Hydropower is a great source of energy that
doesn’t suffer the same intermittency problems as other renewables. But dams fail. A lot. About
95% of the existing hydropower systems in the States were built before 1995, and over half
operate using equipment designed over 80 years ago. This aging infrastructure can be not only
unreliable, but dangerous to local populations, human and animal alike. That said, hydropower
doesn’t always have to be postcard-perfect or 67 stories high. It actually has a lot
of room for growth…possibly by shrinking. That’s because small hydropower (or SHP) has the
potential to literally usher in a new generation. Several companies are working toward integrating
hydroelectric turbines on a smaller scale and with a smaller ecological footprint. Between
new designs like Vortex Hydrokinetics’ bladeless turbine and Turbulent’s snail-shaped
“fish-friendly” system (say that 10 times fast), there’s plenty of opportunity to
take advantage of rivers without having to worry about the safety
of ourselves or our scaly friends. So, how else can small hydro impact our
lives? And why should we give a dam(n)? I’m Matt Ferrell … welcome to Undecided. This video is brought to you by
Eight Sleep, but more on that later. Several of you have shared with me some
exciting developments in hydro power that looks to combine hydroelectric efficiency and
safety on a micro scale. These include the likes of SHP bladeless turbines by Vortex
Hydro (yes, bladeless) and the company, Turbulent. This video was also inspired by my
friend Ryan’s coverage on Vortex’s bladeless design a few months back. He goes into detail
when explaining the engineering side of things, so if you’re interested in the nuts and
bolts, be sure to check out his video. We’ll be diving deep into how these turbines
work…further downriver. But before we do that, let’s talk about why there’s so much interest in
small hydro and decentralization, and what’s at stake here. With SHP, nearby communities can
reap the benefits of electricity produced by constantly-flowing water without the typical dam
mainstays of high velocity, high volume of flow, and high…heights…otherwise
known as the hydraulic “head.” The hydraulic head is an important part of our
energy calculation. If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry, I didn’t either. “Hydraulic” is
… well … related to water. “Head” is the potential energy per unit of weight, so a higher tower has a
higher head. Potential energy is calculated using this quantity, and the larger the drop, the more
potential energy available, as any daredevil who rides over the edge of a waterfall will tell
you, if they can still talk after doing it. Let’s zoom out here for an example of just how
powerful these elements can be. You can’t get a much better study of hydro anatomy than
the Itaipú Dam <--e-tay-poo-->, one of the world’s largest. Situated on the Paraná River that
straddles the border between Brazil and Paraguay, this massive monolith stretches on for nearly
8 kilometers (or about 5 miles). It stands at a whopping 196 meters (643 feet) high. For
reference, if we spin our globe a bit to the right toward the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,
we can wave to the famous statue known as Christ the Redeemer. The Itaipú Dam is about as tall
as six and a half Christs stacked together. So, to say the dam has a huge head is a
bit of an understatement. And its flow rate of 62,200 cubic meters per second is
equivalent to about 985,890,099 gallons a minute. That’s 40 times the average rate
of the nearby Iguazú Falls and about oh, you know, half a million times more than
the standard flow of a faucet in the U.S. The impressive size of these dams represents a
huge capital investment, and they only work in certain areas. Thankfully, you don’t have to go
big or go home, dammit. With clever engineering, SHP companies like Vortex Hydro and Turbulent have
created turbines that can make use of shorter, slower streams of water, which means
expanded access to renewable energy generation in a much broader spectrum of sites.
In other words, there’s no need to go chasin’ waterfalls…and more remote areas can stick to
the rivers and the lakes that they’re used to. Let’s start with the Vortex Hydro approach. Vortex
turbines are a form of hydroelectric generation that has been around for some time. They weren’t
even invented in this century. But even though the technology has been around for ages, it
stands to be improved with modern advancements. Vortex Hydro is a U.S.-based company that does
just that. They offer the SETUR <--see-tur-->, a modern, bladeless turbine model that
is also a form of…vortex hydro. A team of researchers at the Czech Technical
University, including Miroslav Sedláček originally developed and patented this
novel design over the course of 12 years. How exactly do you turn a
hydroelectric turbine without blades? Well, before I get into that, there’s another
water based piece of technology that I’ve been testing and using for the past year that’s really
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recommend it. Thanks to Eight Sleep and all of you for supporting the channel. So how exactly do
you turn a hydroelectric turbine without blades? With the power of Charybdis <--ka-rib-dis-->.
