Geography
Water Power
Water power refers to the energy harnessed from the movement of water, typically through the use of hydroelectric dams or turbines. It is a renewable and sustainable energy source that can be used to generate electricity. Water power plays a significant role in geography, influencing the distribution of settlements and industries near water bodies with potential for hydroelectric power generation.
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8 Key excerpts on "Water Power"
eBook - ePubWater: A way of life
Sustainable water management in a cultural context
- A.J.M. (Lida) Schelwald-van der Kley, Linda Reijerkerk(Authors)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
Water: a source of powerAll water flows into the ocean or into the purse of the rich. Geographical origin DenmarkSwimmingPoem written in 1965 by China’s former Communist Leader Mao Zedong after swimming the mighty Yangtze River.Great plans are afoot: A bridge will fly to span the North and South, Turning a deep chasm into a thoroughfare; To hold back Wushan’s clouds and rain Till a smooth lake rises in the narrow gorges. The mountain goddess if she is still there Will marvel at a world so changed.4.1 INTRODUCTION
We all have experienced the natural power of water on occasion. It humbles us when we watch the force of a waterfall; it tumbles us when we stand in a swift current or fight the giant waves washing ashore. The intrinsic energy of running or falling water has been recognized since ancient times as a useful energy source. Controlling the earth’s natural waters is also a fundamental human urge.Throughout the ages and in many parts of the world control of the waters has even been used as a means to gain political power in the region. This chapter addresses water as a source of physical and political power alongside such issues as blue energy, hydropower dams and totalitarian water regimes. The key question is: What physical and political power can be attributed to water, what are the social implications and what does all this imply for sustainable water management?In this chapter hydropower (4.2 ), dams (4.3 ) and political power (4.4 ) are discussed in relation to social and water management implications, followed by a concluding section (4.5 ).4.2 HYDROPOWER
4.2.1 Falling water
Water’s physical power becomes very clear when you experience a thundering waterfall like the famous Niagara Falls on the Canadian-American border or encounter the less well known but magnificent Takkakaw falls, the highest waterfall in the Canadian Rockies. Waterfalls are true wonders of nature, as our ancestors agreed. The word “Takkakaw” means ‘It’s a wonder’ in the Cree Indian language and the name Niagara is said to mean ‘Thunder of waters’.
eBook - PDF- John R Fanchi(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- World Scientific(Publisher)
The hydro-sphere includes groundwater and water found in oceans, glaciers, surface waters such as rivers and lakes, and atmospheric moisture. Figure 8-1. The Water Cycle The water cycle is considered renewable since the water cycle is driv-en by energy from the sun in a seemingly endless series of cycles. Water in a variety of systems can be used to generate power. For example, hy-dropower is usually obtained by damming streams and rivers. Energy can be harvested from waves and tides, and from temperature differences in columns of water. We consider power production using energy from water in this chapter. Energy in the 21 st Century 184 8.1 H YDROELECTRIC P OWER People have known for some time that falling water could be used to generate electric power. We summarize the history of hydroelectric power and describe the generation of hydroelectric power below. 8.1.1 History of Hydroelectric Power in the United States The Greeks were among the first to use hydropower. They ground wheat into flour more than 2,000 years ago by turning water wheels with flowing water. French hydraulic and military engineer Bernard Forest de Bélidor presented hydraulic principles in Architecture Hydraulique , his four-volume work published between 1730 and 1770. Bélidor described verti-cal- and horizontal-axis machines that could be rotated by flowing water. By 1940, hydroelectric power provided approximately 40% of the electrici-ty generated in the United States. Today hydroelectric power provides less than 10% of the electricity generated in the United States. Table 8-1 highlights key events in the history of hydroelectric power in the United States. Table 8 -1 History of Hydroelectric Power in the United States [Source: DoE Hydropower History, 2009] Year Comment 1775 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers founded. 1880 Grand Rapids Electric Light and Power Company in Michigan provided electricity from a dynamo belted to a water turbine to power lamps for theatre and storefront lighting.
