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Energy transition technologies, such as hydroelectric dams, have been seen as symbols of progress, modernity, cheap energy, environmental sustainability, and resource abundance, leading to overestimating their benefits and underestimating their drawbacks. In this study, we use the tenets approach of energy justice and a qualitative case study to explore, from a multidimensional and multitemporal perspective, the impacts faced by the inhabitants of a community located downstream from the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam. Through in-depth interviews and observations, data were collected at three points: during the late stage of construction (2016) and early operation (2017, 2019). Furthermore, we found that individuals face multiple and diverse energy injustices at various stages of the dam construction, and its severity changes over time. For instance, distributional issues were more predominant at the beginning of data collection since fisheries, their main livelihood activity was impacted by dam construction. Then, other justice issues, such as capabilities, emerged in the last years of data collection.

A persistent environmental concern for the widespread deployment of tidal turbines is the potential for fish and marine mammals to collide with rotating blades (Copping et al. 2016, Copping and Hemery 2020). This is a consequence of well-documented bird and bat mortalities around wind turbines (Smallwood 2007, Thompson et al. 2017), as well as fish mortality at conventional hydropower dams (Pracheil et al. 2016) and tidal barrages (Dadswell and Rulifson 1994). However, unlike hydropower dams or barrages, tidal turbines do not involve structures that channel all flow through the turbines. Similarly, while functionally similar to wind turbines, tidal turbines often operate at lower relative velocities and, depending on the end-use application, may be significantly smaller than utility-scale wind turbines. Both of these factors reduce the likelihood and severity of collision, but the knowledge base on this topic remains limited.

Hydropower facilities are often remotely monitored or controlled from a centralized remote control room. Additionally, major component manufacturers monitor the performance of installed components, increasingly via public communication infrastructures. While these communications enable efficiencies and increased reliability, they also expand the cyber-attack surface. Communications may use the internet to remote control a facility’s control systems, or it may involve sending control commands over a network from a control room to a machine. The content could be encrypted and decrypted using a public key to protect the communicated information. These cryptographic encoding and decoding schemes become vulnerable as more advances are made in computer technologies, such as quantum computing. In contrast, quantum key distribution (QKD) and other quantum cryptographic protocols are not based upon a computational problem, and offer an alternative to symmetric cryptography in some scenarios. Although the underlying mechanism of quantum cryptogrpahic protocols such as QKD ensure that any attempt by an adversary to observe the quantum part of the protocol will result in a detectable signature as an increased error rate, potentially even preventing key generation, it serves as a warning for further investigation. In QKD, when the error rate is low enough and enough photons have been detected, a shared private key can be generated known only to the sender and receiver. We describe how this novel technology and its several modalities could benefit the critical infrastructures of dams or hydropower facilities. The presented discussions may be viewed as a precursor to a quantum cybersecurity roadmap for the identification of relevant threats and mitigation.

In pursuit of a net-zero-carbon emissions economy in the United States, non-powered dams (NPDs) represent a large opportunity to develop hydropower while leveraging existing infrastructure. With almost 600 NPD sites in the United States identified as having over 1 megawatt (MW) of potential capacity, only a small portion of the total potential capacity at these sites has been developed in recent years. , Conventional NPD retrofit feasibility analysis primarily focuses on the developer’s perspective but fails to consider the broader impacts of developing a dam, including on the neighboring communities. This tool, the Non-Powered Dam Hydropower Development and Ranking Opportunity Tool (NPD HYDRO), allows users to prioritize or rank NPD sites for future development based on user-defined priorities. Benefits can be evaluated in several categories: the grid, community, industry, and environment (referred to as the four impact scores in the tool as discussed in Section 2.2). In addition, the tool provides the user with a qualitative measure for the feasibility of adding energy storage during NPD conversion, specifically battery, hydrogen electrolysis, and pumped-storage hydropower (PSH). By taking a holistic approach to the potential range of benefits provided by NPD conversions with results tailored to the user’s priorities, NPD HYDRO provides the opportunity for national-level screening and enables users to focus on the sites that are most closely aligned with their interests.