If that’s Greek to you, let’s frame it in terms of the ultimate metaphor for Archimedian
mathematics: personal hygiene. You know the fun little whirlpools that we witness
every time we drain a bathtub? Well, in this case, it was whirlpools found along
the Vltava River in Prague that initially inspired Sedláček to study vortexes
in hopes of harnessing their energy. So, imagine what would happen if you
stuck a rotor (stay with me here) in these swirling waves. It would
pretty much look like this... Now that we’ve got the ball rolling…we
can talk about the rolling fluid turbine, as the SETUR was initially called. Basically,
flowing water sets the rotor into two types of motion — it rolls around the inside of the
stator, and the rotor itself is rotating, cranking the generator. It’s almost like a
basketball rolling around the inside of the hoop: the basketball is sliding around the hoop
as well as rotating around its center. Water flowing through the shape of the gap
between the rotor and stator causes a vortex that will continuously make the entire rotor
roll along the edge of the stator. However, it’s the rotation of the rotor itself that
cranks the generator. Rotation-ception! Another aspect of the SETUR that makes it really
stand out — besides its lack of blades — is that it’s not your typical micro-hydro system. It
doesn’t need a dam, though you can incorporate it in a water body that already has one. It doesn’t
divert from its source, though you can route water to it through piping. Instead, it works below the
surface of your channel of choice to create its vortex. As a reminder, if you want to learn
more about the engineering behind the SETUR, I highly recommend Ryan’s video. The inventors
also published a theoretical analysis on their design in 2022, because like all physics, there’s
still a sense of mystery to it. The SETUR comes in two models: the SETUR-M,
which is rated for 500 W (with a 750 W maximum), and the SETUR-L, rated for 5 kW (with
a 7.5 kW maximum). With the former, you can expect to produce anywhere from 4,380
kWh to 6,570 kWh per year. With the latter, you can churn out between 43,800
kWh and 65,700 kWh per year. The larger SETUR produces more than enough power
in a year to cover the electricity consumption of the average U.S. home, which amounted to roughly
10,791 kWh in 2022. But it’s important to note here that those of us in the US tend to use a lot
more electricity than other parts of the world, and one of the primary conveniences of SHP
is its ability to easily extend to regions without grid access. In other words, well-sited
SETUR turbines can mean more bang for your buck. And the SETUR definitely isn’t picky. The smaller
of the two models can submerge to depths of up to 50 meters (164 feet), with the larger able to
operate fully submerged in 20 meters (about 66 feet) of water. The turbine needs a minimum head
of only 1 meter (just over 3 feet) to function, and it can also perform in water bodies with
flows as low as 2 liters per second. You can toss a SETUR into rivers and irrigation
canals just like other SHP systems. It also has marine applications, allowing you
to harness energy from ocean currents and tidal streams. On top of all that, the
turbines can be arranged into an array While this is an exciting development, the SETUR’s
flexibility isn’t infinite. Though its models can make use of low-flow, low-head environments in
ways that previously weren’t possible with hydro, you can’t stick these things everywhere. They
won’t operate below freezing temperatures, and their official manual recommends
ice-plugging screens to protect them under these conditions. That’s one point for dams, which instead rely on reservoirs that are often
deep enough to avoid winter work stoppages. Then there’s of course the perils of sharing
the river with natural debris and of course, fish. It doesn’t seem that the SETUR has
built-in safeguards against these — rather, the manuals suggest using intake screens
and limiting the amount of water that flows through the system in order to protect
wildlife and the device itself. Even though a SETUR system probably has a significantly lower
environmental impact than a traditional dam, it still has the potential to negatively affect
flora and fauna both in and out of the water. How can we take small hydro a step
further in the name of protecting wildlife? Turbulent is one company aiming
to answer that question. Based in Belgium, Turbulent markets its submersible vortex turbine
as an eco- and fish-friendly form of hydropower. It also happens to look like a snail when viewed
from above. Or a whistle. Or maybe a noisemaker. The golden ratio. You could probably develop
a personality quiz based on what you see here: Any way you interpret its design, Turbulent’s
smallest version of its turbine only needs a head of 1.5 meters (or about 5 feet) and a
flow of 1.5 cubic meters per second (or 53 cubic feet per second). As a result,
Turbulent’s scalability definitely opens up a lot of possibilities. And like