eBook - PDFWater & Wastewater Infrastructure
Energy Efficiency and Sustainability
- Frank R. Spellman(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
Before we discuss microhydropower applications in detail, you first need to know some-thing about how water behaves, water hydraulics (computations), and hydropower appli-cations on the macro and micro scales. 14.2 Hydropower When you get right down to it, there is nothing new about using Water Power to assist humans in the day-to-day struggle to survive. Almost all human settlements began near some major water body. Not only was it important to have easy access to freshwa-ter for drinking and cooking, but it was also important to be near water for transporta-tion needs and to have a close proximity to moving water to generate power to operate various mechanical devices such as grist mills and later for the generation of electricity. This is somewhat ironic, because when we look at rushing waterfalls and rivers we may 194 Water & Wastewater Infrastructure: Energy Efficiency and Sustainability not immediately think of electricity, but hydroelectric (water-powered) power plants are responsible for lighting many of our homes and neighborhoods. Hydropower is the har-nessing of water to perform work. The power from falling water has been used in industry for thousands of years (see Table 14.1). The Greeks used water wheels to grind wheat into flour more than 2000 years ago. Besides grinding flour, the power from water was used to saw wood, to power textile mills, and for manufacturing plants. The technology for using falling water to create hydroelectricity has existed for more than a century. The evolution of the modern hydropower turbine began in the mid-1700s when a French hydraulic and military engineer, Bernard Forest de Belidor, wrote a four-volume work describing using a vertical-axis vs. a horizontal-axis machine. Water turbine devel-opment continued during the 1700s and 1800s.
eBook - PDFClimate, Energy and Water
Managing Trade-offs, Seizing Opportunities
- Jamie Pittock, Karen Hussey, Stephen Dovers(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
Hydropower and its role in global energy Hydropower is power extracted from falling or moving water. In this chapter, we use hydropower synonymously with hydroelectric power, which is electricity generated by the gravitational force of water moving through turbines. The most common forms of hydro- power require constructing a dam across a river. The dam maintains water at a certain elevation (the head), from which water is directed through pipes or channels to turbines that generate electricity. A dam allows water to be stored over time periods ranging from hours to years, reducing the variability of flows that otherwise can vary dramatically within a year, such as between a wet season and a dry season, and allowing a more consistent flow of water through the turbines (Figure 6.1). Large reservoirs are capable of storing water across years and can thus reduce variability between wet years and dry years. Storage reservoirs give hydropower managers the ability to release water into the turbines when energy is most needed or valuable, such as summer when the demand for energy is greater. Within a day, hydropower managers can release water into turbines to respond to rising demand, a mode of operation known as ‘load following’ or ‘peaking’ (Kumar 2011). Hydropower dams can generally be classified into either ‘storage’ dams – those that impound water for use during other times of the year – and ‘run-of-river’ dams, in which 80 Hydropower within the climate, energy and water nexus reservoir storage is held constant and outflow equals inflow (Kumar 2011). Run-of-river dams are generally considered to have a lower impact on rivers systems because they don’t alter the overall flow pattern, but the actual operation associated with the term ‘run-of- river’ can differ by region, resulting in very different impacts. In some regions, run-of-river balances instantaneous outflow and inflows from dams.
eBook - PDFApplied Energy
An Introduction
- Mohammad Omar Abdullah(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
8 Hydro, Wind, and Geothermal Energy In this chapter, we will cover matters relating to energy applications that can be harnessed from three of the Earth’s resources: • Water (usually called hydro energy) • Air (Wind energy) • Earth (geothermal energy) 8.1 Hydro Energy Water energy from streams, rivers, and waterfalls can all be harnessed by the most traditional energy generator, the “hydropower turbine,” to produce clean electrical energy for our applications. 8.1.1 Introduction to Hydro Energy The hydro energy application is the most successful type of alternative energy usage to date, in terms of total energy production and applications. Worldwide, hydro power plants provide around 15% of the total power of the world (see, e.g., [18]), and the total hydro potential of our World is about 5,000 GW. It is expected that worldwide energy demand will increase by about 30% between 2010 and 2030, with hydro and other renewables having the highest growth rates [18]; [20]. The power developed from a hydro-electric power plant can be approximately calculated as, P ower = w × Q × h × η overall (8.1) where Power = watts; w = weight density of water, N/m 3 ( w = ρg = 1000 × 9 . 81 = around 9810 N / m 3 ); Q = water volumetric flow rate, m 3 /sec; h = height of waterfall or “head”; η overall = overall conversion efficiency. Example 8.1 A local SME manufacturing company considers designing and setting up a micro-hydro power system for an electrical power enterprise. The water source is from the waste condenser water from a power plant, delivered at a constant rate. The water turbine average efficiency is 75%. (a) What is the expected power drawn from the system in kW from a water height of 2 m and volume flow rate of 3 m 3 /sec ? (b) What is the possible energy saving per year, if the management decided to change to a new turbine of the same capacity but with higher efficiency of 82%? (assume operating hours = 3,920 hours/year).
