Wednesday Week Eight

...questions...

1. (continuing from Friday) Why is the distribution of US dams by completion date important? Why is it particularly important for some of our large hydroelectric dam in the West?

2. Why is the timing of the construction of the Hoover Dam (1931-6) important? Was $4/day a a good wage back in the 1930s? Could the Hoover Dam be built today?

3.Why is the timing of the completion of the Grand Coulee Dam important in US (and World) history? Is there such a thing as "extra" generation capacity? 

4. What is meant by "life-cycle" emissions of carbon dioxide equivalent? Why is hydro lowish but not zero?

5. (Exam stuff) Who (according to our class) is most at fault for the WV Water Crisis? What are men and seniors more likely to argue that the water being supplied by the WVAWC is "safe"? NPR report asking this same question more recently... The source water assessment report from 2002 that I used for the final question on our midterm is here (.pdf). The new one that Downstream Strategies published after our exam is here (.pdf). 

Slides from today are on Sakai. Your assigned reading for Friday is The Beautiful and the Dammed by Patrick Symmes in the June 2010 issue of Outside Magazine.