Comments on: Restore Hetch Hetchy, one of the nuttier ideas http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2006/07/22/restore-hetch-hetchy-one-of-the-nuttier-ideas/ Jeff Nolan's take on innovation, entrepreneurship, tech and stuff that interests me Thu, 17 May 2012 21:05:23 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Jeff http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2006/07/22/restore-hetch-hetchy-one-of-the-nuttier-ideas/comment-page-1/#comment-12735 Jeff Sun, 23 Jul 2006 14:49:06 +0000 http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2006/07/22/restore-hetch-hetchy-one-of-the-nuttier-ideas/#comment-12735 Ross, To be clear about my post, I said that even the City of SF doesn't want to tear down that dam, which is an indicator of how little support this idea gets. Insofar as the national leadership, Democrat and Republican, I think it's pretty clear from the silence or the vocal opposition that they don't see this as a good move. Yes, it is an incredible resource and the fact that there has been a lake in that valley since 1923 (give or take a few years) hasn't meant that the resource is unavailable or somehow scarring the landscape. It is still an incredible natural resource, dam or not. In my mind this is not about the money, it's about the lack of acceptable alternatives. You will notice that I never said never, I focused on our needs today and the fact that this is providing water and electricity that will can ill afford to lose (blackouts last night serve as a reminder of that point ). Let's speculate that in 20-30 years we have abundant clean energy (which is what you are taking out of the system by tearing down O'Shaughnessey) and a desalination process that not only delivers adequate water supplies of high quality without having a unusable waste product to deal with, and lastly, doesn't require the building of an entirely new distribution system... then I would consider the proposal that the Restore Hetch Hetchy group puts forward. Today, that technology isn't available for the scale that we would require and the energy needs alone couple with the lack of adequate generation capacity make it a nonstarter anyway. But politicians don't plan on 20-30 year cycles so this speculation is idle and academic at best, and the Restore Hetch Hetchy group hasn't put forward ideas for alternatives, just requests for more study and of course requests for money to be spent studying an idea that is not going to happen anytime soon, maybe not even in my lifetime. Let's agree that we should be solving infrastructure problems today that are real problems, not just the wishes of fringe groups. This state will be going through another growth phase that will bring the population to 50 million people in the coming decades, quite honestly I see the removal of infrastructure that is not only vital but also clean to be shortsighted and reckless. Ross,
To be clear about my post, I said that even the City of SF doesn’t want to tear down that dam, which is an indicator of how little support this idea gets. Insofar as the national leadership, Democrat and Republican, I think it’s pretty clear from the silence or the vocal opposition that they don’t see this as a good move.

Yes, it is an incredible resource and the fact that there has been a lake in that valley since 1923 (give or take a few years) hasn’t meant that the resource is unavailable or somehow scarring the landscape. It is still an incredible natural resource, dam or not.

In my mind this is not about the money, it’s about the lack of acceptable alternatives. You will notice that I never said never, I focused on our needs today and the fact that this is providing water and electricity that will can ill afford to lose (blackouts last night serve as a reminder of that point ).

Let’s speculate that in 20-30 years we have abundant clean energy (which is what you are taking out of the system by tearing down O’Shaughnessey) and a desalination process that not only delivers adequate water supplies of high quality without having a unusable waste product to deal with, and lastly, doesn’t require the building of an entirely new distribution system… then I would consider the proposal that the Restore Hetch Hetchy group puts forward. Today, that technology isn’t available for the scale that we would require and the energy needs alone couple with the lack of adequate generation capacity make it a nonstarter anyway. But politicians don’t plan on 20-30 year cycles so this speculation is idle and academic at best, and the Restore Hetch Hetchy group hasn’t put forward ideas for alternatives, just requests for more study and of course requests for money to be spent studying an idea that is not going to happen anytime soon, maybe not even in my lifetime.

Let’s agree that we should be solving infrastructure problems today that are real problems, not just the wishes of fringe groups. This state will be going through another growth phase that will bring the population to 50 million people in the coming decades, quite honestly I see the removal of infrastructure that is not only vital but also clean to be shortsighted and reckless.

]]> By: Ross Mayfield http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2006/07/22/restore-hetch-hetchy-one-of-the-nuttier-ideas/comment-page-1/#comment-12658 Ross Mayfield Sun, 23 Jul 2006 06:08:14 +0000 http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2006/07/22/restore-hetch-hetchy-one-of-the-nuttier-ideas/#comment-12658 This may not be the time, or the plan, to do this right. But, come on, should this never be done? It is an incredible resource, not necessarily for water. Cadillac Desert tells us the tragedy is how permanent the scars of infighting between men is upon the environment. Sure the SF "socialists" don't want to bear the expense. Where is the National leadership to restore what it owns? This is a conflict of burden that leaves treasure forsaken. Give it time, but not too much, and there will be a way. But reactions like this keep us from having a will. This may not be the time, or the plan, to do this right. But, come on, should this never be done? It is an incredible resource, not necessarily for water. Cadillac Desert tells us the tragedy is how permanent the scars of infighting between men is upon the environment.

Sure the SF “socialists” don’t want to bear the expense. Where is the National leadership to restore what it owns? This is a conflict of burden that leaves treasure forsaken.

Give it time, but not too much, and there will be a way. But reactions like this keep us from having a will.

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