Hydropower may not be the latest solution out there but did you know that many technological advancements have been made which can make it more environmentally friendly? Check them out and have a look at Matt Ferrell's video here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/adRynttku5-pZGw.html

Thanks so much for teaming up on this one! It was such a pleasure working together.

"10x more carbon intensive than coal" Where are you getting your information here? the world average is 50 times LESS intensive than coal.

This is a huge problem here in Brazil, with enormous dams being constructed in protected areas, destroying large areas of forest and indigenous land. Hydropower is renewable, but far from green and has also lots of negative sociological impacts.

I like that you guys don't go to the extremes of things such as saying "there should be no more dams and such" and instead talk about how we need to do things better and try to find a balance. If everybody would try to be as objective as you guys try to be things would be much better. I always like to say that answers are found somewhere in the middle. Corps, ppl ,etc. we usually just need to reach to a compromise.

I find the portion showing dead salmon dishonest due to the fact that's what salmon do; they return to spawn after years at sea and die after they spawn.

I live a region of my home country of Ireland that's flooded every Autumn/Winter into Spring because a huge hydro electric dam. The countries water way authorities and the government have claimed for the past eighty eight years that the problem is "Heavy seasonal rain fall" and not the dams fault so there's nothing they can do! "I wonder if its maybe really all about having to spent money???"

I feel Nuclear Power is much greener compared to other options.

There's a lot of damn problems with dams, the fish r damned cause of the dams, we need a damn dam solution.

Somewhat simplistic and very general analysis. Dams can be good or bad, depending on how they are built and the type of dam. Fish and aquatic life can move freely up and down a dammed river if the infrastructure is there. Release of sediment collected from the base of the dam can be done as well, to mimic the season. The point is to build smart dams, not stupid ones.

Even when you know dams do cause some environmental harm, it doesn't really hit you until you see a visualisation of some sort, thank you very much!

Rotting vegetation by definition goes away. That means these emissions are temporary. Sure seems like obfuscation and lying on your part. Question is why?

Farming in the delta depends on silt, which is being blocked by dams in other countries upstream, more energy burning and electricity consumption for fertilizers industry, stick have two ends.

I like how you explained the impact of these dams without going the typical environmentalist alarmist route and ended on a positive note

You did not discuss about other uses of dams eg for agriculture etc. Dams are not only build for hydropower. Controlling flooding also one reason. Flooding also kills lot of vegetation which also generate greenhouse gases. Only threat to fish ecosystem is what I find new. It is good informative video but my opinion is it is not considering all parameters and only showing one side partially.

Thanks for always watching friends, you're awesome! 🤗

Reminds me of the kihani spray toad series where the environmental impact study forgot to check the gorge below the dam and they wiped out a little endemic toad.

I must appreciate Terra Mater a lot for taking steps to bring environmental awareness among the people. And, your video quality is awesome. My wishes for you to keep making such videos to enhance the global welfare and development of natural habitats. Thank you!!!

"...in harmony with..." The most unscientific/psuedoscientific phrase ever uttered

I'm missing details on one-time gh gas emissions vs operating gh gas emissions. From my understanding contruction emissions and those from rotting vegetation in the reservoirs are one-time. Surely like with BEVs a payback time can be calculated, how lon it takes to recoup the gh gas investment. I would also be interested in average numbers for gh gas per kWh of power.

Every single way of taking energy from somewhere and using it somewhere else will interfere with the environment. Sometimes we know the problems. Sometimes we don't. One thing is certain, using less energy and creating less waste reduces the scope of the problem no matter what energy source we are talking about. Reducing populations, making things last, abandoning the throwaway society and packaging, getting away from whole house climate control, riding a bike or walking rather than cars. All of these can minimize the problem with very little downside.

the emission, of greenhouse gases, will end when all the green stuff completely rots... so its not a constant emission, but only for some time

I disagree with your conclusions that damns are carbon emitters due to rotting of plants. Since these plants grew but recently absorbing carbon from the atmosphere this decomposition would be considered carbon neutral. What I didn’t hear you talk about was the huge carbon impact of creating so much concrete to build the damn in the first place.

