old dam that protected us for a whole century? And if floods are not a threat (they are not in my area), media won't say a word, ever.
What power sources replaced them? Hopefully wind, solar, or nuclear
In Europe it costs $750,000.
In US it costs $750,000,000.
size matters
Corruption matters
@@RobinSingh-qp1lh unions actually.
Good presentation. Thank for this. Three cheers to European dam removers! Starting small and working carefully are good strategies. Please keep up the good work!
So instead of maintaining those dam's pool, cleaning deposits and building water ways for the fish they just demolish everything and spended tons of money doing so as well future spending's all for sake of some1 doing all those jobs and fish industry.. In other words it called corruption and im almost sure those private donators are connected to fuel importers and sellers.
No nuclear, no dams, no gas cars, and what's next? No computers? No planes? Wtf Europe?
I want to join in on this!
the fact that they could dismantle a dam with just 750,000 euros is so shocking to me as an American where it would probably cost us 10 million for something as simple as that
How big of a dam are we talking?
they were small dams and there were volunteers.
@@ChrisWijtmans for the ones in Finland or US?
Keep up the good work people!
I'm not saying that there aren't places where dams harm the ecosystem, but what cannot be done is pressure for all countries to do the same without taking into account that there are dams that help alleviate drought and that they are in rivers where they cannot. There are fish that need to have free passage. Something similar has happened in the United States, in semi-desert areas, where beaver habitats have been restored, and by recreating their dams, the vegetation has been recovered.
Couldn't agree with you more!! Spain is comitting suicide by leading all European countries in the massive destruction of thousands of their irrigation dams, arduously built over the last 4 centuries, particularly in the driest southern two-thirds of the Iberian Peninsula. Utter nonsense!! (There are "water steps" devised for fish, so that they can climb even the largest and tallest dams since the 18th [Yes! Eighteen Century Spain, King Ferdinand VI, commencement of construction of the Canal of Castille, and many other hydraulic projects that came afterwards, all planned with extremely sound common sense], as you and anyone aware of some basic History in general know (or should know): The benefits of conserving water in a drying-up country + the benefits of keeping rivers alive).
The explanation to the super-fast destruction of dams in Europe and particularly in Spain, and the 4-decade long blockage of the connection of the most important Spanish watersheds nationwide is thus clearly political - we all know the end sought by them global politicians with the help of illiterate local prime ministers: The killing of Europe (& the West in general) by way of the destruction of its component parts, i.e. the established European nation-states, and by the by, as many of their native citizens as possible).
Some were built to control flooding not just power
You cant control people by buying up all the water rights if they have a lot of dams ...now can you
They should have updated the dams and added in fish ladders for the salmon.
That makes much more sense. There is no hard choice dam or salmon, there are ways to reduce or eliminate the ecological impacts while still benefiting from the dams.
I wonder if sometimes the obosolete dam owners don't stirr up public support into financing the removal for ecological pretexts instead of having to remove or maintain them themselves.
Dams without fish ladders should not exist.
In the map that he shows it says "removed barriers" , that's what is being done by creating canals and elevators for the fish , old dams have to be tared down because they are dangerous , every single country is building new dams and in the rivers that they are demolishing the old ones probably new , larger and more efficient will be built.
@@terra7066 That's what I suspected, there was a safety reason for taking the dams down, not the fishies. And yes, the owners were very smart to get the tree-hugging public to pay for the demolitions. Nationalize costs and privatize profits.
Fish ladders are just not as effective as complete removal of the obstacle. So if it's somehow possible, just remove the dam to restore former conditions.
I live in the UK and all we can say about our rivers is that farming effluent and human sewage due to illegal releases from water company owned treatment plants have all but killed our rivers. I used to fish the River Weser when I was stationed in West Germany in the 70s. It was clean then and is probably even cleaner now.
evil high " elite " rules 😢
Removing old uneconomical dams, some dams are being replaced with new ones! but also incorporating fish steps so wildlife isn't effected.
