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But imagine if they tried it with the mighty Mississippi?
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There is no point in the Mississippi where there are any walls high enough to build a dam around. Levees are the only structure which are high in comparison to the river, and we know how well those work. The entire area around the river is a giant flood plain. There are no valleys which the Miss carved such as in the Tennessee Valley, they have long since been worn down. So all you can do is dam some of the tributaries, many of which are already dammed.
We can't build dams any more because they have too much impact on the environment, fish etc.
We can't build Nuclear Reactors because fears of meltdowns.
We can't recycle used Nuclear Waste because of Carter's Executive Order.
We can't build Coastal Wind Turbines because certain Dem's want to sail without seeing eyesores.
We can't build Coastal Tide Turbines because of the risk to fish.
So what we're stuck with is land-based turbines which are fickle. Solar panels which are horridly inefficient and overpriced. Natural Gas which is expensive. Coal when looked this way is really the only option without government change.
Personally I'd love to see large reactors built cross country, along with tidal and coastal turbines to take advantage of the clockwork movement of the wind/water on the coastline. It's not a cure-all, but those would give a lot of environmental justifications for plug-in hybrids and the lowered cost per KW/H would help ailing families. Lowering the KW/H enough so electric heaters would be economically efficient during Northern Winters and AC in Southern Summers.