Parfitt.Ruark.Parker.MMA.Spring2009.EnergyandWater

 Hydropower

So What’s the Problem? 

One of the most common ways to produce electricity in today’s world is through the burning of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels include coal, oil, and natural gas. When fossil fuels are burned, they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which leads to acid rain and global warming. These are big problems for our environment.

Another concern that is debated very frequently is that we will eventually run out of fossil fuels and therefore will not be able to sufficiently provide the fast growing world population in the near future. Fossil fuels are non-renewable sources of energy because it takes millions of years to create them. That's why it's so important for the world to start developing better ways to use renewable sources of energy such water po wer to create electric energy and virtually put an end to greenhouse pollution. 

The Driving Force **

Too Dependent on Fossil Fuels: Coal ** Coal is the most commonly used fossil fuel resource used in the United States. It consists mostly of carbon and when burned, it releases carbon dioxide into our already depleting atmosphere. Electric utilities consume about 87 percent of the total coal produced. In the United States alone, coal is used to generate more than half of all the electricity produced. It is also used as a basic energy source in many industries, and as a heating fuel. The U.S. is one of the top exporters of coal in the world. Most exported U.S. coal goes to Western Europe, Canada, and Japan. 



**We are Destroying our Ozone: Global Warming **

Global Warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-twentieth century and its projected continuation. Global surface temperature increased approximately 1.33 ± 0.32 °F during the last century according to a spokesperson from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Basic conclusions endorsed by more than 40 scientific societies and academies of science including the IPCC have stated that anthropogenic greenhouse gases are responsible for most of the observed temperature increase since the middle of the twentieth century. Greenhouse gases such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s) are harmful to our atmosphere because th  <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">ese gases are catalysts. They are able to destroy planet Earth’s ozone simply by reacting with the ozone (O3) itself and leaving the products ClO in the atmosphere. However, the worst problem with CFC’s is that they always end up as a by-product since they only act as a catalyst. Consequently, polluting the air with more greenhouse gases by means of making electricity, using fossil fuels needs to stop entirely, before the damage to our ozone becomes unrepairable.



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What Are We Doing to Solve Our Electrical Crisis?

<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Worldwide, hydropower plants produce about 24 percent of the world's electricity and supply more than 1 billion people with power. The world's hydropower plants output a combined total of 675,000 megawatts**,** the energy equivalent of 3.6 billion barrels of oil, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory .<span style="color: rgb(64, 64, 64);"> There are more than 2,000 hydropower plants operating in the United States, making hydropower the United States’ largest renewable energy source. While 24 percent might sound like a significant portion of the world’s electrical production, the other 86 percent is being produced by large plants powered by fossil fuels. There is no misunderstanding in the fact that our world is way too dependent on non-renewable fuels to supply our need for electricity.

Another developing technique to capture electricity from the flow of water is by harnessing the tides in the ocean. With 75 percent of the world comprised of water, tidal currents can be very easily used to create electricity. A company called Marine Current Turbines will be installing a 1.2 megawatt tidal SeaGen turbine in Northern Ireland's Strangford Lough in August. The SeaGen turbine will be the world’s largest ever tidal current device by a significant margin. It will generate clean electricity for approximately 1000 homes. The turbine is a prototype to be replicated on a large scale over the next few years. The rotors on the SeaGen turbine turn slowly: about 10 to 20 revolutions per minute. A ship's propellers, by comparison, typically run 10 times as fast.

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How Hydro Electric Power Works

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">**The Power Plant**

The idea of using water for power generation goes back thousands of years. A hydropower plant is basically an oversized water wheel. More than 2,000 years ago, the Greeks are said to have used a water wheel for grinding wheat into flour. These ancient water wheels are like the turbines of today, spinning as a stream of water hits the blades. The <span class="wiki_link_ext">gears of the wheel ground the wheat into flour.

When watching a river roll by, it's hard to imagine the force it's carrying. If you have ever been white-water rafting, then you've felt a small part of the river's power. White-water rapids are created as a river, carrying a large amount of water downhill, bottlenecks through a narrow passageway. As the river is forced through this opening, its flow quickens.

Hydropower plants harness water's energy and use simple mechanics to convert that energy into electricity**.** Hydropower plants are actually based on a rather simple concept. The water flowing through a dam turns a turbine, which as a result then turns a generator. As the water from a river flows through the intake of a dam, the penstock (a narrow passageway) acts like a jet to compress the water to make a high velocity flow. The fast moving water enters a turbine and as the turbine blades begin to turn, so do a series of magnets inside the generator. Giant magnets (rotor) rotate past copper coils (stator), producing alternating current **(**AC) by moving electrons to a transformer. The transformer inside the powerhouse takes the AC and converts it to higher-voltage current. In the end, this high-voltage is put through power lines to homes in the form of electricity, while the water re-enters the river downstream. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">

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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">**The Hydrologic Cycle**

The fundamental reason why rivers are able to produce renewable energy is based on a cyclical movement of water to and from the ocean. It is interesting to note that you can think of hydropower as a form of solar energy. The basis of this is what scientists refer to as the hydrologic cycle (water cycle). The cycle begins with the sun heating water on the surface of the earth. This causes the water to evaporate into moisture vapor in the air. The warm air rises carrying the water molecules with it. The air cools at higher altitudes which in return causes the water to beginning condensing to form clouds.

