What a beautiful lake.

The views are insane!

So I Googled that lawn for you - per Wikipedia: An unusual feature of the Glen Canyon power plant is the 86,000 square feet (8,000 m2) Kentucky bluegrass lawn occupying the crescent between the dam and hydroelectric plant. At the time of construction in 1964, the steel penstocks feeding water to the power plant were exposed and they experienced severe vibration when in use. Engineers decided to bury them in soil to act as a buffer against the potentially damaging vibrations. The grass was later planted to prevent the dirt from getting blown away - but also provides a mild cooling effect through evapotranspiration, reducing temperatures inside the power plant. Again, another awesome video. Keep up the good work!!!

@roamingbenji

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for the info, Ronna!

@rhobot75

Жыл бұрын

Thank you! Saved me the effort. Was about to also wiki-check it. I figured it was something practical bc why would they otherwise. My surprise is how big a lawn it is! The distance and the camera conspire to make it look not that big. I wonder if staff ever play croquet on it hee hee or the random picnic party...

Hello Benji, I haven't seen your videos in a while. However, I wanted to let you know that the quality and color of your videos is much sharper and vivid. Nice! Thank you for sharing your visit to Glen Canyon.

@roamingbenji

Жыл бұрын

Thank you for watching!

what did you give him? he seems like it👍

@roamingbenji

Жыл бұрын

They're "Cheez-it Snap'd"!

On the topic of draining lake Powell... it is a noble idea but the SW population has intensified so much in the interim and the plain fact is other hydroelectric operation would have to go in somewhere. Or build a mini nuclear plant. Maybe in 50 years if and when we can ever actually do the green revolution. I personally would be against gobbling yet more desert for solar panel farms. I appreciate the Activists' vision and sense of loss but loss of what? Our tourism places to trample over? Not to denograte the idea but to really ask what then after draining... make it a 2 million visitor a year park? But anyway, I dont read ideas for replacing the water storage nor electric generation which we are gonna need so much more of in the battle with ourselves to wean away from oil and gas. These are just casual impressions. .. i am also aware Glen Canyon was part of a sort of great bamboozlement by whatever federal agency that was that had so much power back on the day and glamorized the big taming of the west and pushed thru the building of lots of dams. It is a complicated topic for sure! But the public would need to know what where are the replacements, not leave it at, It will all work out. Anyway... cheers!

@roamingbenji

Жыл бұрын

I agree with you on basically everything you brought up! "During the 2022 fiscal year, Glen Canyon Dam generated 2,591 gigawatt-hours of electricity, enough to power more than 240,000 average homes for a year." This is a lot of power. Ultimately, no energy source is perfect. You brought up your distaste for solar farms, which is similar to my distaste of wind farms. Windmills kill millions of birds and bats in the US every year, not to mention they are incredibly invasive on the landscape and are often placed very close to peoples' homes / rural communities. The constant red blinking lights at night, the constant sound, the fact that most US wind turbines are made in China, or that the power density of wind energy is up to a hundred times lower than previous "expert" estimates (meaning it's a highly inefficient form of energy production)... it all makes wind energy seem unattractive.

@rhobot75

Жыл бұрын

@@roamingbenji Not to mention the irony of that making all the solar and wind stuff takes many many tons of mining materials and oil and gas. It's more like we are pushing the pollution off to other countries. Mining itself uses as much oil and gas as commercial aviation I recently was hearing. Anyway, thank you for answering! I lament our loss of flying wildlife. . . .Cheers!

@yajun19johnson

Жыл бұрын

great discussion:)

@bhg123ful

11 ай бұрын

@@roamingbenji What is your favorite form(s) of energy? What are your thoughts on nuclear? There have increasingly been improvements made on minimizing the impact to bird mortality as well as noise from wind turbines. Its a new form of energy, and there's a lot of room for improvements.