Where do you live in UK? Land isn't cheap, that's why most of it is owned by people whom owned it for generations
People get turned down planning permission for building conservatorys Nevermind a PowerPlant
Rate my idea
Chase Miller
Ethan Smith
Scotland, I've been researching this and it seems I'm not the only one that had this idea, and there are various private consultancies and businesses that are operating exactly what I'm describing in the OP in the 2MW range right across the Highlands of Scotland. Just checking it out there are A LOT of new developments of exactly this size, and a lot of new planning applications so clearly I'm not the only one that realized how lucrative this is.
Whether they're owning the dam, or developing the dam for someone else. And they seem to be receiving planning, probably the reason these consultancies exist is because they have the expertise in navigating the planning and environmental aspects of building a dam. So clearly it's possible but a lot of paperwork, and hoops to jump through.
Land isn't cheap you're right, but in the highlands of Scotland there is a shit ton of marginal, un forested, un farmed land which is used for grouse shooting at best, or nothing at all, it's wet, it's rainy, it's hilly, and good for nothing so goes for comparatively cheap.
Joseph Brooks
Hydro destroys river ecosystems by interrupting fish spawning
It's not green or eco friendly
Ironically nuclear is more eco-friendly but retards don't realize that
Ryan Martin
Fish ladders?
Alexander Robinson
extra expense and aren't very effective at all
good idea to placate the ecotards tho
John Butler
this is not uncommon. i remembered seeing stories about this in wales. i googled and found an older one, i remember seeing one from last year too.
news.bbc.co.uk
there are many(as has been linked already) projects like this in scotland. it doesn't need a river, it just needs a constant stream. one could power their house easy enough if they had a stream, but having a commercial venture requires much more water flow. it's a good idea for out of the way valleys, but there will always be objections, even if the valley only sees 2 people a year.
this argument has some validity, but not every river has fish, and not every hydro project needs a river. often a stream or a lake and a stream will do.
Matthew Watson
true but will a small dam provide enough revenue to pay off the infrastructure costs? I assume huge dams like the hoover dam have an advantage of economies of scale
William Jenkins
You can try and get planning permission from central government. They often allow it for the sake of boosting GDP now.
Colton Clark
Britbong here. Had very similar idea in the past. I'm somewhat interested in going in with you here (not that anything will come off it).
Jayden Adams
Well clearly these dams are paying off their infrastructure costs otherwise they wouldn't be springing up like daisies right now. I don't know what the overall construction costs are for some of those gilkes dams; I presume they're quite high because they are hiring in large plant machinery, and they'll be subcontracting everything down through so many firms, and everybody's taking their own cut. And I imagine there's a lot of cost associated with the turbine and power rectification equipment, but in terms of actual materials, it can't be stupidly high.
I mean fuck, if we just take this guys example: That guy is making a 40% ROI, his shit is completely stable, predictable and low maintenance. So if he's making a 40% ROI on a 11kw shit, then imagine what would be possible from a scheme with 200* the power output!?
It seems feed in tariff amounts are being decreased every year so I expect this to become less and less profitable as the government subsidise it less.