Hydroelectric Power

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Hydroelectric Power

• Zach Rodgers
• Stephanie Wilkie
• Pat Verrastro
• Leann Baer

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What is Hydroelectric Power?

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

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

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How A Hydropower plant works

• 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

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Historical Uses

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

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Present Day

• Same concept as historical mills, but more
  complex.
• Now produce about 24 of the worlds electricity
• Supplies more than 1 billion people with power
• Produces 675,000 megawatts ( 3.6 billion barrels
  of oil)

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The Hoover Dam
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• 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

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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."

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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Environmental Problems

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

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Social Problems

• Significant start-up cost
• Visually unattractive
• Relocation
• Water rights issues

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Water Rights
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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)."

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Laws and Regulations?

• none

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Is Hydropower really sustainable?

• Siltation reduces a dams 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.

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• 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