Is Hydropower Really Environmentally Friendly Essay

Is Hydropower Really Environmentally Friendly - Essay ExampleHydropowers negative impacts on the environment atomic number 18 almost equal to its positive impacts, thus reservation its impacts on the environment a heated topic for debate. The positive and negative impacts of trey Gorges Dam on the environment will also be explored in this paper (Draper7, 11 Honningsvag et al. 183 Moog 1 Gunkel 1). There is a possibility that fossil fuels argon gradually decreasing and because the global warming is increasing due to their use, pee is appargonntly a much cleaner source of energy. Moreover, unlike fossil fuels, water cannot be depleted. This is because when water evaporates from oceans and lakes, it is pulled back down to earth by gravity and back into these water bodies. There are many measures that make hydropower an environmentally accessible source of energy. These include changes that are made either to the hydropower plant or the area surrounding it. Trees can be planted on t he land along the banks of the water nearest to the hydropower plant, in order to prevent erosion of the soil there. Fluctuations in the level of the water can be minimized by making sure they take place within the regulation height normally used instead of taking place between the whole maximum and minimum regulation height. This measure avoids many fishes from remaining stranded in the reservoir when the rest of them migrate to rivers or deeper water (Draper7, 11 Honningsvag et al. 183, 204, 206). However, according to a numerical study of several Austrian rivers, artificial fluctuations in water can have an adverse effect on the fish puppet and benthic invertebrates alive in those waters. In the investigation, the breakdown of benthic invertebrates and fish fauna was calculated throughout the length of the rivers. The results showed that between 75 and 95 percent of benthic invertebrates biomass was plunge in the first few kilometers of river length. On the other hand, a dec rease of between 40 and 60 percent of benthic invertebrates biomass, compared with areas undisturbed by fluctuations, was base within the following 20 to 40 kilometers. When the biomass of fish fauna was detected in the same length of river, the results were similar to the ones mentioned previously. This proves that hydropower plants can reduce the biomass of fish fauna and benthic invertebrates in the rivers that precede them (Moog 1). Another negative effect of hydropower plants, according to some new investigations, is that they do contribute to the ventings of carbon dioxide and methane, which are greenhouse gases. When reservoirs, which are part of hydropower plants, are in a eutrophic state, and trophic levels are high, anaerobic conditions are bound to occur with the emission of methane. The pathways for the production of methane include diffuse emission through the water-air interface, foaming, and degassing in the hydropower plants turbines and downstream in the reservoir spillway and the initial river length. High emission rates of both carbon dioxide and methane are found particularly in shallow and tropical reservoirs. By calculating the energy density, hydropower capacity and ratio of the reservoir surface, it has been found that some reservoirs have a global warming potential that is more than that of coal use for production of energy. This investigation questions the labeling of water as a