hydroelectricity
Read and learn more about hydroelectricity. For more, visit the Renewable Energy website EnergySourceRenewable.org
Q: hydroelectricity?
I would like to know about hydroelectricity, hydroelectricity investing, hydroelectricity construct.
Please show me
Thanks all
A: hydroelectricity does not have any real good investment opportunities in the U S. They have already been taken. There are not too many good places left to build a dam.
I believe the largest hydroelectric facility in the world is the Itaipú on the Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina border. It produces on average 75 million megawatts a year. It took 16 years to build.
To produce hydroelectricity there are three ingredients that are required. 1. a reservoir of water 2. a head for the water to provide the energy to turn the turbines 3. a reasonably steady resupply of the reservoir via rainfall.
Investing in hydroelectricity is a difficult proposition.
The main avenue open is through power utilities. Some generate electricity using hydro but many do not.
Even when you find a likely candidate, your investment may not be worth the effort because electric rates are regulated by state commissions and many times are based on relatively low rates of return–like 10% for example. Good for the consumer but not so good for the investor.
Q: Hydroelectricity?
Are there any environmental effects of hydroelectricity? If some one can list or provide a site which demonstrates both positive and negative effects that would be great.
A: Yes there are environmental effects of hydroelectricity.
Most hydroelectricity requires the building of a dam, which would block the natural flow of a river. The blocking or damming of a river results in flooding of a very large area, which eventually becomes a man-made lake. Usually if there are people living by the river, they would need to be relocated to another place, and their livelihood are also destroyed. They usually do not have the ability to find other ways to make a living.
In addition, the flooding and creation of a man-made lake destroys natural habitats for animals and plants.
Q: Can I generate hydroelectricity from running borewell water, if so how and the websites to refer to.?
I would like to generate hydroelectricity from running borewell water with continuous supply and in turn run the borewell itself so as to save electricity and dependence. If so, can I use autoswitch mode so that when the power generated is enough to run the borewell wherein it can switch itself from electricity supply (Govt.) to hydroelectricity. Pls let me know some of the simple experiments, the required gadgets, and the websites where to look for such things precisely.
I would like to generate hydroelectricity from running borewell water with continuous supply and in turn run the borewell itself so as to save electricity and dependence. If so, can I use autoswitch mode so that when the power generated is enough to run the borewell wherein it can switch itself from electricity supply (Govt.) to hydroelectricity. Pls let me know some of the simple experiments, the required gadgets, and the websites where to look for such things precisely.
I live in a place where there is power, but would want to make it self sufficient for the agriculture sector, can I create an artificial head. Pls let me know the instruments required for testing the volume, force, etc. Websites to look for more details. How much of power is required to run a 3 HP motor. I am not planning to supply to the grid back.
A: Volume (cubic meters per second of water flow) x head (meters) = kilowatts.
That assumes 100% efficiency.
It’s technically possible, but I doubt very much that you would derive the right combination of pressure and water volume from a flowing artesian borehole to generate more than a few watts of power.
Let’s be optimistic and say you could get 10 watts of power 24 hours per day. That means you produce 240 watt hours every day (watts x hours = wh). Now the average price of electricity in North America is around 10 cents per kilowatt hour. At 10 watts, that means you would produce about 2.4 cents of electricity per day.
The average household consumes about 24 kwh (24,000 wh) per day, so there just isn’t enough energy available from an artesian bore hole to produce a reasonable amount of power. And if there’s a pump producing the water flow, as opposed to artesian flow, you will be using more energy than you’re producing.
I hate to be a wet blanket on your idea, but the fact is that we have become so dependent on large volumes of cheap electricity that we have lost track of how much we are really using.
EDIT – I have considered the possibility of the asker living in a remote area away from power lines. Her/His question is clear on that issue, as s/he would like to “switch itself from electricity supply (Govt.) to hydroelectricity.” That’s called “running the meter backwards” when your generator is producing more electricity than your home is consuming, and you can feed the excess power into the grid for a profit. That switching gear is worth thousands of dollars, and, at 2.4 cents of production per day, that is far from an economically sound proposition.
RESPONSE TO ADDITIONAL DETAILS – I think what you are saying is that you have a water well with a 3 HP electric pump, where the pump is used to bring the water to surface, and you want to “harness” the energy of the water coming to the surface to generate electricity which in turn will power the pump. That is very different from an artesian well that your first question implied.
It will not be possible to use that energy to create “free” energy. Any restriction you have on the pipe (such as a turbine/generator combo) will use more energy to get the water out of the well, and that means you will need a bigger pump – a vicious circle. That’s the “holy grail” of energy – trying to get perpetual energy for free and according to the law of conservation of energy that will never be achieved! The pump, the generator, the turbine, the water flow, and the resistance in the electrical wires all have an efficiency less than 100%, so therefore it is not possible to get the free energy.