With this roadmap, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) hopes to assist the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) in improving the cybersecurity of hydropower plants across the nation. This effort draws upon collected data from the dams sector, from industrial control system cybersecurity threat reports, from similar work focused on neighboring sectors, and from frank discussions with owners, operators, and vendors. While remaining tightly focused on the needs of hydropower projects, during this landscape study and development of the resulting roadmap, the research team sought to remain informed by the larger energy sector’s vision and direction so that the topics and milestones may fit within a larger vision common to the whole.

There is a considerable amount of available but so far unused energy at U.S. non-power dams in rivers and streams and at canal drops in man-made water channels. Unfortunately, this resource is disseminated across thousands of locations, each with different head, flow, and site conditions. An affordable technical solution is needed to allow the widespread exploitation of this clean, renewable energy asset. Cadens identified large 3D printing as a key enabler for affordability and efficiency of very low head, small capacity microhydro systems (15’ and less, 100 kW and less). Debris mitigation is also critical for small capacity turbines to continuously operate at design conditions for peak performance and output. The overall long term project goal is the design of a highly customizable turnkey microhydro system with a cost-effective and efficient turbine-generator leveraging additive manufacturing (AM, or 3D printing) and suited for low head applications, and integrated with other power sources and with batteries for reliability, scalability and cost effectiveness. The specific technical objectives of this project were 1) to design and build an optimized 3D printed microhydro testbed, 2) include in this testbed, test and validate debris mitigation and fish-safe runner designs, and 3) lay the foundations for microgrid operation. Torque output, flow and power from the turbine were measured with a prony brake and a transit time flow meter. The optimized turbine runner and stator were connected to a generator, a load, and battery storage. In Phase 2, a full four-way microgrid is planned: microhydro as baseload, solar panels, battery storage, and loads.

The implementation of environmental flows (e-flows) aims to reduce the negative impacts of hydrological alteration on freshwater ecosystems. Despite the growing attention to the importance of e-flows since the 1970s, actual implementation has lagged. Therefore, we explore the limitations in e-flows implementation, their systemic reasons, and solutions. We conducted a systematic review and a bibliometric analysis to identify peer-reviewed articles published on the topic of e-flows implementation research in the last two decades, resulting in 68 research and review papers. Co-occurrence of terms, and geographic and temporal trends were analyzed to identify the gaps in environmental water management and propose recommendations to address limitations on e-flows implementation. We identify the underlying causes and potential solutions to such challenges in environmental water management. The limitations to e-flow implementation identified were categorized into 21 classes. The most recognized limitation was the competing priorities of human uses of water (n = 29). Many secondary limitations, generally co-occurring in co-causation, were identified as limiting factors, especially for implementing more nuanced and sophisticated e-flows. The lack of adequate hydrological data (n = 24) and ecological data (n = 28) were among the most mentioned, and ultimately lead to difficulties in starting or continuing monitoring/adaptive management (n = 28) efforts. The lack of resource/capacity (n = 21), experimentation (n = 19), regulatory enforcement (n = 17), and differing authorities involved (n = 18) were also recurrent problems, driven by the deficiencies in the relative importance given to e-flows when facing other human priorities. In order to provide a clearer path for successful e-flow implementation, system mapping can be used as a starting point and general-purpose resource for understanding the sociohydrological problems, interactions, and inherited complexity of river systems. Secondly, we recommend a system analysis approach to address competing demands, especially with the use of coupled water-energy modeling tools to support decision-making when hydropower generation is involved. Such approaches can better assess the complex interactions among the hydrologic, ecological, socioeconomic, and engineering dimensions of water resource systems and their effective management. Lastly, given the complexities in environmental water allocation, implementation requires both scientific rigor and proven utility. Consequently, and where possible, we recommend a move from simplistic flow allocations to a more holistic approach informed by hydroecological principles. To ease conflicts between competing water demands, water managers can realize more 'pop per drop' by supporting key components of a flow regime that include functional attributes and processes that enhance biogeochemical cycling, structural habitat formation, and ecosystem maintenance.