But if we look at it. Every renewable Power Source will have some problem connected to it 1) In India Wind Farms of Rajasthan(State) Kill tons of endemic species of Birds 2) There is a problem with the waste management of Nuclear Fuel 3)Solar Farms are expensive to build and maintain We do need some sources of dependable power but all of them are harmful to the environment or the wallet in some or the other way

Hydro power is not the only reason for building dams. Building water resorviors for fresh water source is another reason for having these dams. It's a lifeline for soo many people around the world and I pray your efforts would bargain more fruits for all stake holders involved

They said dams increase emissions of rivers. That means the river itself was never emission free, either. 1.3% is also literally nothing to me. I do like river rapids, though.

BTW hydro power is not only the need of dams but also conservation of water for summer

Just use nuclear power. Safe, clean, and incredibly powerful

Dams can have both positive and negative effects. I am Zambian and the Kariba Dam was a net positive for the country by far, producing cheap electricity and providing the benefits of a lake (large fishing industry). I am sure the original fish were impacted, but lets keep in mind just how much we impact the environment with farming, mining and other activity. The impact of Zambia's dams is miniscule relative to other industries. In places like China dams can also server to mitigate flooding, although dam failure or mismanagement can also make it worse.

Iam a civil engineering student,I don't know the disadvantages of dam. Thank you for giving information ❤️.

What if we used more of the smaller side hydro power turbo systems that won't harm fish is that a good idea as part of the solution I know that they won't create as much electricity but if there's enough of them built carefully it might help

Mentioning run-of-the-river projects in the video would be fair. Instead, you make it sound like the whole hydropower idea is bad for the environment, whilst such finger-pointing should be applied to DAMS specifically.

Take heart, the world will exist with or without us, we may or may not be doomed, but this little rock that we are riding thru space will have life until our little star blows it all away. There’s still lots of time for lots of life here!

That argument about drowned plant matter from the formed reservoir is a weak one. The real problem there is the loss of plants processing CO2, not their decomposition. In fact the dam helps bury the carbon which would have otherwise totally decomposed on land. The consequences of repurposed land for reservoirs is made when talking about a dam in the amazon. That is the point you should have elaborated on, however that example is at an extreme.

1. Desilting the existing dams to the limits of removing the waste and sand accumulated at the river bed. This will increase the water holding capacity of the existing dams without additional construction 2. Increasing the heights of existing dams. This will be less destructive when compared to constructing new dams. 3. Increasing the efficiency of the existing hydroelectric turbines.

“Two thirds of them are already dammed” *sigh* well there it is 🤦‍♂️😭😭

I have been fishing an artificial lake for over 27 years and have been observing a lot of disturbing things, so yes pretty much everything being said in this video is true. Fish can't properly reproduce because there is no flow, no natural shallow areas with reeds and other aquatic plants providing shelter for the spawn, it is basically a huge and deep tub of water with rotting biological matter and loads of residual fertilizers and other harmful chemicals coming from the surrounding farmlands. Also raising and lowering the water level during spawn season usually gets most of the fish eggs caught outside the water to dry in the sun and die. If they didn't put in new fish at the beginning of the season most species would have died out a long time ago. People could listen to anglers once in a while they would have heard the same stories from them but hey, they are fisherman so they are bad, right? On top of that we have a "new" thing called cyanobacteria that has been getting worse with climate change every summer for the past 5-10 years thanks to the lack of oxygen, the rising temperatures and the beforementioned farmland sludge. Three years ago they decided to close the lake completely to tourists, hobby-anglers and sunbathers during july-august because of the health dangers of that disgusting film gathering on the surface. So I haven't even been allowed on my boat for quite some time now and it doesn't look like it will get better anytime soon. In a few years they will empty the lake to clear out the sludge and repair the dam so hopefully things will get better for a couple of years after until the same thing inevitably happens again. If they'd at least invest in creating natural shallow banks with plants that absorb some of the excess nutrients and provide safe spawning grounds, things would look much much better. But hey, fuck nature right? Who cares, eh? That stuff costs money and dedication... So to all of the people questioning this short documentary or only fixating on some aesthetic aspects of the video footage if you have no scientific degree in water management, long time experience with water quality issues from keeping aquariums or at least some personal experience from spending lots of time on a lake, have been speaking to the local authorities and getting your info from people who know way more about these things than the average youtube commenter does, then your opinion is worth about as much as the one of a climate change denier or someone preordering a Tesla SUV right now because they believe that it is so much more efficient and clean than the normal five year old car that they own now. Sadly our species has their heads so far up their own asses that they will believe any proposal of simple fixes to tackle massive problems like producing clean energy since there is literally no such thing in existence to this day. Last time I checked dams were not a natural thing (except for when beavers build them and they are known for being bad to the ecosystem too). Should we really want to have more of them then we need to find a different way of engineering them if we don't want to ruin the rest of the natural habitat for local species that are left in this world and cause more harm to the environment in general. I feel that that is the message behind this video and if you can't get behind it well you are probably shouldn't comment on videos like these at all...