The volume can easily be measured in liters per second and the force can be measured as pressure in equivalent meters of head (or in bars or psi, and then converted to equivalent meters of head), and then you could calculate the theoretical energy in kw available with the formula I gave you. For the volume, all you need to know is how long does it take to fill a standard barrel (45 Imp gal or 55 US gal or 200 liters or 0.2 cubic meters), and for the pressure attach a pressure guage. That part is easy. But if the volume and pressure are being derived from the pump, all you have to do is change the pump capacity to alter the energy available. A larger pump will require more energy, so there goes the vicious circle again.
By the way, it takes 746 watts to provide 1 hp in a 100% efficient electric motor, so that means it will be 2238 watts for 3 hp.
So the short answer to a complicated question & answer – attaching a generator to your well will only increase your energy consumption and cost. It will take more energy to create the artificial head then you will get back out of it. No amount of gadgets, autoswitches, and websites are going to change the laws of physics. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as free energy!
Q: How to make a hydroelectricity working model?
I’ am a student of class 8th.I have got the topic “Hydroelectricity” for my school exhibition.Can anyone please give me some ideas about making a hydroelectricity working model.
Please Help.
Thank you.
A: you can make a fan sort of thing which has a rod and copper wire on the rod in the form of a coil. the two ends of the coil can be attached to aluminium foil on the rod. make the fan move horizontally by pouring water from the top.if 2 wires are made to touch the aluuminium foil on the rod when the fan moves electricity is produced. to check for electricity, the wires touching the alluminum foil can be attached to a bulb.
Q: What are the positives and negatives of hydroelectricity?
Also can any one explain to me properly what it is? I have been set a homework on it and have to write the positives and negatives on hydroelectricity, solar power and tidal energy. I am really stuck on this part though! Please help, any suggestions would be fab!
A: Hydro power is simply generating electricity from water flowing through turbines. While you can use the natural flow of a river in small scale schemes more usually it is associated with damming a gorge to get a large head of water then running large scale turbines off the flow from the base of the dam.
Advantages. If you have the right geography, like Iceland or parts of Scotland then you can generate a lot of power at low cost (once the dam is buildt you just have maintainance and the interest on the capital for the building costs, the “fuel” is free. Hydro power does not produce pollution in the same way as fossil fuel or nuclear plants do, but see the disadvantages below.
Disadvantages – you need the right geography, a flat, arid land is not good for hydropower, or even a flat, wet land. You need somewhere with reasonable hills or mountains, with damable valleys.
In some places the damming and flooding of the valley has little or no detrimental human or environmental impact but schemes like the 5 Gorges project in China have both dramatic environmental impact, both from flooding of land and upsetting the flow of water, and of silt downstream as well as making many thousands of people homeless.
Badly sited and designed dams can also be a huge safety hazard if they break, fortunately they tend to be reasonably well designed and planned nowadays.
Disrupting the water flow can have advantages, such as flood control and water storage in areas with rainy and drough seasons but it can also deprive the river and people downstream of the water they need.
Silt settling out in the impounded lake can clog up the lake and removing the silt can make the river erode more rapidly downstream
Q: How has hydroelectricity improved over time?
Hello. I just wanted to know how hydroelectricity has improved over time, and why is it a valuable resource to the world?
A: Since it sounds like you want to learn more about it and NOT for a school report I’ll keep it brief but informative:
First off, it’s valuable because it’s a renewable energy source. This means we won’t run out of it (as long as the water keeps flowin’). It creates no pollution and carries a lot of power behind it (meaning it can generate a lot of electricity for how much energy you put into harvesting it).
The ways it has developed over time…
Well you remember those old water mills in pictures? They were actually used to mill grain or power bellows for a furnace (blacksmiths) and were a lot more reliable than windmills for milling grain so the amount produced was a lot more predictable.
When electricity came around the biggest improvements came with more efficient generator design and improvements to the design of the propellor shapes. Designers started replacing the simple flat boards of the water mills with curved boards that gathered more energy from the water, and then into specially shaped custom formed blades (for a Pelton Wheel).
When technology allowed for material and efficiency improvements, new kinds of generators were developed for differing water pressures. You cannot use a water wheel or a Pelton’s Wheel (an improved water wheel) in a high pressure area like at the bottom of the Hoover Dam. For this you need to use a Turgo High Impulse Turbine (is that the right spelling?), or at least some sort of turbine. These turbines allow much faster speeds of water to go through and harvest energy more efficiently than other designs at similar pressures (called Head)
Well, I have my own homework so I’ll stop here 
Q: How do the first and second law of thermodynamics apply to hydroelectricity?
The first law indicates that energy is conserved, neither created nor destroyed. And the second law says that with each successive energy transfer in a system, less energy is abailable to do work.
I am not sure how they work in hydroelectricity, if someone could explain it to me that would be great! thank you
A: First law:
Conservation of energy.
The potential energy of water stored at a height above the turbine in the generating station is converted into kinetic energy by flowing through the Penstock pipes.
This kinetic energy is converted into rotational mechanical energy in the turbine. The rotational energy is finally converted to electrical energy by the alternator connected to the turbine.
Second law:
Irreversibility and entropy production.
As the water flows through the pipe there is a friction drop in the pipe, which becomes heat. There is an entropy increase associated with this.
There is a loss of kinetic enrgy transfer between the flowing water and the turbine blades. This also appears as heat with an associated increase in entropy.
