Hydropower, also known as hydroelectric power, is the use of water to produce power. Harnessing water to perform work has been going on for thousands of years. The Greeks used waterwheels for grinding wheat into flour more than 2000 years ago. Besides grinding flour, the power of the water was used to saw wood and to power textile mills and manufacturing plants. This article looks briefly at how hydropower plant began, why it is considered renewable energy technology, the parts of a hydropower plant, types of turbines and when they are used, and what research and development is occurring. (more…)
Up to around 1980, hydropower research and development (R&D) efforts focused mainly on improving turbine efficiency, reducing c ...
The water levels of most of the world’s rivers fluctuate with seasonal rains, melting snows, or droughts, and in the arid zones ...
The World Commission on Dams (WCD) was formed in 1998 by a joint initiative of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the Worl ...
The winners in hydropower and other large dam projects are those who gain electricity, domestic water supplies, sanitation, dro ...
The demand for electric energy by a community varies with the time of day and with the time of year. An electric power utility ...
The water levels of most of the world’s rivers fluctuate with seasonal rains, melting snows, or droughts, and in the arid zones there are flash floods. It makes sense to capture and store the abundant waters and later release it during the low flow periods or use it for power. So dams have been built for the purposes of irrigation, municipal water supply, and hydroelectricity generation. Flood control and transportation benefits are also important. Cities are growing all over the developing world, and they require water supplies and reservoirs. Since the beginning of the 20th century, hydropower energy has steadily increased and it now supplies 19% of worldwide electricity. (more…)
Hydropower, also known as hydroelectric power, is the use of water to produce power. Harnessing water to perform work has been ...
The winners in hydropower and other large dam projects are those who gain electricity, domestic water supplies, sanitation, dro ...
The World Commission on Dams (WCD) was formed in 1998 by a joint initiative of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the Worl ...
Up to around 1980, hydropower research and development (R&D) efforts focused mainly on improving turbine efficiency, reducing c ...
Water power sources is an interesting source of energy. It is available freely in nature. The constant flow of water can guaran ...
The World Commission on Dams (WCD) was formed in 1998 by a joint initiative of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the World Bank (WB) after a historic meeting of leading dam proponents and opponents in Switzerland, with proceedings reported by Dorcey and others. The WCD was asked to discover the truth about the hydropower energy facts, hydropower energy pros and cons, cost, effect, and benefit of large dams and it functioned independently for 2 years at a cost of $10 million. The money was well spent, and at the end of that period the WCD produced a comprehensive report and numerous support documents, and then dissolved itself. The report and support documents remain on the Internet available to all, and they have changed forever the debate about dams. (more…)
The water levels of most of the world’s rivers fluctuate with seasonal rains, melting snows, or droughts, and in the arid zones ...
Hydropower, also known as hydroelectric power, is the use of water to produce power. Harnessing water to perform work has been ...
The winners in hydropower and other large dam projects are those who gain electricity, domestic water supplies, sanitation, dro ...
Up to around 1980, hydropower research and development (R&D) efforts focused mainly on improving turbine efficiency, reducing c ...
Some of alternative fuel sources are by no means new. For centuries people have harnessed the power of running water for a vari ...
Transportation is another sector that has increased its relative share of primary energy use. This sector has serious concerns as it is a significant source of CO2 emissions and other airborne pollutants, and it is almost totally based on oil as its energy source. An important aspect of future changes in transportation depends on what happens to the available oil resources, production and prices. At present, 95% of all energy for transportation comes from oil. (more…)
Under both former President Bush and new President Obama, the U.S. government has vowed to reduce reliance on imported oil. The ...
Global energy consumption in the last half century has increased very rapidly and is expected to continue to grow over the next ...
From prehistory until the Industrial Revolution, most energy sources used by humans were localized (i.e., available within 5–10 mil ...
Do we have the resources? Rudolf Diesel developed the diesel engine which ran on biodiesel vegetable oil in the late 1800s. At the ...
One study that does address the peak-oil scenario directly is a 2005 report conducted for the National Energy Technology Labora ...
Global energy consumption in the last half century has increased very rapidly and is expected to continue to grow over the next 50 years. However, we expect to see significant differences between the last 50 years and the next. The past increase was stimulated by relatively “cheap” fossil fuels and increased rates of industrialization in North America, Europe, and Japan; yet while energy consumption in these countries continues to increase, additional factors are making the picture for the next 50 years more complex. These additional complicating factors include the very rapid increase fuel economy in energy use in China and India (countries representing about a third of the world’s population); the expected depletion of oil resources in the not-too-distant future; and the effect of human activities on global climate change. (more…)
The relationship of gross national product per capita to energy consumption per capita for most countries of the world correlat ...
The long-term prospects for the U.K. economy are inevitably uncertain, and the most recent Department of Energy long-term proje ...
Transportation is another sector that has increased its relative share of primary energy use. This sector has serious concerns ...
The development of the ‘‘new’’ wind and solar technologies is of great importance for the future contribution of RESs to energy sup ...
To determine the effects of past climate trends on global energy consumption, the econometric equations providing the degree day el ...