We must go back to burning millions and millions tons of coal! A great move backwards!

Having the impact assessed by independent scientists is vital.

Then there is the massive amount of concrete. you barely touched on sediment. The mouth of rivers the deltas and marshes depend on the sediment that's why louisiana is disappearing. So the sediment building up behind the dam as well as the slowing of water and no more flooding. I imagine these has a huge effect on the nile. Then there is also the lost of water from the dam due to evaporation. I think there are other ways to get power from water without damming but I wonder if would cause some of the same problems because taking energy/momentum/speed out of the water. I also wonder about this with wind farms. wouldn't they be changing the weather for same reason but with the air/wind?? Define nuanced solutions like with EVs the fuel to charge batteries and how the batteries are made vs current system with oil/gas

The water level at lake Kariba in Zimbabwe fluctuates so much in order to generate as much electricity as possible that it kills off oxygen weed and other plants causing fish populations to decline

Such a slanted and biased report, of course no mention that wind and solar have a 25 year life span until need of complete replacement. Also is 80 percent more efficient than wind or solar ,this is just more of the same politics driving methods. By passes for migrator species can easily be constructed, just the opposite of this report properly constructed dams provide irrigation and flood control. I vehemently disagree with this report.

This should be an international awareness..

It's complicated and the most important aspect is proper scientific assessment of the environmental effects on the local ecosystem. In some river systems the effects are minimal, in others like salmon rivers the effects are significant. The CO2 emissions claimed for existing dams is somewhat disingenuous, modern practice is to always remove vegetation before filling a new reservoir. For older dams where this was not done, the available carbon is finite and reducing over time. The other important aspect not addressed in the video, is if we're facing a climate crisis as some claim, then hard choices will have to be made. All generation technologies have impacts and risks, just like all activities of any kind do. We need to apply sound judgement and scientific methods to ensure that we make good choices with small environmental consequences.

Never forget US Army of Engineers flooded entire native villages for these dams with no remorse or warning.

The most ideal locations for hydroelectric dams are steep gorges. The flow will be so strong that even salmons can’t overcome. So the most efficient hydro power stations have very little impact on fisheries.

Thanks for bringing this up. First finance minister of India fought hard to not let damming rivers of India. But alas, according to this age no one has brain unless he is educated in Oxford or harward. Humanity has been converting rivers into ponds even after knowing a river is much better and superior body than a pond.

This video was excellent but you missed one thing. The massive CO2 emissions from concrete damns during mixing/curing

One-sided environmentalist's view is dangerous. CO2 repleased be vegetation buried behind a dam is a laugh because none ever allowed and even if exists it can happen only once and cannot repeated annually for ever after the vegetation decay away. Silt and sand can be removed by dam design. Being an enivonmentalist means this person has next to nothing engineering knowledge and skill to design a dam. Also once reached a steady state the dam can release water in the quanity of the seasonal flow same as when there was no dam. As for the fish many dams are several thousands miles from the sea and few of the world rivers have migratory fish like salmon. In fact many reservoirs are used to bleed fish nowadays.

I recommend watching "damnation" from patagonia. It's a great documentary.

If you put too many cattle in one pasture, you get mud. Simple as that. 7.8 billion people is going to leave a mark.

There needs to be a organisation that research on innovative solutions to these problems, to make dams more green and create construction and management protocols for such projects.

