Hydropower
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hydropower

Read and learn more about hydropower. For more, visit the Renewable Energy website EnergySourceRenewable.org

Q: Hydropower?
What would be some good reasons that hydrowpower is the best renewable resource?

A: Benefits of Hydropower

Hydropower is cheap, non-polluting, and many small facilities (less than 30 MW) are considered renewable energy sources. Unlike other sources of energy like nuclear power, the costs of large scale plants is declining because the facilities have been paid for by federal or state projects. Dams and reservoirs also provide recreational opportunities, flood control, irrigation, refuges for wildlife, water supply, and transportation.

Q: What are good universities around the world for studying Hydropower Engineering?
How is the scope of hydropower engineering? How difficult is it to study this faculty? U guys have any ideas ? Please help!

A: You have try German. since they have the best hydro company in the globe

Q: How much is hydropower used in the United States?
I’m curious as to the sort of alternate energy the United States uses, in particular hydropower.

A: the reference gives amount of energy from various sources between 2002 and 2006

in 2006, out of 99.4 quadrillion BYU
hydroelectric was 2.9 (3%)
wind 0.26 (0.25%)
solar 0.02 (0.02%)
Nuclear 8.2 (8.2%)

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Q: What is the quantity of water that a hydropower turbine needs to generate electricity?
Hydropower facilitys like Hoover dam, Itaipu at Brazil, Three Gorges at China has not just one but a lot of turbines that produce electricity.
I want to know what is the quantity (galons/second or litres/second) and with what pressure (lb/squere inch or kilos/squere cm) that water must go through that kind of turbine so that this spin and generate electricity.
Also i want to know if they can work with sea salt water.

A: The amount of energy available from a mass m of water faling through a height h is given by
mgh
Joules. (m in kg, h in meters, g=9.81 m/s^2)
To get watts, use the mass flow rate rather than the mass.
Assume about an 80% efficiency for the turbines and alternators to get the amount of electrical power generated. The number of turbines used is just a convenience, it does not affect the calculations. If they don’t make turbines big enough, you just use several smaller ones.

Example:
h = 30 meters
m = 34,000 kg/sec (= 34 cubic meters / sec)

Power = 34,000 * 30 * 9.81 = 10 Megawatts

Q: Can you give two examples of how hydropower can damage ecosystems?
Can you give two examples of how hydropower can damage ecosystems?

A: Well, the river water downstream would not be the same so that would change the life that lives off the river.

The dam would create a lake which would change the type of life there. If an ecosystem is dependant on the way it was, than it would destroy the original ecosystem.

Q: Open Channel or Pipe to drive a flow between Intake and forebay in a Small Hydropower Project?
I am trying to figure out what is the best way to drive the flow between the weir and the forebay, but this is for a Small Hydropower Project in Panama, Republic of Panama. Which is the best (technical and economical) way to conduct the flow?
I want to clarify my question. What do I need to know is how to chosse between a conduit or a channel to drive water from weir to divert water. Thanks in advance. JCM.

A: If you have a good fall on the water supply I would suggest you use a closed pipe. Start with a large diameter, reducing as the pipe drops from the supply weir. Remember that the pressure neat the top of the pipe will be small when compared with the pressure at the turbine end, so ensure that the pipe and fittings are graded in strength with this in mind. You may wish to reinforce the pipe with and outer sheath of reinforced concrete, this will allow the use of cheaper pipes but has the added cost of the concrete.
Good luck with the project.

Q: What are the steps taken to make hydropower?
i am doing an assignment on hydropower and i need to know the steps taken to make it. Like how it rushing/falling water gets changed into power..

Please help :]

A: First of all you need a river. Duh, I know.

Then you need to build a dam, which will create a reservoir. Why? Because in hydropower, the kinetic energy in moving/falling water is converted into electrical energy. Now suppose you were able to convert absolutely ALL that kinetic energy into electrical energy. Guess what happens… the water stops moving and you’ll end up with a big flood! The solution to that is 1) don’t convert 100% of the energy, and 2) build a dam large enough to hold the water that is held back. (Just keep in mind that the water flowing into the reservoir is running faster than the water flowing out. This is a necessity of converting the power from kinetic the electrical.)

