Hydropower Facts

In simple words, hydropower is the power or energy generated by harnessing moving water of rivers and streams. When these rivers flow downstream making their way to the ocean basin, they have a tremendous amount of kinetic energy stored in them. In course of hydropower generation, this kinetic energy of flowing water is harnessed and converted into electricity - which is eventually used for various purposes. The electricity produced by hydropower plants is referred to as hydroelectric power or hydroelectricity. Hydropower is considered to be the cheapest and cleanest among various alternative energy sources. What is surprising though is the fact that even though environmentalists consider it to be one of the best alternative energy source, layman seems to be oblivious about basic hydropower facts which show how promising it is.

Hydropower: Interesting Facts

Over the last few years, hydropower has come up as one of the major alternative sources of energy in the world - with developed countries like the United States of America, Canada and China leading the way for other nations to follow. Around 20 percent of the total power generation in the world is attributed to hydropower as of today. (The same in the United States of America is 10 percent.) Given below are more of such hydropower facts which show how promising this source of energy is.

• The use of hydropower can be traced back to ancient Greece wherein watermills were used to grind wheat and make flour. The kinetic energy of flowing water was converted to mechanical energy and used to power the watermills.
• One of the less known hydroelectricity facts is that it made its debut in the United States on 30th September, 1882, when the Wisconsin hydroelectric power plant - the first of its kind in the US was built on the Fox River in Wisconsin.
• Hydropower doesn't release greenhouse gases in the atmosphere like fossil fuels do. The amount of electricity produced by hydropower prevents the burning of 22 billion gallons of oil or 120 million tons of coal every year.
• Hydropower also boasts of being the largest renewable source of energy on the planet. If all the sources of renewable energy are combined, hydroelectric power would account for 97 percent of the total energy generated by these sources.
• Hydropower plants have an edge over their coal counterparts in terms of efficiency as well. While hydropower plants can convert 90 percent of the total energy available into electricity, coal plants can only covert 50 percent of the available energy into electricity.
• A modern-day hydropower plant is divided into three parts - the electric plant, dam and the reservoir. The reservoir is used to store the water, the dam is used to control the flow of water and the electric plant is the place where electricity is produced.
• Hydroelectric energy is the cheapest source of energy on the planet. While most of the investment revolves around the construction of reservoir, water is available free of cost. Most of these hydropower stations tend to recover their set up cost within 8 years of starting operation.
• The reservoirs created for the development of hydropower plants support a wide variety of recreational activities including boating and sport fishing. More importantly, the advocates of this source of energy argue that the same facility can be used to support various species of birds and animals.
• The critics of hydropower don't seem to be impressed with this, as they argue that construction of such huge reservoirs of water doesn't just damage the ecosystem but also puts the population in its vicinity at risk as the chances of this reservoir giving away cannot be ruled out.
• While the largest hydroelectric power station in the world - the Three Gorges is located on the Yangtze river in China, the largest hydroelectric power station in the United States of America - the Grand Coulee Dam is located on river Columbia.

Going through that compilation of hydropower facts must have made you realize why it is being pitched as the best possible replacement for fossil fuels. It is very important to get a good understanding of these hydropower facts, for kids especially - as the onus of saving the planet will be on them tomorrow when the need of resorting to some alternative source of energy will be even more urgent. Even though the advantages of hydropower make it seem quite promising hydroelectric energy advantages and disadvantages are weighed against each other, we can't afford to ignore the disadvantages that it has. There is no doubt about the fact that hydropower has tremendous potential, but we'll be able to make the most of this potential only when we find some solution to its disadvantages.