other diversionary hydro systems, Turbulent setups involve directing flowing water through
a channel to its turbine, no reservoir required. So, how much power are we talking about? Here’s
how the specs shake out. Of course, you’ve got to fit the turbine to the job. Turbulent offers
multiple impeller dimensions to size turbine setups in line with the dimensions of the site
at hand. Currently, its power outputs range from 15 to 70 kW. It’s worth noting here that you can
also string together multiple Turbulent turbines along the same body of water. And remember, we’re
talking about a near-continuous energy source. Rivers aren’t as capricious as the wind, and don’t
shut down for the night the way solar panels do. In fact, Turbulent claims that a micro power
plant based on its tech can boast up to a 90% plant factor, also known as a capacity
factor. Capacity factor basically boils down to the difference between what’s planned and what
actually happens — just measured in electricity. It’s a comparison of a power plant’s actual
production versus its potential production, based on how long it’s up and running. For
reference, solar’s capacity factor varies, but on average it tends to lie somewhere
between 10 and 30 percent. On a global level, utility scale solar’s capacity factor
averaged out to about 17% in 2022. And while that sounds like a big negative, it’s
still a massive amount of power produced. That isn’t to say that Turbulent turbines are
intermittency-proof. The company itself notes that seasonality is still a concern. Water height is,
well…fluid. It ebbs and flows along with rain and heat. This means that in hotter summers, you might
have a thinner stream that leaves you producing less energy. Then there’s the problem of winter.
Turbulent has added a rubber coating on their turbines that act as a defense against ice. If
the water freezes, it expands against the rubber, squishing it without damaging the components.
The ice simply stops power generation. So, the design can’t completely defeat intermittency,
but it does extend the life of the turbine. With this in mind, you might be wondering: Why
bother with multiple mini-plants when you could pool your resources into one macro-plant?
Generally speaking, as factors like flow and head scale up, so does the amount of electricity
generated…but so do the dangers involved. Going back to the Itaipú Dam for a sec, this risk-reward
ratio is very plain. Between its 20 turbines at 700 MW each, its max production capacity tops
out at 14,000 MW, or 14 GW. Those specs provide enough to cover around 90% of Paraguay’s
electricity consumption and 15% of Brazil’s. At the same time, 13 years passed from
the start of construction to the start of operations. By Itaipú’s completion, the
project had destroyed the Guaíra Falls and consequently set off an influx of more than 30
invasive species between the regions that they had previously separated. On top of this, the
governments of Brazil and Paraguay ultimately displaced at least 65,000 people in
their joint effort to establish the dam. Meanwhile, it took the Turbulent team less than
a day to install a 13 kW turbine in the Ayung River of Bali, Indonesia. The turbine
supplies power to the adjacent Green School, serving over 700 students and staff. Better
yet, the setup doesn’t impact the ability of fish to move freely, and the river’s natural
flow is left undisturbed. That’s just one of many examples of Turbulent projects you can find
all over the map, from the Philippines to Chile. Thinking smaller rather than bigger also means
avoiding the compounding environmental damage that manifests _after_ the dust has settled.
Remember how I mentioned dam failures earlier? Since recordkeeping began, an average of 10 dam
failures occur in a given year in the U.S. Most of these happen at smaller sites, which thankfully
limits the toll. But when things at a major dam go awry, it can cost human lives, require extensive
evacuations, and devastate surrounding ecosystems. Overall, large dams can only be located in
specific places and can drastically affect the ecosystem. However, they generate a lot of
power, are less influenced by seasonal variations and are generally low maintenance, long-lasting
installations. SHPs are more flexible in terms of installation locations, since they don’t require
as much hydraulic head, and are easier on the environment. It’s good for the consumer and
local power generation or off-grid needs too. As of 2019, small hydropower systems (that is,
hydro rated for less than 10 MW) had a global installed capacity of about 78 GW, according
to the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. That’s quite a ways behind wind and
solar. Small hydro is meant to work in tandem with other renewables, though, and there’s certainly no
shortage of locations available for it to expand. But what do you think about
decentralized and small hydro? Jump into the comments and let me
know. I’ll see you in the next one.