How is the loss of electricity replaced? It’s not going to be wind or sun as it can not generate that much electricity plus very unpredictable. Solutions needed before actions. Don’t make it up as you go
Narrator missed so many dam jokes, and puns lol
Considering the cost of complete damn removal, perhaps just releasing the lower water gates and draining the high level of trapped water is sufficient in many cases while still retaining the road bridge facility. What has not been mentioned is the loss of the reservoir’s water sports and lakeside luxury property industry that can often provide essential tourism dollars to the local area.
fish :(
@@fico1557 no worry fish will still be on plate in restaurant for tourist
I think the key word here is Luxury.
The ones benefiting from such would be the richer minorities, while restoring the ecosystem benefits the planet as a whole.
Also, ask anyone who lives in a turistic location, tourists are the dirtiest, most disrespectful group of people that will kill your endanger animals for a kick photo and care not for what they leave you to deal with. Japan literally banned tourists from whole historic districts because the damage they did to the mental health of the geishas and maikos was not worth the buck.
They are taking Europes water storage away. Already there are never before seen droughts in Europe. Fish and power and flood control are only the side effects of damn. They are there to Store water ... No water no Farming.
I think this is fantastic! And, for those talking about Fish Ladders, it's about more than just repopulating Salmon. I can't wait to see the changes these removals bring.
None to the cities, where majority of people never go and see natural world
I have often wondered if mining operations as well as the creation of dams would, even minutely, impact the earth’s wobble, with potentially catastrophic outcomes, as billions of tons of materials are collected in selected areas? Could these also potentially impact geological activity? I don’t have an answer, just asking the question to any erudite geology scholars out there. I have heard that the numerous pyramids around the world could have been constructed in specific locations to stabilise the earth’s wobble, but as far as I know that was only a theory. In any case, as we have seen in the past and recent years, dams can be potential targets for belligerent factions, the destruction of which could have massive potential to devastate huge areas and population centres. Possibly this is another reason they are dismantling some of these structures as the politicians seem hell bent on provoking wars.
So what about the lost of power generation and have there been issues with flooding that wasnt there before
lots of them were lost their usefullness and are obsolete so the power that was lost is almost none
Nation can go for multiple stairs dam or second river for habitat concept but distortion is not a solution as we need more power , We can study how to build dams that are in much favour towards nature than old ones .
Great video! We would love to share it on our channels. How can we get in touch with the video owner?
Oh, there's a whole movement behind that bs? Who would've guessed... 🙈
How is this a great video? It's purely one-sided like some sort of anti dam extremism, not showing any rational discourse around dams, just cheering at their destruction for refutable reasons.
What surprises me is anyone thinks dams are green in anyway, never mind the enormous amounts of petroleum to make them.
Companies pay to build them? In Canada "government"/taxpayers pay to build them, pay to operate them and pay for hydroelectric from them, companies pay little except wages, nice wages and benefits too.
What if electricity can be harvested from the aether?
This is a good video for low information people that want to stay uniformed. There are ways to provide access for fish to get where they would like to go for spawning. They mentioned rerouting a river, well you can add a secondary or rerouted portion of the river or add a fish ladder and keep the clean energy source.
And producers, you lose a lot of credibility when you show dams hundreds of meters high and then use 4 meter high dam removal as a key feature of your video.
removing stored water turning up the price
Im wondering if gov. keep dismantling these dams, then how will they replace the energy they were producing plus what mssg. will third world countries take, because they built their dams with borrowed money decades ago, and now they are perplexed because on the one hand they have to provide cheap electricity to their population and on the other hand deal with consequences of soil getting infertile because of trapped silt and wildlife management...
As we see now in Spain this is an absurd plan.
Can engineers design those dam projects to be easy to dismantle or assembled.
No. Absolutely technically unfeasible.
didn't England remove one for Germany about 80 years ago lol
The Barnes Wallis method is the most efficient.
Why built them if it was okay to demolish it?