I love how genuinely excited Robert is.

It's one thing to bring renewable energy stories to the masses, but it is quite another to make them both interesting and inspiring. I genuinely appreciate the obvious care that goes into editing and producing this content. Clean energy production is one of the great challenges of our time, and it's clear through your phenomenal attention to compelling and informative story telling that you recognize the gravity of the role you play in bringing these stories to your dedicated viewership. Another episode to be proud of, well done!

Great video, but I have to rant about units: at 1:56 you say "one cubic meter of water dropping 1 meter downwards produces 1 kilowatt of electricity". No! it is 9.8m/s^2 * 1000 kg * 1m = 9800 kilojoules or 0.0027 kWh. Kilowatts are a measure of power. If you mean energy its kilojoules or kWh. Energy = power * time.

The quality of production of this video, combined with Robert's peerless presentation, and a fascinating subject: lovely work :)

FYI ... Hydroelectric generation in Scotland started early in the 20th century and is one form of renewable energy. It was kick-started by the need for power to drive aluminium smelting plants in the Highlands. This led to the construction of the Laggan dam and hydroelectric system in 1934. Currently in Scotland, around 5000GWh of electricity from hydropower are produced every year; that’s enough to power roughly half of Scotland’s homes. This success is set to continue now that the Scottish Government has identified sustainable hydropower as a key part of Scotland’s lower carbon future. Source SEPA

A shout out to whoever does the *music/editing* in the Fully Charged videos. Always a great benefit to showcasing the content.

I Love our country, Canada is so beautiful!

As a Canadian I want to thank you for showing off some very important infrastructure in a very honest ans sincere way talking about how it has, is and will impact our environment and First Nations. Great Job Robert (and team)!

Little did I know when I casually clicked on a video with the bloke who was Kryten enthusiastically jabbering about electric cars, that years down the line I would be religiously watching that channel. And even though there are new (bloody excellent) presenters who have joined down the line, there's still a joy in seeing Robert giving an enthusiastic puppy a run for its money for sheer energy levels. That's before I even compare the production values (Go silent team in the background!)

You know an industrial facility is big when you see adult tricycles with baskets parked all over. Those are for the maintenance staffers- they need to be able to carry their tools from one job to another and tricycles are often the best way possible to do that.

A fantastic episode, more of the like please, I get a thrill from large industrial spaces like that! Jessie does a great job of explaining the operation of the Hydro plant and the obvious level of cleanliness is testament to the care taken in maintaining the facility.

A very interesting video, especially as a resident of BC! Fun fact: a friend of mine owns The Modern Bakeshop and Cafe! I have vague memories of recommending it to the FC team a while back when I heard they were coming here. I took the Revelstoke Dam tour a few years ago: it's a damn big dam! I also drove up to Mica Dam 'cause I'm weird like that.

As someone who worked on the construction of this dam and powerhouse from, start to finish, I'd like to thank you for the way you have presented your video. It was very enjoyable to look back and see what was accomplished.

Long time born here BC resident who still much appreciates the fact that we actually had political leadership back in the 50's and 60's that got stuff done and wasn't bogged down by endless lawyers and 'rights' issues. We have all enjoyed the benefits, including those with the rights. Not mentioned in this video was the fact that these dams were also built as part of flood control, not just for hydro. Portland Oregon on the same Columbia used to get severely impacted by huge river floods.

Robert, I would like to invite you to come and visit Quebec. Revelstoke is great and set in a wonderful setting however, If you want to see hydro electric power on a large scale, we have something to show you. Just one of our installations up north produces upwards of 42 TWh of clean electricity yearly. And we are supplying New-York. Let me know if you want to visit, I can arrange something.

Just before Robert said massive. I auto-completed to mahooosive in my head. 😁😁😁

I know that the 1m3 water 1m down = 1kW is defanitely wrong. First, energy is kWh not kW. Common mistake (too common) but wouldve expected better here. But especially the 1m3 (1000kg, ≈10.000N) over 1m distance = 10.000J or 10kJ which equates to about 3Wh or 0,003kW hours at 100% efficiëncy.

