SEAPA will provide answers on energy and dam removal

By Steve Weiss

The escalating debate over projected costs for electricity replacement from four Lower Snake River dams screams out for fresh, comprehensive analysis by neutral and respected researchers. The Salmon Economic Analysis and Planning Act (SEAPA) recently introduced in Congress will do just that.

Last November, salmon recovery advocates released Revenue Stream, a compilation of earlier reports on the costs and benefits of removing the four Lower Snake River dams in southeastern Washington to restore threatened and endangered Columbia Basin salmon. Revenue Stream concludes that dam removal could be a financial boon to the region, rather than a drain.

The NW Energy Coalition, a region-wide alliance of clean-energy, salmon-restoration and consumer advocates, produced Revenue Stream’s cost estimate for replacing the dams’ power. Based on published materials, we put that number at $79 million to $179 million per year for 20 years. The lower figure represents a mix of 90 percent energy efficiency and 10 percent new wind power; the top figure represents a greater reliance on renewables and/or higher-than-expected costs for acquiring energy efficiency.

On March 2, Bonneville Power Administration issued a press release putting power replacement costs at $400 million to $550 million a year. At its March 14 meeting in Boise, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council received a report from its Independent Economic Advisory Board (IEAB), saying annual costs would be around $271 million.

What accounts for such disparity? Some is due to comparing apples with oranges. But the results also point to reliance on different sources and conflicting assumptions about the kind and amount of resources required to fill the power gap.

The IEAB, for example, bases its conclusions on a 2002 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers environmental impact statement, which incorporated the low and outdated estimate of available energy efficiency savings from the Power Council’s 4th Northwest Power Plan. (The Council’s 5th Power Plan, by contrast, identifies 2½ times as much, costing less than what public utilities now pay BPA for wholesale hydropower.)

While the IEAB reviewers noted Revenue Stream’s shortcoming compared to the infinitely more expensive Corps study, they admitted that the Corps study itself should be revisited.

Regarding BPA, it’s clear is that rather than looking at replacing the actual power produced by the Lower Snake dams, Bonneville modeled replacement of those dams’ virtually never-approached capacity.

Over a year, the four dams produce about 1,075 average megawatts of electricity – roughly equal to Seattle’s average electricity consumption. But Seattle runs year-round. In the winter and late summer, when Northwest cities need power the most, the Lower Snake dams can be counted on for only 425-525 megawatts. They have little water storage capability, so after a burst of productivity during the spring snow melt – when the region needs their power the least – the dams’ potential quickly dwindles.

BPA, however, calculated the cost of replacing the dams’ 3,400 megawatts of nameplate capacity … with 3,400 megawatts of new natural gas-fired turbines!  Bonneville compounded that error by failing to account for the surplus sales revenues those turbines would produce.

One could dissect Bonneville’s odd perspective point-by-point, but what’s important now is to move beyond the dueling studies to objective, comprehensive analyses of the costs, benefits and potential success of all the major salmon-restoration alternatives, including dam removal.

Studies by the federal Government Accounting Office and the National Academy of Sciences -- as called for in SEAPA now before Congress – will benefit all sides of this debate. It’s hard to imagine anyone on either side of the dam-removal issue objecting to studies that will allow our leaders to make policy based on facts and science rather than conjecture or prejudice.

Steven Weiss
Senior Policy Associate
NW Energy Coalition
(503) 851-4054

(Steven Weiss, based in Salem, Ore., is a senior policy associate for the NW Energy Coalition, a regional alliance of more than 100 businesses, utilities, unions, faith groups, environmental organizations and consumer advocates committed to a clean and affordable energy future.)