"It's about finding the right balance between hydropower and rivers, but also more generally between energy consumption and ecosystem conservation." This "right balance" is seen as right only by industrial humans. If you asked anybody living in the river or around it, the answer would clearly be no to dams. Non-industrial humans don't need electricity, so they would not have to look for this nonsensical balance either.

Great video! Here in Oregon about half of our power comes from hydro electric, but is had a huge effect on Salmon and Steelhead. Some rivers are down 90% from historic runs. A great case study in dam removal is the Sandy River, after the dam was removed salmon runs returned to pre-dam numbers.

Excellent, we need more collaborative video's like this to educate the people, I am always of the opinion that the best solution to for method is through graphic illustration, 'pictures speak a thousands words' and can over come language barriers! Well done!!!

anyone collaberating with Matt Ferrell can't be taken serious.

thanks terra mater

Green is not always green. It seems green. Renewable energy with its own demerits. We want power... Either political or any other.

one thing that i did not notice mentioned was native populations that have been displaced because of the flooding of the damn backing up water, have had to move from traditional hunting grounds.

Micro-hydro may not solve all the problems. But I see it as one of the better options for how to do hydro power in the future.

This video is sponsored by fossil fuel corporations.

Nuclear is the "greenest" option.

1 point that is missing here is dams in country like India are used for providing drinking water and irrigation aswell since we never get rainfall throughout the year. We get it only in monsoon.

landfill dams cause flooding as well and enormously hit the flora and fauna which is an essential part in our ecological system. I must appreciate the effort you people put in this comprehensive video.

Always solar power is the best

an important issue, also in the Alps!

Thanks a lot for bringing this up. Not a single KZfaq video that talks about climate change talks about this huge dark side of hydroelectricity. Living in a tropical country I want to add one more point to this video. River Dams also drastically affect the water cycle of the surrounding area, accelerating desertification.

Constructing dams without any consideration for the rivers is like clogging up arteries in the human body. Eventually there's a heart attack

That's exactly what I wanted to tell my teacher but she didn't responded with satisfactory answer and gone in quite harsh debate. I'm an undergraduate environmental science students in 4th sem. You had never disappointed Terra matter. Love and much love.

All the time, nuclear is looking more and more like the way forward.

I been saying for years that the United States needs to tear down its dams. We can find electricity elsewhere. This video nails it on the head!

2:00 2/3rd of rivers are dammed. 3:40 Dams drastically reduce the fish population 4:50 6:00 Rotting plants create greenhouse gas emissions.

Damn you dams

You could make a pro-hydro video with the same content in a different order. Hydro (especially pumped storage hydro) is fantastic for balancing wind and solar. You only mention that at the end

-- North Euro offshore wind turbines work 33% of the time -- North Euro onshore wind turbines work 22% of the time -- North Euro solar panels work 11% of the time -- Over 60 yrs, jets are 68% more efficient and fly 60X more passengers -- 4.4 billion air trips were taken in 2018 -- 2.63 billion in 2010 -- If batteries were 60X more efficient we would use 60X more of them

Thanks for the concern, we'll get back to you once we've uplifted our people from poverty building massive hydro dams. No ecosystem is more important than famine!

“Matt Ferrell is diving in deep’” . . . Not really. His short clip of a fish ladder was nonsense, I don’t think it was even a Real fish ladder. Google the fish ladder at the Nimbus Hatchery on the American River, Ca and watch 1,000 salmon swim up it each hour! You need to show true info for the viewer in order to be trusted, other wish you work/video is for nothing.

These are all very weak arguments vs the benefits hydro provides. Every problem you bring up has been addressed in modern (western) dam implementations.

It's not just fish that are effected. Lots of wildlife feeds on the fish and aquatic plants. I grew up on the Sacramento River before Shasta Dam was completed or Oroville, Folsom and Nimbus dams were started. The first salmon cannery on the West Coast was built in West Sacramento. Now barely enough salmon pass Sacramento to continue the specie. Bear populations plummeted in the Sierras after the salmon no longer spawned above the dams. Probably a lot of small animals, too. The Sacramento River is now more like a drainage ditch. So much water is pumped to Southern California, sometimes parts of the rivers run backwards. California is grossly overpopulated. I moved away decades ago.