So pleased you came to visit us here in Canada. We have many examples of hydro electric power ( Niagara falls and Quebec amongst them). Nice to see them mention the rebuilding of the damaged relationship between the indigenous community and the powers that be as today is truth and reconciliation day and the true horrors suffered by these amazing people is only just coming to light now after decades of cover ups and denials ☹️

We should be doing more of this in England. All I hear from people who are against renewables is, "but what about 'battries'? It's just as bad to make them" I say that we don't need batteries, we need 'storage' .. How about doing more to improve the renewables in this county, sitting down with the department heads who can actually move things forward so we are more self reliant. Great shows, really well put together and fantastically informational, I just always think that it's the government who need to be watching this show and shows like it and the presenters hitting our government hard over moving forward now so the UK is future proofed.

When I was a child, a whole lot of decades ago, the family went to a hydro electric dam and took the tour. It wasn't as big as this one but it was very, very impressive. Like everything else in humanity it's not free and it's not 100% free from environmental issues but they are much less than a lot of methods of electricity production and mostly come from the building in the first place. This one is immense and beautiful. As others have said, it's grand seeing this and seeing Robert so enthused.

If you want to see a large scale hydro system that dates back decades, have a look at the Snowy Hydro system in Australia. Not as many gigawatts but a lot of tunnels. But also have a look at Tasmania, because the entire island is powered by wind and hydro except in drought.

Absolutely amazing. We have a few in the U.K., but we have no where near the vastness of space and the geographical terrain for infrastructure like that.

Great to see a video from my province! Personally I'm very proud of the fact that we're nearly exclusively powered by zero-emissions hydro power; it is not zero-impact, but it's certainly a lot better than burning fossil fuels. We're very well-positioned to aggressively reduce carbon emissions in the coming years by switching to EVs and heat pumps which will both benefit from being fed from clean electricity. Of note is that in spite of its gargantuan size, Revelstoke is actually only the third-largest dam by peak output (until they install the 6th turbine) and second-largest by annual energy output, with the WAC Bennett on the Peace River generating nearly twice the annual output of Revelstoke. They briefly touch on it in the video, but the majority of BC's hydroelectric generation is provided by *multiple* dams on a small number of rivers (Peace River and Columbia River). While this doesn't entirely eliminate the ecosystem disruptions of putting a hydroelectric dam on a river, it does reduce the overall impact since adding a second or third dam to a river that's already got one does not cause as much overall disruption as damming a whole new otherwise-pristine river. The additional dams are on a path that's already impacted for fish migration, and you also don't need to flood nearly as large an area as only one upstream dam requires a large reservoir for water storage and flood control and the downstream dams can either be entirely run-of-river or have only very small dams, resulting in less overall flooded area. It's important to be realistic and pragmatic about power generation and its impacts, and to recognize that _all_ forms of generation have environmental impacts and the choice isn't between "have impacts" by building a power plant and "not have impacts" by not building it, but between the relative impacts of the available sources of power we choose to build and use. If a hydroelectric dam is displacing or replacing fossil fuel generation somewhere it is inarguably a win in my books, and it has some very valuable storage and dispatch characteristics that means it complements solar/wind very well. Our provincial neighbour to the east currently gets nearly all of their power from fossil fuels, and if BC can export an excess of hydroelectricity to other locations like that with less plentiful hydro resources then it means overall emissions go down substantially. Avoiding as much climate impact as possible is going to require aggressive electrification of things that currently use fossil fuels (transportation and heating, especially), which will require more electricity. I'd much rather it come from a hydro plant than a natural gas plant, supplemented with whatever wind and solar we can install in our rainy, mountainous province.

I’ve kayaked on that reservoir. We were able look down most of its length, and see we were the only people on the water that day. Beautiful moment. People don’t realize how much water is in this system. The lake is more then 100km long. There are indeed some good coffee shops in Revelstoke, and some very fine baked products.

