An Introduction to Hydro Energy

What is hydro energy?

Fossil fuel reserves have become seriously depleted but conversely our energy use is increasing year on year, our fossil fuel use is now far from being sustainable. Fossil fuels are also responsible for global warming because of the carbon dioxide that is produced with the use of coal power stations and other fossil fuel power stations. In order to stop a further decline in the environment and to replace non-renewable energy many different alternative power sources are being researched and implemented. One such renewable energy source is hydro energy and involves using water to turn turbines, which in turn generates electricity creating hydro energy. The theory is very similar to that of wind energy but instead of the wind turning the sails we use flowing water.

A brief history of hydropower.

The first ever water power station was in Godalming, England in 1881 introducing hydropower as a source of electricity. Previously water turbines had only been used for pumping and irrigation but that has changed significantly now. While some countries have yet to hydro power stations that are efficient and make any significant difference to their energy usage, New Zealand among other countries produce over 70% of its energy from hydro power stations.

Dams.

Dams are built in order to create a man made waterfall; as the water falls it rotates a turbine thus converting the kinetic energy into a usable mechanical energy. This is then turned into electrical energy through the use of a generator. The amount of electricity is determined by how far the water falls and the average water flow; some dams provide enough power for up to 10,000 people so it really is an effective form of creating energy for our homes.

It’s highly unlikely that you have a good enough source of running water running through your land that you could feasibly build a dam and add a generator and a turbine but even a small dam in a reasonable river can provide a good amount of energy for local residents. A dam with a 10 foot drop and average water flow of 500 cubic feet per second produces enough power to give approximately 3,000,000kwh per annum; almost enough power for 1000 residents.

The downfall of dams.

Like many sources of green energy, hydro energy has its downfalls; although there is only really one downfall for hydro energy. The major obstacle to building dams and creating hydropower is people. Local residents don’t want dams erected in the middle of their local beauty spot so unless the opinions of these people can be turned hydropower won’t be as popular as wind energy or solar energy.

Hydropower As A Major Player In The Energy Game

Hydropower has been a slumbering giant in the energy game. Since the 1960s, its use has actually gone down compared to other energy sources. This is beginning to change.

Hydropower As A Major Player In The Energy Game

Hydropower is the massive production of electricity through the conversion of kinetic energy in water into electricity. This is typically undertaken in the form of a dam on a river. Water is held back by the dam and then fed in a controlled manner through it. On its way, the water spins turbines that crank generators and produce electricity. Famous projects include Hoover Dam in the United States, Nasser Dam in Egypt and the new Three Gorges Dam in China.

The primary question with hydropower is why we do not use it more. In some countries, such as Norway, it is the primary source of energy production. It is popular because it is a clean energy platform that produces no emissions, pollution, heat or fuel consumption. As long as the river runs, the hydropower plant should function. In places like Africa, this has not always been a sure thing.

Compared to other energy platforms, hydropower is very efficient. Energy conversion rates are in the 80 to 90 percent range. The plants also have a long life as you can see with any dam, and maintenance costs are relatively low. Cost of energy production, thus, is lower or on par with other energy platforms including oil.

While hydropower seems like a slam dunk option as an energy platform, there are a few definite negatives. The initial cost of building a hydropower dam can be very large. Hundreds of millions of dollars can be required. Larger projects such as the Three Gorges dam run into the billions. These figures are staggering for smaller countries and even give pause to most first world ones. With the rising costs of fossil fuels, however, this is becoming less of an issue each and every day.

The other area that causes concern with hydropower dams is the environmental and human impact. Damming a river is no easy task and the impact is massive. To effectively work, a hydropower dam will reduce the flow of water to such an extent that tens if not hundreds of miles of land behind it will be submerged. In the case of the Three Gorges Dam, this led to the removal of entire cities, monasteries and massive changes to the landscape. There is no disputing this negative issue, but localized changes seem minor compared to the global impact of fossil fuel use.

There is not much glamour to hydropower, but it does represent one of the cleanest and efficient energy platforms available to us.

The Benefits Of Using Renewable Energy Over Fossil Fuels & Nuclear Power

Work is a force applied over a distance. Let us further define energy as a shifting back and forth, but never truly changing one thing: it's constancy.

