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Natural Energy Source

Hydropower

Hydropower refers to the use of water to make electricity. This is normally done by using the flow of the water to spin a turbine. This can be done by using the flow of the water directly by placing the turbine in a river. However in most cases to ensure that they get a steady flow of water the river will be dammed. The water is then allowed to travel through tunnels in the dam which is where the turbines are placed.

Over the last few years there has been a lot of talk about the use of alternative energy sources however the only one that is in widespread use is hydropower. A significant portion of the worlds power needs are met through the use of hydroelectricity. Because of this a lot of people don't really think of hydropower as being an alternative energy source. Another reason for this is that hydropower is not as environmentally benign as people like to believe that other forms of alternative energy are.

There is no doubting that hydropower has an impact on the environment but the same would be true for virtually any other alternative energy if it were used as widely. Therefore a lot of the criticisms of hydropower should be taken with a grain of salt. The fact does remain however that the use of hydroelectricity does require that dams be built and large areas be flooded.

While hydropower does have an environmental impact it is much smaller than the impact of most other widely used sources of energy. The main advantage offered in this regard is that hydropower does not produce any emissions. That means that it does not contribute to global warming which is a serious issue these days.

The other advantage that hydropower offers is that it is available at a low cost. Certainly the capital costs of building a dam are quite high but once the dam has been built the electricity can be produced at a very low cost. The cost of construction can usually be offset by the lower cost of producing electricity because of how long the dam will remain in use. Once the dam has been built it may very well produce electricity for more than a hundred years.

While hydropower has been quite successful at meeting the energy needs of certain countries it is not really an option for others. Obviously in order to use hydropower a country needs to have a large number of rivers. In order to get around this problem there is some work being done on using the ocean current to produce electricity but this is still only done on a small scale. The result is that hydropower on its own likely will not be enough to meet the worlds energy needs and will need to be used in conjunction with other power sources.