The amazing thing is that there are 14 hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River from the headwaters in British Columbia to the Pacific Ocean on the coasts of Oregon and Washington. One individual drop of water may generate electricity 14 separate times. (Possibly more if it originates in one of the tributaries upstream from Mica that also has a hydroelectric dam itself.)

What an absolutely superb episode!! Amazing subject matter, brilliantly shot. The production value of FC has definitely increased. Bravo

Hydro dams have also had dramatic impacts on local nature, the river and any fish migration. They are now suffering in droughts (Like the modest Hoover dam)

Amazing episode, make me as a resident of BC proud. Jesse, awesome knowledge and communication skills

It’s a phenomenal facility and I’m very thankful for it, but something that does need to be highlighted is that a lot of ancestral lands a first nation people (native americans)has been flooded for these dams, often against their wishes, erasing entire villages. Also salmon spawning ground above have been cut off, causing a major effect on the natural world surrounding this facility many many miles upstream. Also the inundating of that land actually releases a fair amount of CO2, as does the enormous amount of concrete used, of course it’s much less than a coal power plant or gas for that matter, but it’s something that we shouldn’t ignore. So in short, technically these dams however fantastic, They are probably the best way to deal with intermittent power sources like wind and solar, but as anything they do have a cost. And the best way to mitigate that cost is to use less power to begin with.

A great video again Robert & team. Hydro electric power is a great source of reliable continuous green energy. There’s a lot of Hydro power in Scotland, but would be good if the UK investigated and invested more into it. The Severn Tidal barrage has been a potential plan for decades, and whilst it does have a lot of environmental considerations on it’s impact to wildlife, it would potentially supply up to 5% of total UK power - imagine that! How many fossil fuel stations could that replace. Plus it provides predictable and reliable constant power.

Really interesting video, Robert! I very much enjoyed the questions you asked and your excitement at visiting the facility. Thank you for sharing.

I visit the dam 2 years before, beautiful place

Thanks for visiting Canada Robert and team!!! Lots of love 🥰🤗😄 Doug from Toronto

Great video. I think an episode on a potential Severn Barrage and tidal lagoons in the UK would be great. It seems mad we have the potential to produce 20% of UK power demand from a tidal barrage and it seems dead in the water as an idea here.

Canada's Dam is the biggest I've seen. Canada: Now you know why the Beaver is our national animal

Just down the road in Sandon is the oldest operating hydroelectric power plant, first started generating power in 1897 and still producing today. Revelstoke Dam is huge but Mica Dam makes it look like a scale model of a Hydro Dam

I really hope dams are now being built in a way that doesn't damage river ecosystems like not letting freshwater fish move upriver for migrations. That's pretty much the major environmental problem dams cause.

So great to hear you ask about First Nations and for the response that didn't shy away from mistakes made in the past

ROBERT! This was an incredible episode. Thank you. I live relatively close to this dam, and would have loved to meet you. Next time! And yes, BC does dams well. Check out our Site C. Still in production. You could do a great follow up show on that.

Thank you Fully Charged for educating me on a massive renewal energy solution in my home province of BC. Very interesting and happy to hear the electricity used by my family and I for our 3 EVs is coming from clean and green sources. Always enjoy the show. Regards Donald Balanecki

Pretty sure lots of NYC power already comes from a Dam in Quebec, Canada.

Two things: There are thousands of old dams (for flood control, old mills, navigation) that have no hydro. A major untapped resource. 2. It is possible to have hydro without dams, using a sort of mill-race system (canals or pipes which hug canyon walls, until they reach a certain height above the canyon floor). In the 1800s and early 1900, this was done all over the western U.S.