eBook - PDF- Vaughn C. Nelson, Kenneth L. Starcher(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
279 12 Water 12.1 INTRODUCTION Energy from water is one of the oldest sources of energy, as paddle wheels were used to rotate a millstone to grind grain. A large number of watermills, 200–500 W, for grinding grain are still in use in remote mountains and hilly regions in the developing world. There are an estimated 500,000 watermills in the Himalayas, with around 200,000 watermills in India [1]. Of the 25,000–30,000 watermills in Nepal, 8,349 water-mills were upgraded between 2003 and 2013 [2,3]. Paddle wheels and buckets powered by moving water were and are still used in some parts of the world for lifting water for irrigation. Water provided mechanical power for the textile and industrial mills of the 1800s as small dams were built, and mill buildings are found along the edges of rivers throughout the United States and Europe. Then, starting in the late 1800s, water stored behind dams was used for the generation of electricity. For example, in Switzerland in the 1920s there were nearly 7,000 small-scale hydropower plants. The energy in water can be potential energy from a height difference, which is what most people think of in terms of hydro; the most common example is the generation of electricity (hydroelectric) from water stored in dams. However, there is also kinetic energy due to water flow in rivers and ocean currents. Finally, there is energy due to tides, which is due to gravitational attraction of the Moon and the Sun, and energy from waves, which is due to wind. In the final analysis, water energy is just another transformation from solar energy, except for tides. The energy or work is force * distance, so potential energy due to gravitation is W = F * d = m * g * H , J (12.1) The force due to gravity is mass * acceleration, where the acceleration of gravity g = 9.8 m/s 2 and H = height in meters of the water. For estimations, you may use g = 10 m/s 2 . For water, generally what is used is the volume, so the mass is obtained from density and volume.
eBook - PDF- Yatish T. Shah(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
361 13 Power and Energy Directly from Water 13.1 INTRODUCTION In Chapters 2 through 12, we examined (1) the benign role water plays for fuel production and energy carrier; (2) water (in the form of steam, water, or supercritical water) as a chemical solvent, reactant, or catalyst to generate fuels; and (3) the direct role it plays to generate hydrogen and methane. In this chapter, we briefly examine the direct role of water for the generation of power and electricity. Water can directly generate energy and power in three different ways: hydropo-tential energy (or hydroelectricity), hydrokinetic energy (or a mixture of hydrokinetic energy and hydropotential energy like in tidal wave), and the use of ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) technologies. Here, we examine all three methods for generating power with the direct use of water. The use of water dams to generate hydroelectricity has been practiced for a long time. This is a very clean method for power generation since it has a very little effect on greenhouse gas (GHG) production. Along with hydroelectricity, in recent years, hydrokinetic energy that uses the kinetic energy stored in tidal waves, sea and ocean shore waves, and undercurrents and inland waterways has been harnessed to gener-ate electricity with the numerous different types of devices. The energy can also be harnessed from the temperature difference between the surfaces of the ocean (warm) and deep water (cold) using numerous OTEC devices. All three methods solely use water to generate power. This chapter briefly describes our current state of art on this subject. 13.2 HYDROELECTRIC POWER BY WATER DAMS Water has been used for a long time to directly generate energy and power through hydroelectricity [1–32] (Zainuddin et al., 2012, pers. comm.). In this process, electricity is generated by hydropower, the production of electrical power through the use of the gravitational force of falling or flowing water.
eBook - PDF- John R Fanchi(Author)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- World Scientific(Publisher)
We consider power production using energy from water in this chapter. 8.1 H YDROELECTRIC P OWER People have known for some time that falling water could be used to generate electric power. We summarize the history of hydroelectric power and describe the generation of hydroelectric power here. 8.1.1 History of Hydroelectric Power in the United States Hydropower was used by the Greeks to turn water wheels for grinding wheat into flour more than 2,000 years ago. French hydraulic and military engineer Bernard Forest de Bélidor wrote Architecture Hydraulique , a four-volume work published between 1730 and 1770. Bélidor presented hydraulic principles and described vertical- and horizontal-axis machines. Hydroelectric power provided approximately 40% of the electricity gener-ated in the United States in 1940. Today hydroelectric power provides approximately 7% of the electricity generated in the United States. Table 8-1 highlights key events in the history of hydroelectric power in the United States. Energy in the 21 st Century 174 Table 8-1 History of Hydroelectric Power in the United States [Source: DOE Hydropower History, 2009] Year Comment 1775 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers founded. 1880 Grand Rapids Electric Light and Power Company in Michigan provided electricity from a dynamo belted to a water turbine to power lamps for theatre and storefront lighting. 1881 Niagara Falls city street lamps powered by hydropower. 1882 World's first hydroelectric power plant began operation on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin. 1886 About 45 water-powered electric plants in U.S. and Can-ada. 1887 San Bernardino, California opens first hydroelectric plant in the west. 1889 Two hundred electric plants in the U.S. use waterpower for some or all electricity generation. 1901 Federal Water Power Act enacted. 1902 Bureau of Reclamation established. 1920 Federal Power Commission established. 1933 Tennessee Valley Authority established.
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