The current administration in the United States is actively investing in new technologies that enable hydropower growth and advance hydropower for clean, efficient energy. Transitioning Non-Powered Dams (NPDs) for electricity generation is a significant way to support decarbonization while meeting the energy needs of the people of the United States. In line with this mission, Oceanit has completed a Phase 1 effort committed to optimizing a nanocomposite surface treatment, DragX, for application to water conveyance systems to reduce frictional losses. The effort culminated in a flow test that showed significant friction reduction in penstocks. Friction leads to wasted energy.Water conveyance systems treated with DragX are projected to increase flow efficiency for transitioning NPDs, existing hydroelectric systems, and Pumped Storage Hydropower. During the Phase 1 award, Oceanit actively engaged with operators, owners, coating applicators, consultants, universities, and national laboratories in the NPD and hydropower space to define use cases for DragX. We have received positive feedback and support from the industry to continue development of DragX and have determined locations for pilot deployments of the technology to be demonstrated in Phase 2. By engaging with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and utilizing their analyses of NPDs2, Oceanit identified that out of the 12 GW of clean energy potential from the nation’s 90,000 NPDs, 100 have an estimated potential capacity of 8 GW. By reducing frictional losses with DragX, improving electricity generation by just 1% would translate to $23M a year of total increased output for these facilities (assuming an electricity cost of $0.10/kWh and 2,920 generating hours a year). This additional revenue could decrease the payback period for capital costs associated with NPD transition and eventually reduce the cost of electricity to communities across the United States. Progressing hydropower through NPD transition is important work for the broader public, the Department of Energy mission, and industry. Oceanit plans to continue supporting hydropower with technologies that promote efficiency, safety, and clean energy. Oceanit is applying for Phase 2 to continue development, testing, and commercialization of DragX in the hydropower and NPD transition sectors. The ultimate goal of Phase 2 is to deploy DragX onto penstocks in a transitioning NPD or relative platform. The data collected from this trial will inform the true cost-benefit of implementing a low-friction surface treatment onto water conveyance systems and prepare DragX for entrance into the hydropower coatings and materials market.

This dataset represents a compilation of two global and three USA-specific datasets of dam locations and their attributes. The major hurdle toward developing this compilation was the identification of duplicates within the source datasets, especially given the variable precision of dam location coordinates. The most immediately-useful product in this dataset is a spreadsheet (VotE-Dams_v1.csv) that documents the unique dams found across the datasets, their coordinates, and their ids within the respective source datasets. We do not reproduce the source datasets (GRaND, GOODD, GeoDAR, NID, and EHA) here, but their download locations are provided in the README files ('Overview' tab). Some of the source datasets are provided as shapefiles, which require geospatial data software to open (e.g. QGIS/ArcGIS for graphical display, geopandas for Python, rgdal for R, many others freely available). The provided README documents metadata of the source datasets and provides attribute-linking information (i.e. matches attributes among various source datasets that contain the same, or similar, information but have different names). Note that the README is provided as both .xslx and a collection of .csvs (one per tab in the .xslx file). We suggest using the .xlsx version that preserves images, formatting, and sheets. .xlsx files can be viewed using (free) Google Docs or Microsoft Excel.Finally, we provide Technical Documentation.pdf that describes the procedures used to identify unique and duplicate dams.The title of this dataset refers to our 'Veins of the Earth' (VotE) project, which seeks to provide a flexible, scale-free representation of the Earth's river networks. Dams are a critical component of VotE as they heavily influence flows throughout river networks.

Large-scale hydrological and water resource models (LHMs) require water storage and release schemes to represent flow regulation by reservoirs. Owing to a lack of observed reservoir operations, state-of-the-art LHMs deploy a generic reservoir scheme that may fail to represent local operating behaviors. Here we introduce a new dataset of bespoke water storage and release policies for 1,930 reservoirs of conterminous United States. The Inferred Storage Targets and Release Functions (ISTARF-CONUS) dataset relies on a new inventory of observed daily reservoir operations (ResOpsUS) to generate reservoir operating rules for 595 data-rich reservoirs. These functions are developed in a standardized form that allows for extrapolation of operating schemes to 1,335 data-scarce reservoirs—leading to the first inventory of empirically derived reservoir operating policies for all large CONUS reservoirs documented in the Global Reservoir and Dams (GRanD) database. Evaluation of the new scheme in daily simulations forced with observed inflow demonstrates substantial and robust improvement for both release and storage relative to the popular Hanasaki method. Finally, performance of the extrapolation approach for data-scarce reservoirs is evaluated with leave-one-out validation and is shown to also offer modest gains on average over Hanasaki. ISTARF-CONUS may be readily adopted in any LHM featuring large reservoirs of the conterminous United States.