Climate change brings new look at benefits of hydroelectric power By: Associated Press December 21, 2020 6:00 am Water flows through a dam in Black River Falls in 2013. Amid climate change, green activists are beginning to warm again to the benefits of hydroelectric power, despite the harm it can do to the environment. (Photo Submitted by Mead and Hunt Inc.) By CHRIS HUBBUCH Wisconsin State Journal WISCONSIN DELLS, Wis. (AP) — Decades before the construction of Wisconsin’s first coal-fired generator, an engineer named Magnus Swenson and his partners had begun harnassing the power of the Wisconsin River behind a wall of concrete. More than a century later, the Kilbourn dam is still churning out electricity, enough to power nearly 5,000 Wisconsin homes last year. It’s one of more than 140 hydroelectric dams that generated more than 4% of Wisconsin’s electricity supply last year — and nearly half of all the renewable energy used in the state.