Why not hydropower?

Question

If hydropower is the clean energy source that it has always been, why not find new ways to use it in places where it wouldn't displace anyone like in secluded rural areas? They would make excellent tourist attractions for fishing and scenery. Another thing I ran across is that all too often the water that could be used to generate power just goes over the top of the dam instead of running it through the generators. I want to hear the common person’s opinion on why or why not to use these almost free energy sources.

Answer 1

Here in New Zealand we're lucky. We've got plenty of rainfall and high country lakes among our mountains, so we rely on hydro power more than most countries, and as you say it's a clean energy source. And most of our hydro projects are in sparsely populated areas. We've only got 4 million people anyway. And our hydro lakes are excellent tourist attractions. You're right about the power often being wasted when the lakes are full. I've often argued that when this happens, the power company should adjust electricity meters in homes and factories with a remote signal so they charge at a cheaper rate and consumers would increase their power consumption so the water wouldn't run to waste. We've got the technology already. You raise two important points; I hope this answers one of them. But regarding your other point, here, and in most places, all the best sites for hydro dams have already been dammed. There isn't that much scope for increasing our hydro generating capacity. The last big dam we built flooded a historic town and land that was previously used for fruit growing.

Answer 2

Almost all the economical hydro is already developed.
Water over the dam may be down a salmon ladder and has to be released and not run through a turbine. Or it could be excess at a brief time during the wet time of the year. You cant build capacity that has a 10% duty factor - run only in the rainy season.
It would be too expensive.

Answer 3

The available hydropower sources have been developed to the point where there are few useful sites left. One of the most interesting of such sites was a chain of lakes in northern British Columbia; these were at 2500 feet above sea level, but an arm of the Pacific Ocean came to within a few miles of one of them. The hydropower potential was obvious, and the result is the Kitimat aluminum smelter, which uses most of the billion watts generated to make aluminum. Kitimat is hundreds of miles from anyplace where one could tie in to a large electric grid, so it is useful for making aluminum but not much else.

Answer 4

Do you mean with a dam? the least puzzling way i will think of of to describe it extremely is would be to think of of the water on the backside of the dam. It has to assist each and all of the water above it. This reasons an extremely extreme tension. This tension is used to tension the water via a turbine to generates capability.

Answer 5

I like hydro too but it is pretty hard to get one built now. Some environmentalist are so anti everything that they don't want any disturbance whatsoever to the environment.

Answer 6

As I understand gestation period of hydro power plant is more than thermal or nuclear power plant (for same capacity ). Also it's capital intensive.