Hydro Power – The Answer to the World’s Energy Crisis?
The world faces an energy crisis. Scarcity of conventional energy supply has combined with a rising global population and the rapid industrialisation of third-world countries to leave humanity facing the prospect of a severe lack of energy in the near future. If present trends continue, there simply will not be enough power to meet mankind’s needs. A variety of solutions have been proposed for this: an expansion of nuclear power, drilling for oil in previously protected areas such as Alaska and Antarctica, increased research into energy-saving technology and a large-scale switch to renewable energy. The latter can be split into a variety of areas, the main ones being solar power, wind power and hydro power. Of these, it seems that at present hydro power has the best chance of widespread adoption; indeed significant hydroelectricity producing projects are already in operation.
The most common large scale hydro power systems are incorporated into dams and reservoirs. Stored water is released down chutes in the dams containing turbines; as the turbines work electricity is created. The potential energy of the stored water is transformed into usable power. This is a relatively simple method that has been used for centuries: in the past waterwheels have powered mills, and the at the start of the industrial revolution the main method of powering factories, especially in areas where iron and steel were being processed, was hydro power. Now, though, giant hydroelectric power stations are being constructed to provide energy in place of conventional sources such as fossil fuels, the prime example being the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in China. At the time of writing providing three percent of the energy needs of the whole of China, this is a truly stupendous engineering achievement.