Gia Schneider, CEO of Natel Energy, discusses nature-based watershed restoration and groundwater replenishment mechanisms with host Laura Pierpoint.
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Schneider: A Snow-Free Sierra Nevada May Be Only a Decade Away
“And I think that the urgency around those reservoirs has increased as some of the science has become more clear that the prospect of a snow-free Sierra is something that unfortunately is probably not hundreds of years away, but is, you know, something again th…”
Insight
Schneider: Scaling hydro requires shifting from megaprojects to distributed projects
“The way in which we're going to increase capacity is, we firmly believe, A shift that moves away from just building megaprojects, and instead looks at building projects that are more distributed in nature, and, which means smaller by moving to smaller projects…”
Insight
Schneider: Dam ecological impact depends on water flow design, not size
“That again, as we've dug into this more, is that there, it does, it seems very clear as you dig into the science around the fact that there are small dams that have major negative impacts. It's not a size thing. You could have big dams, you could have small da…”
Assertion Supported
Schneider: Natel's hydro turbine blades achieve over 99% fish safety
“And those two things basically, you know, create a turbine blade that has now been shown many times over to be greater than 99% safe for fish passage.”
Assertion Partly supported
Schneider: Hydro and gas dispatch in parallel across US power markets
“If you looked last summer in the United States, in every power market where you have hydro and you've, you pulled up the dispatch curve, the daily dispatch curve of assets in a particular ISO, what you'd see is if you have hydro and you have gas, Hydro and gas…”
Assertion Contradicted
Schneider: Aswan Dam Lost Hydropower Productivity Due to Rapid Silt Buildup
“In the Aswan example, for example, there's so much silt moving in the river, that, that, you know, a side effect of that dam is that it rapidly, unfortunately, became a lot less productive as a hydropower asset because it filled up with silt, and there wasn't …”