So could this: Wave Swell Energy's remarkable UniWave 200 is a sea platform that uses an artificial blowhole formation to create air pressure changes that drive a turbine and feed energy back to shore. After a year of testing, the company reports excellent results. As we've discussed before, the UniWave system is a floatable device that can be towed to any coastal location and connected to the local energy grid. It's designed so that wave swells force water into a specially designed concrete chamber, pressurizing the air in the chamber and forcing it through an outlet valve. Then as the water recedes, it generates a powerful vacuum, which sucks air in through a turbine at the top and generates electricity that's fed into the grid via a cable. As a result, it draws energy from the entire column of water that enters its chamber, a fact the team says makes it more efficient than wave energy devices that only harvest energy from the surface or the sea floor. WSE's key innovation here is that one-way generation; other devices that harvest the same effect use bi-directional turbines, requiring the ability to reverse blade pitch or redirect the airflow. WSE says its design allows for far cheaper and simpler turbines, that should also last longer since they're not getting as much salt water splashed through them when a big wave hits. Indeed, all this device's moving parts are above the waterline, a fact that should help extend its service life as well as making it completely harmless to marine life. Interestingly, the UniWave's design also makes it easy to incorporate into breakwaters and seawalls, where it can take a coastal erosion protection project and turn it into a clean energy source.

Funny thing is - the people of British Columbia are so inured to "electricity comes from hydropower" and their electric utility (as seen on the car Bobby pulls up in) is called "BC Hydro" that Vancouverites refer to their electricity bill as their "Hydro bill". Which, when your power *ISN'T* being produced by "BC Hydro" is very confusing. "My hydro bill? You mean water?" "No, electricity!"

You should go in Radisson Quebec Canada with the LG 2 ( La grande 2) it's much bigger and was the biggest dam build in North America. 18 turbines +8 if I remember, was 52 floor building tall and 300 km or dam around the site !

Power, silent and clean. Thanks

What a great video! Thank you Fully Charged for featuring this very impressive hydroelectric dam.

Another awesome FC vid, keep 'em coming guys!

Great video congratulations. I was fortunate to visit the Shawinigan facility. They are making hydro electricity since 1901. Those dam can last a long time. We are fortunate to have hydro power in Canada.

I've been to that dam! I think here in NZ, hydro is around 70% of our energy production. Only going to decrease though, no way any new dams will be built. Just to put some perspective on hydro vs solar, this dam is a10th the output of the biggest hydro powerstation, and is yet bigger than any solar farm in the world.

Thank you Robert. Unfortunately, there is another mostly unknown downside for hydroelectric dams- and that is methane emissions from organic matter accumulating in the reservoir and breaking down without oxygen. The problem is more severe in warm climates, so maybe in BC the emissions are not too bad. But still, it should be taken into consideration in the life-cycle GHGs emission. A similar thing happened with natural gas, when people are impressed that it emits ~half of the CO2 coal emits per kWh produced. But when you add up the natural gas life-cycle methane emissions, you find that on average natural gas is as bad as coal from a GHGs perspective.

The US build about a dozen pumped hydro storage facilities in the 70s. They were typically built next to nuclear plants, with the idea that the plant runs at a constant rate and the pumped hydro takes care of the peaks and valleys of demand. A single pumped hydro plant stores about as much energy as every single battery on the US grid today, combined. Grid battery storage is a tremendous waste of time and money. Just dig a hole on top of a hill and pump some water up there!

If you wan't to organize a show in eastern America, may I suggest Montreal, Canada. They use Hydro(Quebec) electricity, wind turbine and do R&D on batteries.

I used to run an Eco-Tourism business from Banff Alberta to this dam a few times a year. Viewing this area on video is awesome, however, you must visit it to really give you an idea of how massive this place is. A side note, Revelstoke is very wet because of the towering mountains draining the Pacific air of it's moisture.. In the summertime, we get on average 1280 mm (50 inches) of rain. In the winter the average is 2450 cm or approximately 80 feet of snow! The drive through the trans Canada highway is a bucket list for sure. Great video.

I didn't know that - One cubic metre of water dropping one metre is equivalent to 1 kw! Learn something new every day!

Huge dam! The scale really is enormous, and makes me feel proud and hopeful for humanity.

