By: Ryan Besachio

How Water is Used to Make Energy Water is formed by a dam blocking a river, creating an artificial lake called a reservoir. Water flows through tunnels at the bottom of the dam. As the water moves through the tunnels, it turns turbines connected to a generator.

Advantages From Using Hydropower Once a dam is constructed, electricity can be produced at a constant rate. The build up of water in the lake means that energy can be stored until needed, when the water is released to produce electricity. When in use, electricity produced by dam systems do not produce green house gases. They do not pollute the atmosphere.

Disadvantages From Using Hydropower Dams are extremely expensive to build and must be built to a very high standard. The high cost of dam construction means that they must operate for many decades to become profitable. The flooding of large areas of land means that the natural environment is destroyed.

History of Hydropower B.C. -Hydropower used by the Greeks to turn water wheels for grinding wheat into flour, more than 2,000 years ago 1880-Michigan's Grand Rapids Electric Light and Power Company, generating electricity by dynamo belted to a water turbine at the Wolverine Chair Factory, lit up 16 brush-arc lamps Niagara Falls city street lamps powered by hydropower World's first hydroelectric power plant began operation on the Fox River in Appleton San Bernardino, Ca., opens first hydroelectric plant in the west First Federal Water Power 1933-Tennessee Valley Authority established Bonneville Dam, first Federal dam, begins operation on the Columbia River About 10% of U.S. electricity comes from hydropower. Today, there is about 80,000 MW of conventional capacity and 18,000 MW of pumped storage.

10 Largest Dams in the World (10- 1) 10. Robert-Bourassa Dam, Canada 9. Zeya Dam, Russia 8. Krasnoyarsk Dam, Russia 7. W.A.C Bennett Dam, Canada 6. Aswan High Dam, Egypt 5. Guri Dam, Venezuela 4. Daniel Johnson Dam, Canada 3. Akosombo Dam, Ghana 2. Bratsk Dam, Russia 1. Kariba Dam, Zimbabwe

5 Facts about Hydropower Hydropower is the most significant renewable energy source. Hydropower is the only renewable energy source that is in some measure competitive with fossil fuels. Hydropower is the force of energy of moving water. Hydropower can't be used in all areas because it needs fast flowing water throughout whole year. Hydropower is very efficient energy source because some turbines can achieve efficiency of 95 % and more.

5 facts about Water Pure water (solely hydrogen and oxygen atoms) has a neutral pH of 7, which is neither acidic nor basic. Water dissolves more substances than any other liquid. Wherever it travels, water carries chemicals, minerals, and nutrients with it. Much more fresh water is stored under the ground in aquifers than on the earths surface. The total amount of water on the earth is about 326 million cubic miles of water. The United States uses about 346,000 million gallons of fresh water every day.

Works Cited m m ydropower-facts.html ydropower-facts.html Earth Science from Prentice Hall ten-largest-dams-in-the-world-reservoirs/ ten-largest-dams-in-the-world-reservoirs/