Hydropower

         This week I looked more in depth into hydropower. A typical hydropower plant is a system with three parts. An electric plant where the electricity is produced; a dam that can be opened or closed to control water flow; and a reservoir where water can be stored.

         Hydropower is the type of renewable energy we have taken the most advantage of. Over the forty years hydropower has accounted for about 40 percent of all renewable energy produced. We could start to make this number higher as a energy source. The United States has around 80,000 dams. I don’t think we need to create anymore dams to help increase the amount of energy we from hydropower. We should take advantage of the ones we got, of those 80,000 dams only three percent of them have hydroelectric systems running in them. This seemed like a waste to me if we already have dams set up we should at least use them to their full potential. One of the main advantage to creating hydropower sites in these existing dams is that hydropower is  already proven to work. The biggest hydro plant in the United States is located at the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River in northern Washington. 

          Although I still prefer this type of energy over fossil fuels I think that solar and wind power have less negative effect involved when using this type of power. To start off with dams back up water causing it to flood the natural surroundings. Dams make it nearly impossible for natural fish like salmon to survive. With blocking off the river has its negative effects also downstream not having consistent water flow. Overall I believe Hydropower is a good step in the right direction but we could also go a better way to.  

         This past weekend I realized how sometimes there is just no way around driving. I got sick last week wednesday I tried to put off the doctor for a while just cause I would rather not go. When The sickness started to wake me up at night I decided to get it checked out. Since I was home the doctors was about five miles away and on no rest decided to drive. But other then the dive to the doctors it was really easy this week not driving since I wasn’t feeling well enough to go anywhere anyways.