Does anyone know anything about hyrdroelectric energy ?

Question

Im doing a report in my class .

Answer 1

This site will give you lots to do your report. Good luck :
http://www.canren.gc.ca/tech_appl/index.asp?CaId=4&PgId=26

Answer 2

I lived in the southernmost state of Australia - Tasmania - for ten years up until very recently. I know from personal experience both sides of the argument: one side says "Go for it - it's clean, Green and clever", the other side says "No way! Look at the damage you'll do to the river system"
I'll do my best to give you a concise and accurate picture of the debate.

Tasmania is considered as one of the very few places to have a completely "green" source of electricity! There is but one gas-fired turbine on the whole island and that's only fired up rarely for the exclusive use of an aluminium smelter close by. It is very cool knowing that when you switch your lights or TV on you're not contributing to a huge problem for the whole world!


First of all, "Hydro" as it's commonly known, is generated from the action of dropping a large volume of water down the side of a mountain or hill to give it enough energy to spin turbines which in turn produce electricity. The water for this is stored in large dams in the mountains.

In doing so, Hydro stations are not consuming any non - renewable resources and do not give off any emissions, except for a little bit of stray electromagnetic force in the turbine's immediate vicinity. This is really pedantic though!

The downside of it is that a lot of Wild Places in Tassie were devastated by the construction of the dams between 1950 and 1980. The worst of the destruction occurred in a place which is now a World Heritage Area (the South West Wilderness WHA) and centred on what was once a very special, pristine and beautiful place called Lake Pedder. Lake Pedder is now a vast and shallow impoundment (dam) which isn't used very much - it's more of a back-up for other storages.

There was a small campaign to try to stop Lake Pedder from being built in 1972 (I think it was '72), but the government of the day was determined and it went ahead. However, the opponents didn't give up - in fact the decision by one of the opponents to prevent such wanton destruction from happening again led directly to the formation of the first Green Party in the world. The opponent's name is Dr. Bob Brown and he's now a Federal Senator, still fighting the good fight after all these years!

There was a subsequent campaign to have an even bigger and potentially much more destructive dam built, again in the (now) sacrosanct WHA. This battle took place over the plans to completely trash the wild and free Franklin River; a battle which led to more than 1000 arrests during 1982 and saw a federal government change hands over the issue. The Labour Party, led by Bob Hawke, won the election of 1983 and stopped the construction after the public declared their almost unanimous opposition to the plans. This was one of the watersheds in the global world of Greenie battles and is worth reading about if you're interested! The Hawke government also declared the 1.4 million hectare WHA shortly after gaining office.

So...there's a very brief history of Tasmania's Hydroelectricity generation industry. It's a microcosm of what's going on, or has happened, elsewhere on the planet and I hope it's answered your question without boring you to sleep!

Love and Light,

Jarrah