I reccomend "Silenced Rivers" from Patrick McCully, as well as Michael Cernea's work on relocation and compensation processes and the multifactorial empoverishment processes they generate in the vast majority of the cases. One of the aspects leading to impoverishment which is usually impossible to compensate is the loss of ecological relations cultivated over many years. Other authors, generally in the realm of critical development studies and political ecology that help us understand the social and environmental effects of dams and the limitations and challenges of resilliency processes include Pablo Escobar, James C. Scott, Alicia Barabas and Miguel Bartolome, Roberto E. Barrios, Bogumil Terminsky, Robert Muggah, and Chris McDowell. Finally, organizations devoted to reducing and assesing the impacts of internal forced displacement provoked by dams include the UN's IMDC. You can also check EJ Atlas to explore many cases of dam construction and their impacts.

@ Terra Mater Can you do a video on the Florida Panther if you aren't planning one already?

Yet another person telling me how Irresponsible humanity is. When is this ever going to end?

Thank you for attaching the sources!

Beavers are the only ones to build dams that don't hurt anyone. Too many dams will disrupt the fish and game that need that fresh flowing water.

This is eye-opening... but unfortunately I just join the hydropower workforce recently

very biased video, the part that shows all the dead fish looks like salmon. I live in Alaska and have seen lots of salmon streams and its natural to see lots of dead fish. Hydro provides 16% of the worlds energy and 1.3% of CO2, I think that's pretty good. Overall what I have issues with environmentalist is they don't like nuclear, oil, gas, coal, and hydro which provides almost all of our energy. I think they want us living like its 1800.

Hydroelectric projects has never been green. What's happened to the streams and rivers of California's Sierra Nevada, alone, is an enormous ecological tragedy. Thanks for the truth. Of course the solution to nearly all our major environmental problems is to reduce the planet's human population, but nobody dares talk about that anymore.

That bird on 5:05 was tasting some real good.................. U O WHAT? A BODY?!!?!!??!!? DID I SEE THAT!?

Just casually show a bunch of salmon after they spawn and die naturally as they always have

4:34 a really good example of the human mind being good at discerning patterns but not so much at understanding it...which is why alot of people get easily hypnotized by vapid shit.

Showing the natural death of salmon after spawning(5min), as if it was a result of dams, is mighty deceptive of you.

This video is stupendous and informative, thanks for making this type of felicitous video❤️

Can you imagine this world without humans? The world would be a paradise!🐵🐒🐶🐩🐕🐺🐱🐎🐴🐆🐅🐯🦁🐈🐮🐂🐃🐄🐷🐖🐗🐏🐑🐐🐪🐫🐘🐭🐁🐀🐹🐰🐇🐿🐻🐨🐼🐾🦃🐔🐓🐣🐤🐥🐦🐧🕊🐳🐍🐢🐊🐸🐋🐬🐟🐠🐙🐡🐚🦀🐌🐛🐜🐝🐞🕷🕸🦂💐🌸💮🏵🌹🌲🌱⚘🌷🌼🌻🌺🌳🌴🌵🌾🌿☘🍀🍊🍉🍈🍇🍃🍂🍁🍋🍌🍍🍎🍏🍐🍑🍄🌶🌽🍆🍅🍓🍒

This is so sad tho:'(

The fact that people still talk about greenhouse gases boggles the mind.

Build a door at the bottom of the dam and open it at certain times, the fish will adapt

you speak with forked tounge for showing dead salmon. they all die when the spawnings over. dams have nothing to do with the images of dead salmon that you showed. now, your credibility is in question. very bad P.R. you should be fired. thats outright promoting ignorance.

That 1.3% figure makes no sense. Not to mention that all vegetation eventually die, rotten and is converted into CO2 or is eaten by animals and also converted to CO2 so the dams makes no difference actually. It looks to me that you don't really understand how the Carbon cycle works, the only Carbon you should worry about is the Carbon from fossil fuels, because we are adding it to the cycle

Thankful for your information. Your work regarding river ecosystems is really appreciable.

ocean tidal dams would be better like the one they had planned for wales uk or ocean current tunnels which creates hydropower rather than daming rivers because you r not destroying any land or blocking any fish migration and to stop fish getting sucked into tunnels just build them longer with greates at the end so only water can get threw