Hydropower, explained - what's the best electric toothbrush

For centuries, humans have been using the energy of the river to process grain and cloth using water tankers originally spun by the river.
Today, water and electricity supplies about 16% of the world's electricity, and all but two of the United States is generating electricity. S. states.
At the end of the 19 th century, hydropower became a source of electricity in the United Kingdom-
James Francis, an American engineer, developed the first modern pump.
In 1882, the world's first hydropower plant began operating along the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin, USA.
A typical hydropower station is a system consisting of three parts: a power plant that generates electricity, a dam that can be opened or closed to control the flow of water, and a reservoir that stores water.
The water behind the dam passes through the water inlet and pushes the blades in the turbine, causing the blades to turn.
The turbine rotates the generator to generate electricity.
The amount of electricity that can be generated depends on the distance of the water drop and the amount of water moving in the system.
Electricity can be transported over long periods of time
Wires from homes, factories and businesses.
Other types of hydro plants use the flow of water through waterways without dams.
China, Brazil, Canada, the United States and Russia are the top five producers of hydropower.
In terms of installed capacity, the world's largest hydropower station is the Three Gorges (Sanxia)
On the Yangtze River in China, this is 1. 4 miles (2. 3 kilometers)
607 feet wide (185 meters)high.
In fact, the largest power generation facility every year is the Itaipu factory located in the Barana River between Brazil and Paraguay.
The largest hydropower plant in the United States is located on the Columbia River in Washington, D. C. , where there are about two
Its electricity comes from water and electricity.
There are several advantages of hydropower.
Once the dam has been built and installed, the source of energy can flow freely.
It is a clean fuel source for snow and rain renewal.
Hydropower plants can provide a large amount of electricity, and by controlling the flow of water through turbines, they are relatively easy to adjust according to demand.
But the dam works will destroy the river ecosystem and the surrounding communities, destroy wildlife, and force residents to leave.
For example, one person is estimated to have been displaced by the Three Gorges Dam.
Hundreds of villages were flooded by 2 million people.
The dam also prevented fish such as salmon from swimming upstream to spawn.
While equipment like the fish ladder is designed to help salmon get on the dam and into the upstream spawn zone, this measure is not always effective.
In some cases, fish are collected around obstacles and transported by truck.
Nevertheless, the presence of hydropower dams tends to change migration patterns and harm fish populations.
For example, in the Columbia Basin in the northwest of the Pacific Ocean, salmon and steelhead fish lost about 40% of their historic habitat due to dams.
Hydropower plants can also cause low do levels in the water, which is harmful to river habitat.
Other wildlife can also be affected: In Indonesia, a hydropower project threatens the rare Tapanuli orangutans because it destroys their habitat.
The increase in climate change and drought risk has also had an impact on the world's hydropower plants.
In the western United States. S.
More than 15-carbon dioxide emissions
According to a 100 study, the time of the year was 2018 m tonnes higher than normal as utilities turned to coal and gas to replace hydropower lost due to drought.
Even the promise of carbon
Free electricity from hydropower is destroyed by the release of methane from rotten organic substances in the reservoir, which is a powerful greenhouse gas that causes global warming.
However, some believe that the environmental impact of hydropower can be reduced and maintained at a lower level compared to burning fossil fuels.
In some places, small hydropower projects can take advantage of existing water flows or infrastructure.
Special water inlet and turbines can help ensure that the water released by the dam is better inflated to solve the problem of low dissolved oxygen.
For example, dams can be planned more strategically to allow fish passages, while at the same time the current flow of existing dams can be calibrated to allow the ecosystem to gain more recovery time from the flood cycle.
The study continues to examine how hydropower projects can be more friendly to the surrounding ecosystems.
More and more campaigns are also working to dismantle dams that no longer work or are no longer needed around the world, with the aim of restoring more natural rivers and the many benefits they offer to wildlife and people, including entertainment.