The first law of thermodynamics: energy is conserved. Thermodynamics is the study of the movement of heat. This law instructs us that although the kind of energy in a given system can change, the total amount can't. Energy is able to travel seamlessly through systems, yet it never changes its structure or shape.

I find this concept enlightening, because you wouldn't normally think of energy as such a fluid movement. It seems more. I found it fascinating that all forms of energy are interchangeable. It makes one think about the potential of newer energy as well.

All objects hold some internal energy. That is, the kinetic energy of moving atoms. Conduction is discussed as the transfer of heat through collisions of electrons and atoms. Leaders at the University of Irvine that are studying the effect of aging, and specifically how the breakdown of DNA over time, effects aging.

The group at the University of Irvine has made a fruit fly live twice as long by their experiments. As they stated, it may only be a bit more time before scientists discover a way to reverse or slow down aging, if they can discover the cause.

Thermal conductivity, the study of how energy transfer occurs, sounds very interesting. Radiation, or the movement of infrared energy and light traveling across a room, until they absorb, are also important to the second law of thermodynamics as well, because it makes one think about the process of how atoms and energy move from place to place.

The concepts of electricity and magnetism can be explained very differently from how Sir Isaac Newton explained gravitational pulls. One learns that lightning is a result of electrical charges, which come about from the transfer of electrons. That makes one think about what is going on to cause the lightning bolt, rather than just running from them!

It's also important to note that objects with like charges experience a "get away from me" stance, while objects with opposite charges attract each other. We know that every Magnet has a north and south pole and those magnets exert forces on each other, and always contain two poles.

A compass will point at the earth's "dipole" magnetic field. Dipole is the magnetic field that arises from the two poles of a magnet. In the previous example of the earth, that would be the north and south poles. That's a long distance to carry forces!

That brings us to wavelengths, amplitude, and frequency. Science has discovered that ocean waves are transverse waves that move perpendicular to the direction of the waves. James Clark Maxwell discovered that electromagnetic radiation could travel through a vacuum at the speed of light. Before this, scientists must have really wondered how that happened.

Gamma rays are the highest energies in the spectrum, and they are used to treat tumors and other medical needs in hospitals. The rays cause the bad tissues to die, allowing the human to live on his/her excellent tissues. It really makes one think about what happens as light moves.

Knowing all of the above, how can we better make use of earth's energy? The answer is renewable energy. This type of energy use taps into natural cycles such as the movement of the wind and water, the heat and light of the sun, heat in the ground, and the carbohydrates in plants. These are all natural energy sources that can supply our needs in a sustainable way.

Current levels of renewable energy use represent only a tiny fraction of what could be developed in the United States. Since electricity generation is a leading cause of carbon dioxide emissions, something needs to be done soon.

Renewable energy will also help alleviate our polluted air, water, increase plant and animal life, and help deter global warming. It's tough though, because fossil fuels and nuclear energy are tough to compete with due to their widespread usage and politics.

Still though, I encourage you, write your congressman. Let them know that you are for renewable energy and you can even get petitions going in your area to see this come to pass. Over time, renewable energy sources could replace nuclear generation altogether. Furthermore, because renewable energy is homegrown, it can increase our energy security as a nation and create a ton of jobs as well.

Renewable Energy - An Introduction

If you think that we will run out of energy if fossil fuel is depleted, you need to read this article.

Fossil fuel is non-renewable energy, that means it will run out a day in future no matter how much it is under our earth's crust. But nowadays we still heavily rely on fossil fuel as our major energy source. We use fossil fuel ( petrol, natural gas, coal ) to generate energy, for transportation and making many daily-use product ( plastic bag, nylon, PVC and etc. ). Can you imagine what will happen when the fossil fuel is exhausted?

We cannot drive to work; cannot watch tv, listen to music, cook, online, light up our house at night and etc. This is because we won't be supplied electricity if no more fossil fuel on earth! ( how to generate electricity as our power plant is based on fossil fuel to operate? ). Maybe you think that such a day will not exist, but let me tell you: "Petroleum and natural gas will run out in less than 50 years time and coal will run out in 100 years time".

After talking about fossil fuel and what will happen if we are running out of fuel ( so-called energy crisis ), let us go straightly into our topic today, the renewable energy. Normally, renewable energy sources like wind power, tidal power and hydropower is used to generate electricity.