Following the recent completion of three nuclear power plants, there is now some 9.6 GW of nuclear capacity in the United Kingdom. The nuclear share of electrical output, which has stood at around 13% for many years, should rise to around 20% when this capacity is in full operation. A further two reactors are currently under construction which will increase the British nuclear capacity to more than 12 GW by the late 1980s, which could bring the nuclear share of electrical output to around 25%. (more…)
Geographers researching the development of nuclear power have shifted emphasis from commercialization, cost, risk, public acceptanc ...
The long-term prospects for the U.K. economy are inevitably uncertain, and the most recent Department of Energy long-term proje ...
Nuclear fission and fusion Research and Development continues to account for nearly half of the total spending by IEA countries, al ...
Sir Arthur Eddington’s general address on subatomic energy at the 1930 World Power Conference in Berlin stirred the imagination of ...
For years it was out of desperation that observers have advised and viewed of American energy policy and geopolitical risks regardi ...
Several molecular systems have been constructed that mimic various aspects of photosynthesis. Two of these utilize molecular systems that are derived from natural photosynthesis but that incorporate chemically based modifications to produce artificial photosynthetic devices. These devices use artificial photosynthetic pigments to drive chemical reactions across lipid bilayers or use noble metal catalysts to change the function of the photosynthetic process to produce hydrogen and oxygen instead of sugars ethanol and oxygen. Neither of these systems are sufficiently robust to be operated for extended periods of time as energy unit conversion devices, but they have shown that it is possible to produce artificial photosynthetic assemblies that function well in a laboratory setting. (more…)
The basic processes that occur in such a system are well understood. The semiconductor electrode efficiently absorbs light, produci ...
Certain materials, generally metal oxides, can sustain the unassisted photo-electrolysis of water into H2 and O2. The energy co ...
A fuel cell is an electrochemical device that combines hydrogen with oxygen to generate electricity, heat and water to produce. ...
A fuel cell is an electrochemical device that directly converts a fuel to electricity by means of reactions on the surfaces of ...
The fuel cell can trace its roots back to the 1800s when a Welsh-born, Oxford-educated barrister, Sir William Robert Grove, realize ...
After lighting, personal computers (PC) and monitors have the highest energy use in office environments. Studies have shown that the power management of computers and monitors can significantly reduce the energy consumption per capita, saving hundreds or thousands of dollars per year in electricity costs. The energy consumption of computers and monitors will be needed by the amount of energy to work and how they are used is determined.
The installed base of approximately 71 million personal computers and 2.5 million workstations in 2000 consumed 17.4 and 1.8 TWh, respectively. (more…)
Green computing has forced even the largest companies to rethink and refocus to use energy more efficiently. We have low-power ...
It is known that laser printers print faster, but swallow a large amount of energy, even if the printer is in the energy saving ...
Power generation and distribution networks are built with spare capacity to meet peak periods of energy consumption is usually ...
The office copy machines (photocopier) is everywhere. Seven millions unit are in used in the United States and more than 1.5 mi ...
The pace of innovations in batteries has not matched the remarkably fast evolution in the development of portable electronic techno ...
The volatility in oil prices since the early 1970s is a remarkable feature of energy economics. Annual fluctuations in the oil price level, as measured by the absolute value of year-to-year price changes, averaged only 1% in the 1949–1970 period; from 1970 to date, these fluctuations increased dramatically, reaching an order of magnitude of 30% per year. Even in the relatively stable period from 1986 to 1997, oil prices were more volatile than other primary commodities. (more…)
In the post-World War II period, until the beginning of the 1970s, oil price fluctuations were very small. From 1949 to 1970, a ...
The focus of this section is on the quantitative assessment of the impact of oil price fluctuations on inflation. For that purp ...
The evolution of oil prices is typically subject to a very high degree of uncertainty, given the extremely volatile nature of c ...
Most major oil and gas firms engage in both upstream (i.e., hydrocarbon exploration and production) and downstream (i.e., hydro ...
There are many possible reasons for suspecting market failure in a product like gasoline. Throughout the world, the exploration ...
The focus of this section is on the quantitative assessment of the impact of oil price fluctuations on inflation. For that purpose, the empirical evidence provided by an OECD study is briefly described. The study considered a permanent oil price increase of about $10, vis-a`-vis a baseline where oil prices were projected to remain at the $20–25 level (this shock corresponds to a price increase of about 40–50%). The OECD study presents estimates of the impact on GDP, world trade growth, and inflation, for the G7 countries. The estimates were obtained through the simulation of the OECD macro-econometric model Interlink, assuming fixed nominal exchange rates, real interest rates kept at baseline levels, and unchanged real government expenditures. The main results of this exercise, with respect to the impact on oil prices inflation, are reported in Table I. (more…)
The volatility in oil prices since the early 1970s is a remarkable feature of energy economics. Annual fluctuations in the oil ...
The evolution of oil prices is typically subject to a very high degree of uncertainty, given the extremely volatile nature of c ...
In the post-World War II period, until the beginning of the 1970s, oil price fluctuations were very small. From 1949 to 1970, a ...
Most major oil and gas firms engage in both upstream (i.e., hydrocarbon exploration and production) and downstream (i.e., hydro ...
There are many possible reasons for suspecting market failure in a product like gasoline. Throughout the world, the exploration ...