Eventually the water molecules fall to earth again as precipitation, such as rain or snow. When it does, the water will have traveled a considerable distance because of wind currents. In a very real sense, the sun's energy carries the water molecules all over the world. In the hydrologic cycle, the water is carried to the mountain tops. When snow melts at the peak of the mountains in the warmer seasons such as Spring and Summer, the water is called run-off. This run-off feeds the rivers and streams that flow downhill to return the water back where it originated from, the ocean. It is the natural flow of a mountains run-off that allows hydroelectric plants to capture this renewable energy to create electricity.



<span style="text-align: left; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-size: 18pt; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left; display: block; line-height: 115%;">Critic’s Thoughts On Hydropower <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left; display: block;"> Many people believe that hydropower is a better alternative to coal or oil burning power. Some critics think otherwise. According to the study conducted across Southeast Asia by the National Sun Yat-sen University and the National Central University, “hydropower causes much more global warming than coal- or oil-fired power stations”. The reason that it is worse than oil burning and coal burning energy sources are that when dams are made, they stop organic resources such as trees and shrubs from flowing freely down the river. The materials that are stuck at the bottom of the dam do not get as much oxygen as they need, preventing them from decomposing as they are supposed to. When the organic resources do not decompose correctly, they cause the production of harmful O-zone gases like methane and nitrous oxide. Said by Professor Chen Chen-tong that “One ton of methane equals 21 tons of carbon dioxide and one ton of nitrous oxide equals 200 tons of carbon dioxide.” With all the dams in the world blocking the organic materials from freely flowing could cause dramatic affects on the atmosphere. Not only does it affect the atmosphere but also poses ecological problems such as ruining streams, drying up waterfalls, and interfering with marine life.

While some critics say that it is detrimental to use hydropower, many others state the opposite. The reasons other critics say it is better is because it has a low cost to produce, creates large amounts of electricity, and the process does not release harmful gases into the air itself. Most critics seem to think that hydropower is the smartest alternative to burning fossil fuels.

<span style="font-size: 18pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left; display: block;"><span style="font-size: 18pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Major Users of Hydropower Some of the major users of hydropower include the following countries; U.S., South America, Canada, Russia, India, and China. In the United States today, hydropower projects provide 81 percent of the nation's renewable electricity generation and about 10 percent of the nation's total electricity. That is enough to power 37.8 million homes, according to the National Hydropower Association. China's exploitable hydroelectric resources stands at 378 million kilowatts, equivalent to annual power supply of 1.92 trillion kilowatts per hour, topping the world and composing 16.7 percent of the world's total hydropower.

Brazil is the single most dependent country when it comes to hydro-electricity, with 96.8 percent of power generated coming from its 600 dams. Brazil is the major hydro-producing country in Latin America, followed by Argentina with 101 dams, Venezuela with 72 and Chile with 87. Brazil and Paraguay together have the world's largest hydro power plant, Itaipu, with the total capacity of 12 600 megawatts. Per capita, electricity consumption in Brazil has increased four-fold since 1970; from 491 kilowatt hours to 2,242 kilowatt hours today. In Canada, since the development at the end of the 19th century of the first hydroelectric plants in Niagara Falls, Ontario, and Shawinigan Falls, Québec, hydropower has contributed to building a prosperous, energy-rich nation. All the countries listed were the main users of Hydropower.

<span style="font-size: 18pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; display: block; line-height: 115%;"> Large Scale Hydroelectricity

<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> **What does it take?**

The first item on the list of things it would take for large scale hydroelectricity is the realization of the problem. The world must first come to a consensus that we cannot keep producing greenhouse gasses, so we need to find a way to reduce and eventually stop the production of these harmful gasses. This may take a lot of time and effort, but it needs to be done. Many countries may not cooperate, but it is our job to convince each and every country that it is time for a change. Not only would we need the admittance of the problem at hand and the will to change, we would need cooperation.



<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> The cooperation and integration of each country play a large part in the successful execution of a large scale project, mainly so that we can integrate systems, ensuring that they run smoother. It would work something like the telephone line systems in the sense that not one country owns all the wires and that other countries can run their "information" through other foreign lines. Everything would work off its counterpart to make things more cost effective. For example, if you had a series of tidal turbines in one country, half were owned by a country across the world, the remainder, a country quite close, it would be very expensive for the farther away country to manage those tidal turbines. What we could do is set up a system in which the country that is in the vicinity would take weather and data reports and send them out to the nonlocal countries. Instead of purchasing a bunch of unnecessary equipment, countries could purchase the services of others. Mainly it would take the collaborative work and cooperation of many people for it to work, but you must start somewhere. The countries act as a single puzzle piece, with each one fitting somewhere in the large picture.

<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: center; display: block;">**Works Cited:** <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"USGS: Water Science For Schools." http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/hyhowworks.html (accessed 5/25/09).

"Environmental Literacy Council:Hydroelectric Power." http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/59.html (accessed 5/26/09). <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 30pt; text-align: center; display: block;"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 13px;">Botkin, Daniel B. and Edward A. Keller. Environmental Science: Earth as a Living Planet, Fourth ed., Wiley: 2003.

<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[|Wind & Hydropower Technologies Program: Hydropower Technologies] <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 13px;"> from the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, August 2005.

<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Griffiths, Dan. <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[|Three Gorges Dam Reaches for the Sky] <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, BBC News, May 19, 2006. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 13px;">