Zach Rodgers Stephanie Wilkie Pat Verrastro Leann Baer

Harvesting the energy of moving water to produce electricity for our own needs.

• Streams/ rivers (most common) • Tides/ waves • Underwater turbines

• Dam: controls the flow of water and creates a reservoir of water above for energy use when needed • Penstock: pipe channeling water from the dam to the turbines • Turbines: large blades attached to a cylinder that move when the water pushes against it • Generator: parts connected to the turbines that create the electricity by moving large magnets • Inductor: changes the form of electricity to one that can be used • Transmission Lines: transport energy to places that need it

Greeks and Romans used hydropower to power mills to grind corn Domesday Book ( 1086 for every 400 people) ): listed 5,624 water-wheel driven mills in England south of the Trent River (about 1 mill

Present Day

 Same concept as historical mills, but more complex.

 Now produce about 24% of the world’s electricity  Supplies more than 1 billion people with power  Produces 675,000 megawatts (= 3.6 billion barrels of oil)

 Located about an hour from Las Vegas  A total of 19 turbines create 2,998,000 horsepower which translates into 4 billion kilowatt hours a year  17 turbines give energy to the nearby cities, while 2 give energy to the power plant  Serves 1.3 million people

Opposition to Statistics

 Church Ciocci ( Executive Director of the National Hydropower Association): "Even if you look at Hoover, as popular as the Hoover dam is, that dam was first built for water purposes beyond energy. They added energy to help pay for it."  "Hydropower is only on two percent of all the dams of the U.S. That means there is 98 percent of the dams that are currently in the U.S. that have no power generation on them whatsoever. So there is a tremendous growth opportunity there in the existing facilities."

Enhancing Developed Areas

 Can be done in countries that use hydro power, currently worldwide 24% of the electricity is made by hydro-power supplying over 1billion people  Produces a good amount of energy with very low environment damaging effects  Its already producing 10% of USA's energy it could be used to produce more if more effort and funds were put forth towards it

New Development in Less Developed Areas

 Small hydro popular in China, which has over 50% of world small hydro capacity.  An undeveloped country can do the same and make a great amount of power instead of relying on fossil fuels.  A newly developing country's problem is getting enough energy to make demands of a growing population and it would cost them to much to investing in foreign oils a long with to much pollution

Potential of Hydropower

 Could create 1000s of new jobs  The USA could install between 23,000 to 60,000 megawatts of additional capacity by 2025 that could serve 31millions homes with electricity  From June 2008 to July 2009 1.5 megawatts were produced, powering about 150,000 homes  Hydro-power dams are already at work holtwood dam and the new manufactured turbines in the Voith dam

Potential of Hydropower

 Hydro-power has many advantages to use to help develop; clean and a safe energy source, self sustaining, possible flood control, and very efficient ranging from 90-95%  They can improvement environments for a wide species of animals while affecting none in a negative way  Its possible to use the ocean's tides as power.

Environmental Problems

• Emissions of greenhouse gases • Dams/ turbines diminish aquatic populations • Impacts quality of water • Flooding

Social Problems

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Significant start-up cost

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Visually unattractive

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Relocation

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Water rights issues

Water Rights

Social Problems

 "It's got to be cost effective, or I just won't support it," said Minnesota Councilmember Mark Freeburg. "I won't do it just to make people feel good (that we are creating a renewable energy source)."

Laws and Regulations?

none

Is Hydropower really sustainable?

 Siltation reduces a dam’s water storage so water stored in the wet season cannot be stored for use in the dry season  The life of dams can be extended by sediment bypassing, special weirs, and forestation project to reduce silt production. At some point, it becomes uneconomic to operate in most cases.

 Water flow can decrease in areas due to environmental problems such as global warming  the North Cascades glaciers have lost a third of their volume since 1950, resulting in stream flows that have decreased by as much as 34%  no burning of fossil fuels  Even though water sources can eventually be reduced, other water resources will always be available due to the water cycle