Hydroelectric Dams Advantages And Disadvantages

3.5 million miles of water run throughout the United States; and since the country’s conception, over 80,000 dams have impounded 600,000 miles of these waters [1]. Dams were originally constructed to provide water to towns and establishes energy sources for mills and later hydroelectric plants. Because these dams were constructed decades ago, they’re reaching a critical point of obsoleteness where they cause more harm than good. Dam removal is increasingly popular across the country to address the ecological problems including habitat loss and sedimentation, despite potential for downstream harm, removing dams is more environmentally and economically cost effective than upgrading them. The Marmot, Glines Canyon, and Elwha river dam removal projects each highlight different challenges of dam removal, but overall

The State of Colorado has suffered from a water shortage in recent years; a difficult situation which is easily visible when viewing the quickly shortening length of the Colorado River. Lake Mead, for example, is roughly 130 feet lower than it once was, marked by the stained rock which towers above the current water level. “The river has become a perfect symbol of what happens when we ask too much of a limited resource: it disappears. In fact, the Colorado no longer regularly reaches the sea” (Zielinski, 2010). Legislation was implemented early on to address this issue, though the results were (perhaps not surprisingly) rather unanticipated, regarding

First, the use of hydro energy resource, which is still debatable if it’s renewable or nonrenewable, cannot always be suitable for flat or dry regions and in areas where natural disasters occur. So counties with natural disasters or regions that are not suited is most likely not going to have a hydropower, as mentioned in (Marmulla, 2001, p. 55), dams are unnatural effecting species like fish causing migrations because of habitat loss. This can lead to extinction of species, affecting many ecosystems, since the fish starts to migrate to different areas changing the population balance. For example, Nicola, Elvira,

One of the largest geographic physical structures in the United States is the Colorado River. Human activity and its interaction with this great river have an interesting history. The resources provided by the river have been used by humans, and caused conflict for human populations as well. One of these conflicts is water distribution, and the effects drought conditions have played in this distribution throughout the southwestern region. Major cities such as Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, and other communities in the southwest depend on the river. It provides water for over 20 million people, irrigation for 2 million acres of land, four thousand megawatts of hydroelectric energy, and over twenty million annual visitors for

The article “Down go the dams” by Jane C.Marks aim to provide an informative view on the current pending issue on Dams. The article starts out my mentioning the important nature of dams in our society. For example, Jane C.Marks states that today about 800,000 dams operate worldwide as well as the fact that most were built in the past century, primarily after World War II. Furthermore, the author lays down informative facts about dams such as the fact that dams control flooding and their reservoirs provide a reliable supply of water for irrigation, drinking and recreation which are all very important to society. In an economic standpoint, although it is very high maintenance dams provide jobs for people. The

Beside these arguments, there is also a more quantitative side to the debate. The ecological detriments of the Glen Canyon Dam have been well-documented. Extensive changes were brought about in the Colorado River ecosystem by the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam. Most of these alterations negatively affected the functioning of the system and the native aquatic species of the river. The reduced supply and transport of

The dam is expected to produce approximately 18.2 million kilowatts of energy per year which will greatly benefit the power needs of central China. The largest validation of the dam is this property – power generation. These 18.2 million kilowatts “generated from its 26 700-megawatt turbine generators, equals the energy produced by 18 nuclear plants or the burning of 40 million tons of coal.”[6] The amount of power produced will

Dam projects can serve many purposes. They compensate for varying amounts of water that nature may send down a river at a given time, or they may serve as a resource to generate hydropower for the local population. The construction of these complicated feats of engineering is an expensive, time consuming task. For whatever reason a dam is built, it will almost always pay for itself in the energy it produces or

Hydroelectric is a form of energy it is a renewable resource. Hydroelectricity is the most important and widely used renewable source of energy. Hydroelectric relies on water, which is clean and renewable energy source. Renewable energy comes from natural resources. Non-Renewable energy source includes coal, oil and natural gas. Water is renewable because water continually recycles itself. To harness energy from flowing water, the water must be controlled; a large reservoir is created, usually by damming a river to create an artificial lake or reservoir. Water is channeled through tunnels in the dam. The energy of water flowing through the dam causes the turbines to turn and make the

With human development, industrial pollution and other factors all contribute to the deteriorated condition of the river, which makes it difficult to determine the dams’ environmental impact in isolation. CITE That said, the current operations of the dam hamper and potentially prevent environmental improvement of the Colorado. In order to preserve some semblance of the Colorado ecosystem, man must restore the natural processes that created the ecosystem. The real question is how to do that, whether via dam decommission or a less extreme policy change.

