marchant.magliozzi.energy.water.spring.2010


 * 1. What is the problem at hand?**

- The issue in today's world is that people are using our natural resources faster than we are discovering them. An even bigger problem is that there is nothing that us humans can create to take the place of those fossil fuels and natural resources being used. The CO2 that has been created from the burning of fossil fuels has altered our atmosphere and started a global climate change.




 * 2. What is the driving force of the problem?**

- The source of this problem is solely us human beings and our need for energy. No matter what, we always need some source of energy, whether it be electricity for our homes or gasoline for our vehicles. The demand for fossil fuels is very high and will remain high until a new energy source is discovered.


 * 3. What are people currently doing or not doing to solve the problem?**

- The majority of the world is doing absolutely nothing to help solve this massive problem, but there are some people, cultures, and countries that are doing everything possible to positively contribute to the movement. To help solve the problem, people are switching to solar and wind power, along with driving hybrid vehicles to conserve fossil fuels. Also, the amount of recycled material is on the rise as people are paying greater attention to what is waste and what is not.


 * 4. Pick your favorite of the following list**

- Hydro power

[|Check this out D Reich]

5. **Explain how it works. THIS IS A BIG ONE!**

- Hydropower can be referred to as hydraulic power or water power. In our case we are talking about water power. It works by converting the movement of falling or moving water into usable energy. The most common energy its turned into is electricity. Hydropower has been around for a very long time and dates all the way back to watermills, where water pushed a large wheel which then ran machinery. Nowadays water flowing through a dam will turn a turbine, which has a shaft connected to a generator which generates electricity. Water flows through the wicket gate before it hits the turbine. This gate can be throttled to determine the rate of water flow to the turbine, which also regulates the amount of power generated. We can also generate power by the use of underwater turbines. They work they same way as wind turbine but instead use the flow of underwater currents, rivers, or changing tides to spin the turbine blades.






 * 6. Determine the amount of CO2 it produces or inhibits (THIS REQUIRES A STOICHIOMETRY EQUATION!)**

- A hydropower plant doesn't produce any pollutants as it generates electricity. However, it does produce methane because large amounts of carbon tied up in trees and other plants are released when they rot when a reservoir is initially flooded. Then after this first stage of decay, plant matter settling on the reservoir's bottom decomposes without oxygen, resulting in a build-up of dissolved methane. This is released into the atmosphere when water passes through the dam's turbines. This is significant because methane's effect on the amosphere is 21 times stronger than carbon dioxide's.


 * 4H2 + CO2 ---> CH4 + 2H2O

7. Determine the amount of water it can generate or purify**

- Hydropower does not generate or purify any amount of water. It uses the motion of water to generate electricity.


 * 8. Highlight the best aspects of it.**

Hydropower is a renewable source of energy. Once a dam is in place and the hydro power plant is there, electricity can be created at a constant rate. If the demand for electricity dwindles, the gates to the turbine can be closed and the water can be held back and saved for another day. Dams are made to last for a very long time, which means that it can contribute to the production of electricity for many decades, and almost all dams form a lake behind them which can be used for peoples pleasure, like water sports and summer fun. All of the water in the lake is stored potential energy, and can either be used to create electricity or be used for irrigation. The most important aspect of hydro power is that no green house gasses are produced and the atmosphere is not polluted.




 * 9. describe how the critics would discuss it.**

- The critics would discuss hydro power by stating all of its disadvantages, like how expensive it is to construct a dam. More importantly, the construction of a dam destroys the natural environment and can force people out of their homes. Once a dam is built there is always a risk of catastrophic failure which can lead to many deaths and high floods. Biologists would argue that dams disrupt the natural flow of rivers and how it impedes the natural flow of sediment and nutrients carried in the water. Fish are also affected by the dams because it blocks their migration routes.


 * 10. If it already makes up a lot of the world's fuel/energy supply explailn why.**

- Hydropower produces 16.1% of all of the electricity in the world. This is used so much because there will always be a flow of water, and the only way that will change is if there a huge climate change and all the water dries up. Hydropower is also a clean way to make energy, because it does not give off any green house gasses, it actually helps slow global warming. Using hydropower avoids burning 4.4 million barrels of oil-equivelant daily, worldwide.


 * 14. Explain how it could help solve some of the problems or contributes to those problems.**

- The using of fossil fuels creates 2 problems. First, you are using a non-renewable resource and second, you are releasing gases back into the atmosphere that contribute to global warming. Hydropower does not use any fossil fuels nor emit any harmful gases back into the atmosphere, and is definitely a solution to some of our energy conservation issues.


 * 15. Explain what it would take to do your thing better or in a larger scale.**

- To make hydropower have a larger impact on the world, it needs to be taken to the ocean. The Bay of Fundy has tides that can reach 53ft. That means that twice a day there is a huge movement of water. If places like that were taken advantage of and underwater turbines were put it, huge amounts of electricity could be created. There are tons of places around the world that underwater turbines would flourish, like the Cape Cod Canal.


 * 16. Explain who uses that technology and why. If it isn't used very much explain that instead.**

- Many countries use hydropower, and produce alot of their electricity from it. The top users are Canada, United States, USSR, and Brazil. Norway produces more than 99% of its countries electricity just from hydropower alone. The United States' hydropower plants serve the electric needs of 28 million residential customers. It is used because it is the cheapest and most efficient form of creating electricity.


 * [[image:http://new.wvic.com/images/stories/Hydroplants/tophydrocountries1.gif width="543" height="329" align="default"]][[image:http://new.wvic.com/images/stories/Hydroplants/hydro-1.gif width="586" height="316" align="default"]]

17. After learning about it what would you do next to change how its used? why?****

- Now that we are educated with hydropower, the only thing we would do differently is use it more and take full advantage of the oceans potential. It is the cheapest, cleanest and most efficient way to make power, and it is not being used to its full capabilities.

Engineers have recently dicovered new ways to use the "motion of the ocean," a.k.a. the movement of waves, to create energy. This is a source of energy that has barely been tapped into. The Oyster wave power device was engineered in 2009 and simply works by using the movement of the device which drives two hydraulic pistons which push high pressure water onshore to drive a conventional hydro-electric turbine. The Oyster is simply just a large pump.

[|How It Works]