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The Great Potential of Hydropower
Hydropower has been used as far back as the Roman empire and through history has been used to power water mills, textile machines, sawmills and irrigation systems. In the early 1800s people started to see that the use of water to power small factories and machines is but a minor application of its potential however. As early as the nineteenth century, waterpower was being used as a source of electricity. Though primitive hydropower technology only consisted of wheels, buckets and river flow, it was from this point on that waterpower's potential as one of the most efficient and abundant sources of renewable energy became apparent.
The appeal of hydropower lies in the fact that it can be harnessed nearly anywhere in the world. Due to their potential and kinetic energy, every body of water, whether it be the ocean, streams, lakes or rivers has potential to create electricity. Hydropower is one of the few energy sources that can be easily renewed each year through the process of snow and rainfall. Moreover, hydropower does not create any direct waste and creates a significantly lower amount of pollutants than other forms of energy, renewable or otherwise. Another little known fact about hydropower is that it is actually the cheapest way to create electricity in the modern world. Hydropower facilities are dependable with low maintenance costs along with a production rate that equates to a mere one cent for every kilowatt-hour produced. The combination of all of these advantages makes hydropower one of the most promising sources of energy worldwide.
As early as 1980, a quarter of the world's electricity was being produced by hydropower, but for many, the question remains, "how exactly is hydropower created?" Hydropower facilities have a variety of strategies that all contribute to the end goal of creating energy from water. The most conventional method for hydropower is the creation of dams. Dams use water's potential energy, along with a water turbine and generator to produce energy. River flow can be used to generate energy, but does not have the advantage of storing power. Surprisingly, hydropower can even come from a process as simple as harnessing the power of the natural rising and lowering of the tide. With the use of low dams built across inlets, water enters through one way gates and is then expelled through turbines that produce electricity. Hydropower developed by harnessing the power of the ocean is not limited to the tide and many other similar forms of ocean hydropower have been developed. Scientists have devised ways to capture energy from many ocean processes that include: marine currents, wave power, osmotic power and ocean thermal energy (ocean temperature differences). In most cases of hydropower, the potential for capturing power is never an issue; the only problem comes from a need to improve energy transportation and storage capabilities.
Even with the various advantages of hydropower, it is still an underused alternative energy source. As of 2008, only 6% of the United States' electricity production came from hydropower, while nearly 50% came from the non-renewable source of coal. Due to a lack of economic speculation, a vast amount of potential for renewable hydropower remains untapped. In third world countries and underdeveloped areas such as Alaska, northern Canada, South Africa and New Zealand all have many areas that would be highly conducive to hydropower. The construction and use of hydropower facilities in these countries/areas, along with an increase in hydropower in the United States, could result in a great increase in renewable, affordable and non-polluting energy.
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