Classy Classes: CEE107A students visit largest hydroelectric dam in California

Students in the class CEE 107A: "Understand Energy" stand in front of Shasta Dam. (Steven Liu/The Stanford Daily)

A group of CEE 107A: “Understand Energy” students visited Shasta Dam as a part of the course in November to learn about its impact on California’s electricity and freshwater supply.

The dam, which is nearly twice as wide as the Hoover Dam and is one of the tallest dams in the United States, lies across the Sacramento River in Northern California. Shasta’s power plant operates five turbines that generate enough electricity to supply half a million homes, which is approximately 4% of California’s population

“Shasta is the most important thing for the state of California,” said Kevin Jacobs, an operations and maintenance manager at the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation. “It is not a local dam. It delivers power and water throughout the state, all the way down to Bakersfield.”…

…Shasta Dam is located in Redding, Calif., about a four-hour drive north of Stanford’s campus. It was completed in 1945, though started generating electricity a year prior to its completion to aid with the WWII effort. Considered one of the modern feats of engineering, Shasta Dam provides power and water throughout the state…

…The original purpose of Shasta Dam, though, was not for hydroelectric power. “The dam was built for water control and water storage, not purely for hydropower,” Jacobs said. “During big winters, [Sacramento river] would flood the entire Sacramento city if there wasn’t the dam.”
power is that we can immediately turn on a turbine to match demand,” Jacobs said. “Right now the demand is low, so only one [turbine] is running.”…









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Both energy and water/ rain floods, drought are in the news lately. This shows the benefits of water storage. Flood protection, irrigation, drinking and residential use, having a reserve for when it doesn’t rain. Carbon neutral Electric energy is another advantage.

 

The state has not completed a new water storage facility in 40 years and about then it canceled the proposed Auburn Dam. Instead of paying for more water storage and getting electricity generation as a side effect, we pay to clean up messes from events like this over and over again and then wipe out our agriculture sector and restrict everyone else severely when it doesn’t rain for a couple of years.

 

DAM!!!

 

602’ tall, 900’ thick at the base, 3400’ across. Enough concrete to build a 3’ wide sidewalk around the earth at the equator. A majestic structure. Due to the recent drought the water was down 138’ from the top. Now it’s up to -120’. Another tidbit. Because of the dam road and railroad routes were altered and the pit river bridge was built that has center concerts support pillars that are around 600’ tall and were built before the lake was filled. It’s a double decker bridge with the Union Pacific railroad on the bottom and Interstate 5 on top. Between the two 80% of all freight traffic moving back and forth between Oakland and Seattle ports crosses that bridge.

 

"A sidewalk around the earth"? Wow... that might acommodate sleeping space for EVERY homeless bum in California!.... maybe....

 

Looks like a beautiful area, Redding.

Hydro is one of the power sources pretty much everyone seems unopposed to. A great way to store energy too, as you can pump it back up and generate electricity later, when desired.

Unfortunately it's not scalable. You need the geography for it to work.