To elaborate, dam is one of major parts to discuss about firstly. The process of a dam is to store water by creating a large reservoir. This reservoir could be a lake or any other natural water source. The dam is most likely located at higher level ground than the turbines of the power plant. The dam contains gates at its bottom to control the water flow. As the gates open, the water stored in the dam flows downstream as gravity pulls everything down or towards the earth’s surface. The falling water goes through a pipeline called penstock. This pipeline leads to the turbines in the hydroelectric power plant. Much water flow in the pipeline means greater pressure from water. As the water comes down the pipeline, it hits the blades of the turbines and makes it rotate simultaneously. The speed of the rotational blades depends on the speed of the water flow. As a result, much pressure of water flow will rotate the blades with a higher force and vice versa. Francis Turbine is the turbine that is most common for building hydroelectric power plant. This type of turbine looks like a big

Furthermore, hydro-electric dams are not an environmentally responsible source of generating energy because when they are built, a vast swath of land must be used, resulting in displacement of local people. The amount of land needed to build a dam is large which will displace many people. When the Three Gorges Dam project was approved, it forced over 1.4 million people to relocate (Business Insider). The Three Gorges Dam needed to be a large dam because of the growing energy needs in China. This would require vast areas of land and so the amount of people relocating increased due to the dam because of the flooding a dam can cause (Business Insider). In addition, many people will have to relocate due to the vast amount needed to create a dam. The Manwan dam project caused over 3,000 local people to leave their homes (Hori, 206,207). The dam had to have large dimensions for it to produce a large amount of electricity. The dimensions of the dam were too big, resulting in relocation. The people relocated due to the high waters it has stored and the flooding it can cause (Hori, 206-207). Thus, building hydro-electric dams will displace large amounts of people from their

INTRODUCTION: Water assets building is growing massively today. Dams have the most vital part in using water assets. They were developed taxing year before increasing present data about hydrology and hydro mechanics. All through the historical backdrop of the world, dams have been utilized effectively as a part of gathering, putting away and overseeing water expected to manage human advancement. Dams have a lot of positive and negative impacts on the earth. Their advantages like controlling stream administration, subsequently forestalling surges, getting local and water system water from put away water and creating vitality from hydro control. While dam give noteworthy advantage to our general public, their effect on the encompassing incorporates resettlement and migration, financial effect, natural concerns, sedimentation issue, security angles and so on. Notwithstanding their vital social and natural advantages, it is vital to minimize the negative impacts of the hoover dam on the earth with respect to feasible advancement.

There are many types of turbines, turbine uses, and adaptions. Basically, turbines provide endless possibilities. In hydroelectric dams there are two types of turbines, an impulse turbine and a reaction turbine. The impulse turbine uses the water flow to move the turbine. Along with moving the turbine, this part also discharges the atmospheric pressure. In this turbine, there is no suction on

With the high-speed economic development and the incredible growth in human population around the world, electricity demand has increased rapidly (Zarfl et al., 2015). As a fast growing country with the largest population in the world, the electricity generation in China nearly doubled between 2005 and 2011 (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2014). In order to narrow the gap between electricity generation and consumption and, on the other hand, alleviate the environment problems mainly caused by fossil fuel, China has encouraged more investment in renewable energy (Ibid). Hydroelectricity has become the most important renewable resource as China has a large amount of hydroelectric power potential (Ibid). The word “hydroelectric” relates to “the generation of electricity using flowing water to drive a turbine which powers a generator” (Oxford Dictionaries online, 2015). Electricity produced by using