Haiya Zhang: Brief research into Hydroelectricity

Brief research into Hydroelectricity

Basic concept: the production of electrical power through the use of the gravitational force of falling or flowing water----Renewable, mostly used among all renewables

Different Sizes

Large or specialized industrial facilities: over a few hundred MW to over 10GW (10,000 MW).

There are only three hydropower station that produces more than 10GW: Three Gorges Dam (22.5 GW), Itaipu Dam (14 GW) between Brazil and Paraguay, and Guri Dam (10.2 GW) in Venezuela.

Small, micro, and pico

Advantages:

Low economic cost compare to other renewable energy generation, low CO2 emission, and multi-functional: flood control

Disadvantages:

Permanent ecosystem and land damage, siltation, short flows, methane emission, relocation (Three Gorges Dam takes 20 years), poverty and corruption, failure hazard etc.

Ten of the largest hydroelectric producers as at 2009.[31][32]
Country	Annual hydroelectric production (TWh)	Installed capacity (GW)	Capacity factor	% of total capacity
China	652.05	196.79	0.37	22.25
Canada	369.5	88.974	0.59	61.12
Brazil	363.8	69.080	0.56	85.56
United States	250.6	79.511	0.42	5.74
Russia	167.0	45.000	0.42	17.64
Norway	140.5	27.528	0.49	98.25
India	115.6	33.600	0.43	15.80
Venezuela	85.96	14.622	0.67	69.20
Japan	69.2	27.229	0.37	7.21
Sweden	65.5	16.209	0.46	44.34

In China’s 12^th five-year plan, hydroelectricity and thermal energy are on the top energy solution list.

Case study: Salween River

Origin: Qinghai, Tibetan plateau

Flow through: Yunnan, China

Significance: Battle field of World War 2

           Boundary water between Burma and Thailand

           Biodiversity and habitat of indigenous people

From the origin to the mouth: 5,400m difference in elevation--- huge potential for hydropower plant

Chinese government has proposed hydropower plant construction in 1970s. Thailand and Burma also have plans to construct dams to produce hydroelectricity. China has proposed 13 dams on the Salween through Yunnan, some of which lie within the Three Parallel Rivers World Heritage Site. Objections were raised, and construction was then suspended. Until recently, the central government announced that instead of building a 13-dam hydropower plant serie, only a 4-dam one will be constructed outside the World Heritage site.

On the Burma side, there was military offense against Local Karen people in order to start the project in 2007. Earlier in 2011, Karen people had an uprising and protested against the construction of the dam on Salween River in Burma.

Hydroelectricity: popular on energy, economical and political level; not so friendly from the environmental and social perspective. Many aspects need to be taken into consideration, but many hydropower plant constructions do not even have EIA done, or only done poorly because some are too eager to have the project built.