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 t
he water pushes against it
•Generator: parts connected to the turbines that create the elec
tricity by moving large magnets
•Inductor: changes the form of electricity to one that can be us
ed
•Transmission Lines: transport energy to places that need it
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)
 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 oi

l)
 Located about an hour from Las Vegas

 A total of 19 turbines create 2,998,000 horsepower whi

ch 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 Hydrop
ower Association): "Even if you look at Hoover, as popular a
s the Hoover dam is, that dam was first built for water purp
oses 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 cu
rrently in the U.S. that have no power generation on them
whatsoever. So there is a tremendous growth opportunity t
here in the existing facilities."
 Enhancing Developed Areas
 Can be done in countries that use hydro power, current
ly worldwide 24% of the electricity is made by hydro-p
ower supplying over 1billion people
 Produces a good amount of energy with very low envir
onment damaging effects
 Its already producing 10% of USA's energy it could be u
sed to produce more if more effort and funds were put
forth towards it
New Development in Less Develop
ed 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 enoug
h energy to make demands of a growing population an
d it would cost them to much to investing in foreign oil
s 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 mega
watts of additional capacity by 2025 that could serve 31
millions homes with electricity
 From June 2008 to July 2009 1.5 megawatts were produ
ced, 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 devel
op; clean and a safe energy source, self sustaining, poss
ible flood control, and very efficient ranging from 90-9
5%
 They can improvement environments for a wide specie
s 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 p
opulations
• Impacts quality of water
• Flooding
 Social Problems
Significant start-up cost
Visually unattractive
Relocation
Water rights issues
Water Rights
 Social Problems
 "It's got to be cost effective, or I just won'
t support it," said Minnesota Councilmem
ber Mark Freeburg. "I won't do it just to
make people feel good (that we are creati
ng 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 se
ason

 The life of dams can be extended by sediment bypassin

g, special weirs, and forestation project to reduce silt p
roduction. At some point, it becomes uneconomic to o
perate 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 v

olume since 1950, resulting in stream flows that have d
ecreased 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 th
e water cycle