The U.S. Endorses Hydropower

Hydropower is using water to make electricity. They get the power from the kinetic energy at it moves downstream. The water goes to a turbine then a generator and convert it into electricity. That electricity runs on the grid to homes, and other buildings. Hydropower is 100% renewable because it is from water which is great for the environment because it releases no emissions. On the top of the dam is the reservoir where the water gets flowed down to the bottom level. The outflow of the water has lots of animal and marine life like vultures and herons. One of the coolest things about some of the hydropower dams are the fish elevators. They have them so that the fish that went down the dam can go back up to the reservoir. When I went to Conowingo Dam in Maryland they had a building that was next to the waterfall and it had a glass wall so that you could see the fish swim past you. It was so cool! It was hundreds of fish swimming in the elevator at once.

 The problem with the United States is that we have so much water, and not enough hydro-electric dams. We are not using the natural resources we have. For example, the Mississippi River. But there is good news. The U.S. Department of Energy is finally realizing all the pros of using hydropower. There are 80,000 non-powered dams in the U.S. alone. We have so many, but we are not even using them. This is ridiculous! The U.S. could be using so much more renewable energy. If we powered them we could get 12,100 megawatts. It would be 1.5 millions megawatts annually. The Department of Energy is now giving out billions dollars of loans to get that technology working again. This project is part of Obama's Climate Action Plan to cut GHGs and pollution.

Even though hydroelectric dams have many positives like clean, renewable energy and low maintenance costs, there are always drawbacks to everything. The dams take up a lot of space, destroy some of the environment to build them like trees which increases the C02, they flood, and there are high initial costs. I feel like the pros outweigh the cons, and I  think the U.S. is moving towards the right direction.