WASHINGTON, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- President Bush, in his State of the Union address last month, pushed renewable energy as the way to end U.S. reliance on foreign oil, but the Energy Department's Financial Year 2007 budget request contains no funding for research into hydropower, the nation's No. 1 source of emissions-free renewable energy.
Hydropower accounts for 7 percent of the nation's total energy and is the main source of power in some Northwestern states. Bush's Advanced Energy Initiative increases research funding for zero-emission coal-fired plants, solar, wind and nuclear technologies by 22 percent, but leaves out hydropower despite some recent improvements in technology and efficiency.
The elimination of funding for research in hydropower, which received $5 million annually until last year, has miffed many in the industry.
"President Bush stressed in his State of the Union the need for more domestic renewable energy, yet he zeroed out all funding for hydropower," said Steven Gotfried, director of Public Affairs for the National Hydropower Association. "This comes when we're in the process of doing great things."
Bush's energy policy, meant to spark technology to bring an end the U.S. reliance on foreign oil, has some worried that it is ignoring existing technology once considered part of the future of renewable energy. The Energy Department initiated the hydropower program in 1976.
In the past year, advances in hydropower turbine systems showed that technology is available to resolve what many see as the biggest drawback of hydropower: damage to fish populations. Late last year, a 10-year project to develop an advanced hydropower turbine showed increased power generation and a 98 percent safe fish passage at the Grant County Public Utility District in Washington state.
Last November, non-governmental organizations, government officials and hydropower experts met in Albany, N.Y., to discuss how similar technology could be expanded across the nation.
Without funding, Gotfried said, some of the testing and research for this technology will be put on hold.
"It is extremely disappointing when a federal program that increases domestic sources of climate-friendly energy for the United States shuts down," he said.
Dan Whiting, a spokesman for Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said a balance must be struck between funding for new technologies as well as those already in place.
"There needs to be a good mix," he said. "Obviously we're big on the next generation of energy, but we need to focus on what we have readily available."
The U.S. Department of Energy, however, says part of the reason federal funding for hydropower research has been eliminated is that after three decades it's now time for the private sector to take over.
"There is no question hydropower is important," Energy Department spokesman Craig Stevens said. "We're eliminating funding because the technology is mature and believe that advancement now will come from the private sector."
Hydropower researchers say, however, that existing supplies can be managed more efficiently. A recent study by the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory says much more can be done to effectively use the nation's supply of available hydropower.
Doug Hall, program manager in the Idaho Laboratory's Hydro Program, found that as much as 18,000 megawatts of power could be generated if all the available hydropower in the nation was used. That would effectively double the amount of hydropower production in the country.
Hall said 5,000 potential sites were singled out from an initial group of 130,000 as potential producers of anywhere from 1-18 megawatts of power. Many of the sites would host small hydropower plants, not the large ones many associate with hydropower.
"We are a nation of small hydropower," he said. "With the kind of potential we've identified in this study it wouldn't take a lot of research and development to capture it. We know how to do this -- we could do this tomorrow if the economic climate was correct."
There are 2,400 hydropower plants in the United States. Hall said that 90 percent of them generate less than 30 megawatts.
He also noted potential sources of hydropower where enough velocity could be generated to power a turbine, such as ocean currents and tidal estuaries, as areas that could be expanded with proper research.
"There is a lot of water energy that has not been assessed and there are probably technological developments that could be done to capture these resources," Hall said.
Although much of the nation's hydropower is located in Western states, Gotfried said there is no shortage of potential for the rest of the nation.
"Nearly all states are underutilizing their natural stream water energy sources and could realize big gains in generation from new hydro plant development," he said.
A combined $100 million is in the budget for wind and solar technology this year. Hall said the dried hydropower funds stems from a misconception that it is an old, tapped out technology.
"It doesn't make sense if we're committed to renewable energy to cut what currently accounts for where three-quarters of our renewables come from," Hall said. "If we were really going all out to wean ourselves from our oil addiction you have to ask yourself, why aren't we pursuing all our resources thoroughly?"
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