This picture will be the first illustration
in Chapter 3: The Controversial Stuff, in the Clean Energy Haiku book I am
writing. Hydoelectric power wasn't always controversial. If permission to
use Niagara Falls to generate hydroelectric power were to be the subject of a
referendum in the twenty-first century, many would vote against it – blissfully
unaware that the power plants in Niagara Falls have been quietly (well
actually, quite noisily) generating electricity for a century! Originally called the Queenston-Chippawa
Hydroelectric Plant and renamed Adam Beck I in 1950, the first large-scale
hydroelectric generation project in the world started producing power in 1922.
It was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1990.
This haiku is not as ambiguous as it first
appears.
Line 2: Energy efficiency and renewable
energy (such as hydroelectric power) are said to be the twin pillars of
sustainable energy policy.
Line 3: The controversial aspects of hydro
result when dams are built and you look further afield at the flooding of
productive land or habitat, or even further afield to the loss of market for
small run-of-the-river operations which were counting on continued demand for electricity.