Dear Robert, love your show and enjoy it for many years now. It was you to get me (an old petrolhead) in electric mobility (am on my 2nd e-car). I also used to be a big fan of hydropower. Of course it can be done in the ocean too, but it is mostly done in rivers (I guess also due to the long time, those facilities can be used and the offshore technic is still not "worldwide standard"). Talking to a biologist specialized in rivers (don't know the English term, sorry), I understood, that the two most serious problems running a turbine behind a wall in a river are that rivers need a bed out of cobbles and other debris to run on. That "moving floor" is stopped at the wall. What happens downstream is, that without cobbles and stuff, the river deepens into its bed and - over time - creates an ever deeper canyon. So, here in Bavaria, the guys taking care for our Lech river (a formerly wild and sometimes destructible alpine river, nowadays tamed by more than 20 dams) decided, it is money well spend to help the cobbles over any dam. Secondly, it seems to be very hard to teach all creatures living in rivers (esp. new born fish) not be enjoy the feeling of being sliced up by turbine blades. All detour river extensions, at least to my knowledge, do not really help. Still, in comparison - a great technology!

You should come visit Hydro Quebec and see their facilities that will actually power NYC and their research on micro renewable grids and battery technology

Love your enthusiasm for this and impressed by the benefits compared to the costs

These are my favourite type of fully charged shows

Robert, I also share your interest in old technology. It's engineering that's been tried and tested. What amazes me is Jay Leno's 1909 Baker electric car story. If you haven't already seen it, check it out there's a video on KZfaq. We had the technology and inferstructure to accomodate the powering of this transportation over 110 years ago, and then wasted that knowledge. Complete madness! This is a fantastic channel and very educational. It's a scandal that the politicians in the UK, can't or won't grasp the situation and make the country a lot more energy sufficient, with subsides for electric vehicle purchases, also grants for residential solar installations and more equal bi - directional payment methods legislation.

Watching Robert is like watching a kid in a toy shop! 😂

Great video. Good to see Robert exploring BC, hopefully your crew can do more next year as well. As a Canuck who has lived all my life in Ontario I hadn't visited BC until I made a couple of trips in the last ten years, including a train trip back to Toronto from Vancouver. That four day trip really made me appreciate the scale of this country. Then I did the eastern train trip from Halifax just for balance (only 1.5 days in that case). The tour of the hydro dam reminds me of visiting the Beck facility in Niagara Falls as a kid, although your tour was much more detailed. Not to be negative, but keep in mind that not only Alberta but BC produces (and will be exporting) oil and gas. During the first trip I also visited Alberta, and travelling around I realized how important oil and gas (and even coal) was and still is to the region. CBC just posted a video about the wood pellet industry in BC supplying pellets to Drax in the UK. Appears that BC they have started to use whole trees, not just sawmill waste.

This clearly blew Robert away, the scale is amazing, next time your in the area take a run over to Eastern Washington and spend the day at Grand Coulee dam, hydro is the truly good stuff!

Very cool video, beautiful area. The local town Revelstoke is awesome and the ski hill has the largest vertical drop of any ski hill in North America at 5000 feet.

Love a hydro project. We had the opportunity to see the Itaipu Dam in Brazil when it was spilling, outrageous scale.

Great show. Loved the photography, and the content. One of the best, Video's quality wise on the channel and great to see round a hydroelectric power station.

He looks so excited on that dam... I really loved to see what his expression would be if he came to see our Itaipu dam. =D

The soundtrack choice for this episode is one of the best!

Fantastic episode, i have never seen the inside of a hydroelectric facility. What an amazing technology and hydro i a critical technology to support the integration of renewable energy and the decarbonisation of world economies.

Cool! You made it to Canada,welcome mate!

Outstanding civil engineering, Robert!! Thank you for this tour! Peace

It would be great if Robert did a review of a company called Turbulent Hydro, Small Scale hydro for rivers with a low flow. One thing we are not lacking in the UK is good rivers!! Just a lack of water sometimes 😁

Glad you made a visit and can't wait for the live show in Vancouver next year!