Firstly, let us talk about wind power. You may see array of wind turbine lying on a wide area. Wind turbine is huge and is built very high from the ground so that it can convert energy of wind to useful type of energy effectively. How it works? Wind is the moving of air that carries a lot of energy. Wind turbine is a machine that can convert the energy of moving air into rotational kinetic energy of wind turbine and hence generate electricity.

Like wind power, hydropower use the same theory as wind power but hydropower convert the energy of moving water into electricity. But tidal power is a bit complicated compare to hydopower although both of them convert energy of moving water to electrical energy. A reservoir is built at the seaside that have very high tide height ( >5m ), a valve is used to control the water flowing in or out of the reservoir hence is used to generate electricity.

The most usable type of renewable energy is solar power. All of the renewable energy mentioned above can only be used to generate electricity. Solar power is different from the others, it can be used to heat up our home, water and even can be used to cook! And definitely, it can be used to generate electricity by using PV cell. PV cell is a flat panel that uses photoelectric effect to generate electricity.

All of the above renewable energy are clean, bring no pollution and global warming. There are more advantages using renewable energy than non-renewable energy. Therefore more research and development ( R & D ) should be carry out to maximise the usage and efficiency of renewable energy. Also, may renewable energy can fully replace fossil-fuel as soon as possible so that several environmental issues ( global warming, pollution...) can be solved.

I hope that people on this planet will care our mother nature more. So i put articles on how to solve environmental issues and in the same time sustainable develop to promote environmental protection.

Solar Energy And Wind Energy - Viable And Compatible Sources of Renewable Energy

The inevitable consequence of fossil fuels is that they are finite and will run out eventually. At the moment resources like oil and gas are at premium rates. Whether this is being driven by market forces or these resources are genuinely becoming scarce is debatable. What isn't debatable is that governments and the general population are beginning to feel the pinch of these prices and are looking for alternatives. Solar power and wind energy have been popular ways to create energy for many centuries but have been largely ignored by governments and utilities companies because they were reliant on the elements which, in a word, were unreliable. However for individual properties in the right environments they are useful. They have the added advantage that they are renewable and do not give off greenhouse gases that harm the environment. This article will look at some of the issues around solar power and wind energy.

Solar and wind power are quite straightforward in how they work. Solar power derives its energy from the sun, either passively through direct heating or actively through photovoltaic cells that convert photons to electricity.

Wind energy is derived from the air that is converted to mechanical energy, in the shape of a turbine, that can then be used directly or to create electricity.

Advantages of Solar and Wind Power

There are quite a few advantages to solar and wind power. The energy is free after installation and the equipment requires minimal maintenance. Both methods are pollution-free with no greenhouse gases emitted.

In terms of solar power, little maintenance is needed for the solar panels. A wind turbine does not interfere with the land around it so this can be used for animals to graze or planting of crops. In other words, the land is not totally wasted with the wind power turbines.

Disadvantages of Solar Power and Wind Energy

Both of these forms of energy creation are reliant on the elements, however further research, especially in solar technology, is making these systems more efficient. Japan and Germany lead the way in solar research and these countries are not noted for long periods of sunshine throughout the year.

Wind power can be quite noisy because of the spinning of the turbine blades. Depending on how big the turbine is, some people may think that the structure is unsightly and ruins the landscape.

With both solar and wind power, a lot of turbines and reflectors are needed to make a significant energy impact for an area. And with solar power, the cells that capture the energy produce DC power which must then be converted to AC power.

With solar power, solar heat and electricity cannot be produced at night or when there is no direct sunlight, so complementary power sources must be used as a contingency. Many people that live off the grid utilize solar power, wind energy and a generator as their energy sources. The generator is the ultimate back up but the solar and wind power can be combined to produce all the households needs provided the house is insulated adequately.

Solar power and wind energy are the way to go in remote areas like farms or countries with under developed utility infrastructures. However it may not be too far away in the towns and cities. This is especially the case of solar panels, that are fairly unobtrusive and have many incentives and rebates to use them.

In recent years the cost of solar power systems have become very affordable and there are a number of incentives to use solar power. Find out about Solar Power Tax Rebates And Residential Solar Power Grants at http://www.solarpowerappliances.com/ The site has features on home solar water heating systems and outdoor garden lighting. Adrian Whittle writes about using solar power and appliances that can utilize renewable energy sources.