Typically you’ll want to pick a site that is deep and narrow, to minimize the area of the reservoir. Also, the inlet to the reservoir has to be considerably higher in elevation than the base of the dam in order to generate enough power to justify the cost of the hydropower plant. (This height difference is what makes the water run through the turbines fast.)

Next, you need turbines to convert the straight flow of water to a circular rotation of a shaft that can drive a generator.

Next, you need generators to do the actual power conversion. (Generators are actually the same thing as motors. But they do the opposite operation.)

Next, have flood gates that you open just in case the dam is about to overflow.

Have a power conversion station with transformers that convert the low voltage from the generators to a high voltage that can more efficiently transport the electricity to the city.

There are alternatives to building a dam, for example using the water to feed nearby crops instead of a reservoir. But the nice thing about having a reservoir is that you also store water for times of drought. And you can fish and water ski in them.

Q: Can floods contribute to the strength of hydropower?
I am wondering exactly how hydropower works and if flooding can be used as an advantage to generate more power with the use of hydopower.

A: This is how hydropower works. Ya must have the patience to read it.

A hydroelectric power plant harnesses the energy found in moving or still water and converts it into electricity.

Moving water, such as a river or a waterfall, has mechanical energy. ‘Mechanical energy is the energy that is possessed by an object due to its motion or stored energy of position.’ This means that an object has mechanical energy if it’s in motion or has the potential to do work (the movement of matter from one location to another,) based on its position. The energy of motion is called kinetic energy and the stored energy of position is called potential energy. Water has both the ability and the potential to do work. Therefore, water contains mechanical energy (the ability to do work), kinetic energy (in moving water, the energy based on movement), and potential energy (the potential to do work.)

The potential and kinetic/mechanical energy in water is harnessed by creating a system to efficiently process the water and create electricity from it. A hydroelectric power plant has eleven main components. The first component is a dam.

The dam is usually built on a large river that has a drop in elevation, so as to use the forces of gravity to aid in the process of creating electricity. A dam is built to trap water, usually in a valley where there is an existing lake. An artificial storage reservoir is formed by constructing a dam across a river.Notice that the dam is much thicker at the bottom than at the top, because the pressure of the water increases with depth.

The area behind the dam where water is stored is called the reservoir. The water there is called gravitational potential energy. The water is in a stored position above the rest of the dam facility so as to allow gravity to carry the water down to the turbines. Because this higher altitude is different than where the water would naturally be, the water is considered to be at an altered equilibrium. This results in gravitational potential energy, or, “the stored energy of position possessed by an object.” The water has the potential to do work because of the position it is in (above the turbines, in this case.)

Gravity will force the water to fall to a lower position through the intake and the control gate. They are built on the inside of the dam. When the gate is opened, the water from the reservoir goes through the intake and becomes translational kinetic energy as it falls through the next main part of the system: the penstock. Translational kinetic energy is the energy due to motion from one location to another. The water is falling (moving) from the reservoir towards the turbines through the penstock.

The intake shown in figure includes the head works which are the structures at the intake of conduits,tunnels or flumes.These structures include blooms,screens or trash – racks, sluices to divert and prevent entry of debris and ice in to the turbines.Booms prevent the ice and floating logs from going in to the intake by diverting them to a bypass chute.Screens or trash-racks(shown in fig) are fitted irectly at the intake to prevent the debris from going in to the take.Debris cleaning devices should also be fitted on the trash-racks.Intake structures can be classified in to high pressure intakes used in case of large storage reservoirs and low pressure intakes used in case of small ponds.The use of providing these structures at the intake is,water only enters and flows through the pen stock which strikes the turbine.

Control gates arrangement is provided with Spillways.Spillway is constructed to act as a safety valve.It discharges the overflow water to the down stream side when the reservoir is full.These are generally constructed of concrete and provided with water discharge opening,shut off by metal control gates.By changing the degree to which the gates are opened,the discharge of the head water to the tail race can be regulated in order to maintain water level in reservoir.

The pen stock is a long shaft that carries the water towards the turbines where the kinetic energy becomes mechanical energy. The force of the water is used to turn the turbines that turn the generator shaft. The turning of this shaft is known as rotational kinetic energy because the energy of the moving water is used to rotate the generator shaft. The work that is done by the water to turn the turbines is mechanical energy. This energy powers the generators, which are very important parts of the hydroelectric power plant; they convert the energy of water into electricity. Most plants contain several generators to maximize electricity production.