Hydro electric power is a good option in certain places but not everywhere. The damage it does to initial habitats when flooded is negative unless in the rare occasion that the valley/ area flooded has limited biodiversity. Additionally they hold back the flow of sediment meaning coastal erosion increases as recession overtakes accretion and often they can reduce the flow of water preventing vital annual flooding needed in lower lying areas vital for agriculture. Don't get me wrong, it may be beneficial here in terms of waying up the cost and benefits but in many places it causes major damage.

Great seeing Robert and Company on this side of the pond!

Terrific information :) thanks for sharing...I drive through Revelstoke once a year and haven't stopped before...next time I'll take a peek at the dam :) Cheers

Why did I keep thinking “Jean Van” in my head while watching this? It is truly gargantuan in scale. It would be more criminal to let such a structure fall into disrepair and decommissioning given the damage it has done is history now but the benefit is only half realised. As for creating new ones, much debate required methinks. So much is better than existing when the existing has too burn stuff, and nothing has zero impact.

Great video! But Robert states that a cubic meter of water dropping 1m produces a kW of electricity, which is a bit nonsensical. A cubic meter of water (1000kg) dropping 1m downwards produces ~9800 joules of energy. The wattage (power) is dependent on how fast you do it.

Why do people call expensive projects that require 24 hour staff and habitat disruption "free"? I live in the Tennessee Valley which has dozens of dams, but none of them were free to build, maintain and staff. Combined, they contribute about 19% of TVA's power portfolio.

Huge dams like that have a massive effect on fish,birds,forests,evaporation,aquifer recharge,sediment flows,natural flooding,coastal estuaries and river system biodiversity in general

Lovely massive engineering reminded me of something. "They're waiting for you Robert, in the turbine chamber rrrr rrrr. "

Great vid Robert, looking forward to your Show here in Vancouver, eh….

My parents emigrated to Zimbabwe where I was born. I wish they had gone to Canada instead. To be born in Canada and live in such a beautiful country would be wonderful. An interesting episode well produced. Thanks.

Finally a new Fully Charged episode that isn't a car review, more like this please 😁 and whilst you're in Canada maybe an episode on CANDU nuclear heavy water reactors that produce electricity with 1/3 the CO2 g/kWh emissions of wind 😉

The most amazing thing is how British Columbians have built their power system over decades since 1965 (revelstoke is just one of many colossal dams some of which are still under construction) providing a legacy of cheaper electricity and reliability while helping America prevent devastating floods at the same time, Love him or hate him , W.A.C Bennett was a visionary

This is where my car get it’s power from. Sometimes. I actually live 170km away from there, and we have some hydro power stations closer to me. But I charged my car somewhere close to there before.

You need to make a similar episode from Dinorwig Hydro Electric, Pumped Storage (a massive battery) facility in North Wales.

Always been a big fan of Mr Lewellyn, you gained a subscriber!!

Watching FCS gives you hope for the future.

Best camping on earth behind that dam, drove up there every weekend this summer

Thank you for sharing, I love seeing my beautiful province in a positive light.

Was great meeting you in Vancouver, looking forward for the next year exhibit.

Having seen Robert play Kryten in a similar large space to that, I was expecting to see a T.Rex walk around the corner.

Love it. Kariba Dam in Zimbabwe where I grew up is the sine qua non of all life there. It was an incredible investment which survived many disasters and continued to serve us. There is a big engineering project to fix it and keep it safe now. It would be so cool one day to see a Fully Charged episode from there :-) I cannot imagine it happening but it would be cool.

Great stuff. I really love these infrastructure videos.

Great video and it just shows how it can be done right. Thanks Canada!

BC Hydro is currently constructing a project on the Peace River also. Cheap and clean electric power should enable increased growth in the province. Great to see regions capitalizing on their renewable energy resources.

Realy nice video . Compliments.

I'm going to have one in my backyard! 😀