There is friction in the bearings of the turbine, which again produces heat and an increase in entropy.
There is both friction in the mechanical part and an electrical resistance in the windings of the alternator, which degrades a portion of energy and increases entropy.
Q: How do the First and second law of thermodynamics apply to hydroelectricity?
The first law indicates that energy is conserved, neither created nor destroyed. And the second law says that with each successive energy transfer in a system, less energy is abailable to do work.
I am not sure how they work in hydroelectricity, if someone could explain it to me that would be great! thank you
A: The water coming out the bottom of the dam has lost the gravity potential equal to its volume times the pressure difference between the water surface above and below the dam. Some of that energy is converted to electrical potential in the power line; some of it is in the temperature rise of the water; some is in turbulence, which soon becomes heat. All of the new forms of energy must equal the lost potential energy. That’s the first law.
The simplest way to explain the second law is that the electricity generated, plus all other forms of converted energy are not sufficient to pump the water back into the reservoir.
Q: How much is hydroelectricity used in Canada?
Does anyone know any good sites to study about hydroelectricity, too?
A: Hydroelectricity
Canada is one of the world’s largest producers of hydroelectricity, generating 352 Bkwh from the source in 2006. Canada was once the world’s largest hydroelectricity production, but China has overtaken that position in the last few years. Quebec’s La Grande plant is one of the world’s largest hydroelectric facilities, with an installed capacity of 15,000 MW. Quebec has the largest share of Canada’s hydroelectric production, followed by British Columbia.
Q: How can I make a model of hydroelectricity for a science fair project?
I am going to do the topic “hydroelectricity” for my science fair project. Can anybody tell me how to make the model or a link to a website that gives you instructions on how to make it. Please do not list wikipedia.org because I have checked there and they do NOT give you instructions on how to make a model of it. Please and Thank You!
A: I found a couple of sites that may help you. The first link is a brief discussion of a project very similar to yours that won first place at the California state science fair. Best of luck with your project.
Q: How many African countries depend on water and hydroelectricity from the Nile?
Don’t make wrong answers. It’s a project and Homework help for me. It should be about how many African countries depend on water and hydroelectricity. This should be good. this is a project
A: I am dubious about the answer 32. The Blue Nile and the White Nile run through 9 countries. They are Uganda, Sudan and Egypt for the White Nile. Ethiopia, Zaire, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi either have tributaries of the Blue Nile or are traversed by the Blue Nile.
I think that therefore 9 is a more correct answer, since I do not see any of these countries sharing any of those valuable resourse with their neighbors.
Q: How much more efficient is hydroelectricity vs. fossil fuels?
???
i’m doing a project about cars running off of hydroelectricity. how much more efficient is it than the traditional fossil fuels?
A: first off, if you are doing a project, you need to get your terms right. hydroelectricity refers the electricity generated from hydroelectric damns. A river is damned and the water flows through turbines that spin and generate electricity. This concept cant really be used in a car because it requires a body of water with potential energy.
I have a feeling you are referring to hydrogen fuel vs fossil fuels for use in cars. Is that correct?
If so, the efficiency of hydrogen as a fuel is not too good. Fossil fuels are actually more efficient.The reason is, you have to consider how the hydrogen is generated.
Hydrogen is not found in its natural state, it has to be electrolyzed (takes alot of energy) from water molecules (H20 split into H and O). This split give off heat (energy loss) and then the hydrogen is pumped into a car and then introduced to oxygen at a fuel cell where they recombine, forming water and generating electricity. In essence, you will use more electricity to split the water molecule than you will get from the recombining of the molecule, thus you have an inefficient system.
This process is not very efficient and an electric vehicle makes much more sense. Cutting out the middle man so to speak.
Q: Please help find energy efficiency numbers for hydroelectricity?
We’re doing a science project and we desperately need numbers for hydroelectric energy efficiency… like how much actually goes into making power and is not wasted? If you find anything please provide a source, thank you!
it is extremely hard to find numbers, so numbers and figures relating to hydroelectricity not envolved with energy efficiency is apppreciated. Thank you!
A: I will be giving you some references as links, get ‘er done
the fourth one below gives you some calculations that may be helpful
the last one gives you the losses you wanted
Q: How much does hydroelectricity cost per month?
I don’t want something like, “7 cents per kWh” I just want to know in all how much hydroelectricity cost per month in an average U.S. household. Thanks in advance!
A: you MUST have details
what is the total power production form Hydro. that is available in government studies. try Google
cost would vary depending on the site.
usually Hydro power is cheaper than burning coal once the cost of the dams and equipment is considered. the sun provided the “free” energy to evaporate and lift the water which flows back to the ocean
with tiny excepts ALL energy on earth comes form the sun
Coal is ancient sun energy store as carbon from plants that grew in the sun
energy comes in many forms
Q: How could a hydroelectricity power plant be made more efficient?
Or how could you reduce the loss of energy as it is transformed and transferred?
A: Coat all water channels with teflon – or even regular plastic – to reduce friction losses. Use more efficient generators, e.g. using superconducting magnets.
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