The generators are comprised of four basic components: the shaft, the excitor, the rotor, and the stator. The turning of the turbines powers the excitor to send an electrical current to the rotor. The rotor is a series of large electromagnets that spins inside a tightly wound coil of copper wire, called the stator. “A voltage

Q: I am an inventor and my patents granted by USA Patent It’s hydropower for electricity for green energy market?
My patent is free green electricity energy produced by hydropower in this serious oil crisis and the economic crashed in USA and energy shortages of the world, how to intruduce my machinery to the people and benifit for the world to save our country USA and the world too

A: I think you should get in touch with an attorney to understand think more. You can find them at http://www.patentbuddy.com

Q: How do I get the most hydropower out of a garden hose sized stream of water?
Using water wheels or what have you or like mini turbines how could you connect a water hose with about 15-20 psi and make some good use of it? Any ideas are welcomed.
If you had a million and a half gallons of water that was looking for somewhere to go, don’t you think you’d look in to hydropower too? The resivor also has a 4 inch PVC outlet pipe that is used as an emergency drain.
If you had a million and a half gallons of water that was looking for somewhere to go, don’t you think you’d look in to hydropower too? The resivor also has a 4 inch PVC outlet pipe that is used as an emergency drain, but can also be opened at any time.

A: create more psi, make the hose grow slightly smaller than it is. bigger hose going to smaller hose equals greater pounds per square inch of pressure, or more simply put, more power with the same amount of resource

Q: Solar Energy and Hydropower energy would you say these are good energy resources?
Im doing a project for science on energy resources and i happened to chose solar and hydro power energy. I need some opinions about them.. Are these good energy sources..Tell me what you guys think.

A: All power sources have drawbacks. The two you mention, like nuclear, are relatively clean, which is a plus.

Hydro is very cheap for the amount of energy we get, but our rivers are basically all dammed up already – there isn’t a lot more hydropower we can get.

Solar is one of the most expensive ways to generate electricity on a utility scale, but could be the cheapest way to generate electricity on a homeowner scale, at least for many urban homes. Unless one has a stream running through their property to run a water wheel, or strong steady wind, the other choices for getting power are using a gas- or oil-powered generator, or buying retail electricity from the grid. The generator will cost more per kWh over the life of the system, and the grid electricity could be more or less expensive, depending on where one lives. At the moment, the grid is usually cheaper, but not in all parts of the country.

Q: How much hydropower does the grand coulee dam create?
& how many jobs did it create with the creation of it?
How many jobs are now still available?

A: The nameplate installed capacity is 6809 MW so that’s what it can generate at full load.

Q: How much does it cost to instal a Hydropower plant?
I am wondering this because I am doing a project in Hydro power for Chemistry. I have looked all over the place for the information but can not find it. So if you do know and you got the information off a website Please give copy and paste it to your answer. Please and Thanks..

A: Three Gorges Dam Construction CostEstimated 180 billion yuan (39 billion U.S. dollars)

Hoover Dam: Construction cost: $49 million ($736 million adjusted for inflation from 1936 to 2008)

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Q: What is better for the economy biomass or hydropower?
I am doing a research paper on these two renewable sources, comapring which one would be better for the environment and the economy

A: Hydropower makes only pure water as release.

Q: How much does it cost to build a hydropower station?
Please, I need help for my Science proposal! :) THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!
I just need to know the average or range of prices :)

A: If it is a model hydro station you are considering then you need to specify how much power you need from it. That leads you to an idea of how much water you need to store and the rate of flow through your device.

There are all sorts of water spinning devices from turbines to pelton wheels. One of the nicest ideas doing the rounds at the moment is using an Archimedes screw in reverse. All of these have to be coupled to a generator. And then you need to extract the electricity to power whatever your project needs.

Cost = storage device (dam & valley???), spinning device (turbine?), generator (how many VA output), transmission linking spinner to generator, cables delivering energy to user, some kind of protective housing for spinner & generator. Add em up and start saving! Good luck!

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