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.
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Micro hydro power is considered a very reliable and effective form of energy. But aside from what may be a long list of advantages, there are also some drawbacks associated with it that you will have to know before you construct a small hydro power system. Micro hydro can be a good method of getting renewable energy from small streams with just the right research and skills. What follows are some of the advantages and disadvantages of small scale water turbines.
One of the major advantages of a micro hydro power system is that it only takes a relatively small amount of flow or a drop that is as low as two feet to be able to generate electricity. This electricity can then be delivered as far as a mile away to the area where it is being used.
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Part of the beauty of hydropower lies in its simplicity. Moving water (kinetic energy) spins a turbine or wheel (mechanical energy), which drives a generator (electrical energy). Archaeologists have found evidence of water storage dams in Jordan, Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East that date back 5,000 years to 3000 BC. One of the earliest designers to document his plans was Vitruvius (c.70 BC-c.25 BC), a Roman architect and engineer, who described an undershot waterwheel that could generate power. The Romans built many waterwheels, with the most ambitious being the one is Barbegal, France, in the 4th Century AD. Connected to a large aqueduct system that fed water to the city of Arles, Barbegal was a massive flour mill with not one but sixteen waterwheels in two parallel rows. The water turned the first pair of wheels, then flowed downhill to the second pair, then downhill again and so on until it had flowed through and turned all eight sets, after which it ran into a runoff pool at the bottom of the hill.
Today hydropower generates about 15 percent of the world’s electricity (about 6 percent of the total energy supply). Rather than using waterwheels on a moving river or through a duct, most hydroelectric plants extract energy from the potential energy that comes from the vertical distance the water drops (the “head”). The water is channeled through a sluice or gate, or through enclosed pipes that funnel the water down to the turbines; these channels are called penstocks.
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