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): listed 5,624 waterwheel 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 worlds

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
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 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 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.

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