Hydroelectricity

Representative Life-Cycle Inventories (LCIs) are essential for Life-Cycle Assessments (LCAs) quality and readiness. Because energy is such an important element of LCAs, appropriate LCIs on energy are crucial, and due to the prevalence of hydropower on Brazilian electricity mix, the frequently used LCIs are not representative of the Brazilian conditions. The present study developed a LCI of the Itaipu Hydropower Plant, the major hydropower plant in the world, responsible for producing 23.8% of Brazil's electricity consumption. Focused on the capital investments to construct and operate the dam, the LCI was designed to serve as a database for the LCAs of Brazilian hydroelectricity production. The life-cycle boundaries encompass the construction and operation of the dam, as well as the life-cycles of the most important material and energy consumptions (cement, steel, copper, diesel oil, lubricant oil), as well as construction site operation, emissions from reservoir flooding, material and workers transportation, and earthworks. As a result, besides the presented inventory, it was possible to determine the following processes, and respective environmental burdens as the most important life-cycle hotspots: reservoir filling (CO 2 and CH 4 emission; land use); steel life-cycle (water and energy consumption; CO, particulates, SO x and NO x emissions); cement life-cycle (water and energy consumption; CO 2 and particulate emissions); and operation of civil construction machines (diesel consumption; NO x emissions). Compared with another hydropower studies, the LCI showed magnitude adequacy, with better results than small hydropower, which reveals a scale economy for material and energy exchanges in the case of Itaipu Power Plant.

The pump storage technique allows the use of cheap thermal electricity at periods of low demand to restore water resources that can be used to generate electricity at periods of peak demand. When the thermal plant and the hydro plant are managed by the same operator, the two plants are used in an efficient way to substitute low cost fuel for high cost fuel. The paper first analyzes the efficient use of the technology when the outputs at each period are given. We determine the frontier between the storage and no-storage solutions and its sensibility to cost variations. We then determine the optimal dispatch given the intertemporal preferences of electricity consumers. The model gives emphasis to the economic driver of the technology that is the net social gain from transferring social surplus from off peak to peak period.

The Lower Sesan 2 (LS2) Hydropower Project in northeastern Cambodia is presently under construction. As the largest dam to ever be built in Cambodia, it is expected to cause serious and widespread environmental and social impacts. This article analyzes, on the one hand, the relationships between Cambodian non-government organizations (NGOs) and villagers who will be negatively impacted by LS2, and on the other, NGO relations with the Cambodian state. While development actors frequently attempt to construct particular narratives in order to control development trajectories, this research demonstrates that such attempts can meet with serious resistance from local people, even when facing powerful opponents, including in this case NGOs that prefer to advocate for better resettlement and compensation conditions rather than for the cancellation of projects. Focusing on interactions, positioning, local agency, and the particular political culture of Cambodia, this article highlights the importance of particular types of patronage relations in Cambodia between NGOs and villagers, NGOs and the state, and associated territorialization.

Hydropower is the most advanced and mature renewable energy technology and provides some level of electricity generation in many countries worldwide. As hydropower does not consume or pollute the water it uses to generate power, it leaves this vital resource available for other uses. The objective of this article is to identify and analyse issues that are imperative for hydropower energy development in Australia. This study shows opportunities for further hydroelectricity generation in Australia are offered by refurbishment and efficiency improvements at existing hydroelectricity plants, and continued growth of small-scale hydroelectricity plants connected to the grid.

Introduction: the effects on human health of environmental changes brought about by the installation of a hydroelectric power plant may be physical or mental. Objective: to identify health impacts from the implementation of the Foz do Chapecó Hydroelectric Power Plant in the perspectives of the affected families. Methodology: a qualitative study was conducted with farming families affected by the reservoir of the Foz do Chapecó Hydroelectric Power Plant. Results: the transformation of the environment generated impacts on human health engendering illnesses like depression, hypertension, insomnia, and alcoholism. Conclusion: results presented in this paper indicate that, in addition to environmental and social aspects, questions relating to the health of the affected population must be taken into account when assessing the impacts generated by the installation of a hydroelectric power plant.

The purpose of this work is to develop and evaluate a mathematical model for the process of hydrogen production in Venezuela, via electrolysis and using hydroelectricity, with a view to using it as an energy vector in rural sectors of the country. Regression models were prepared to estimate the fluctuation of the main variables involved in the process: the production of hydrogen, the efficiency of energy conversion, the cost of hydroelectricity and the cost of the electrolyser. Finally, the proposed model was applied to various different time-horizons and populations, obtaining the cost of hydrogen production in each case. The results obtained are well below those mentioned in the references, owing largely to the low cost of the electricity used, which accounts for around 45% of the total cost of the system. ᭧

The coming of electricity to rural America in the interwar period seemed to offer prospects not just for economic development but also for remaking lives and for social transformation. This paper deals with the expression of such ideas from the folk music of that time, examining the representations of people and place found in 26 songs composed by the folkmusician Woody Guthriefor the Bonneville Power Administration in May 1941. After providing context about rural electrification, this paper surveys Guthrie's early career and the reasons why the Bonneville Power Administration employed him. The next sections of the paper consider Guthrie's Columbia River Song Collection, highlighting two narrative themes within them: migrants' tales and the notion of electrification as a progressive force for both regional and social transformation. The final section relates the contents of the songs to three different standpoints from which Guthrie, as narrator, shaped his songs: folklorist, radical minstrel, and social documentarist.

La technique de simulation des grandeséchelles (SGE) est utilisée pour simuler l'écoulement dans un aspirateur de centrale hydrauliqueà différents points de fonctionnement. La complexité de la géométrie et le haut nombre de Reynolds de l'écoulement nécessitent l'utilisation de méthodes spécifiques. Ainsi, nous avons développé un traitementà la paroi tenant compteà la fois du frottement pariétal mais aussi du gradient de pression. La technique utilisée pour permettre de générer des conditions d'entrée instationnaires réalistes,à partir de données expérimentales, estégalement détaillée. Les différents régimes d'écoulements résultant de cette configuration sont alors présentés.

Investment in an energy project has several economic effects. Green accounting is a method of evaluating the effects attributable to nature and using the values for policy evaluation or to make net national product (NNP) a more comprehensive indicator of social welfare. Adjusting for the natural effects that are mediated in markets influences only the timing of amendments to NNP. It has a transitory effect, rather than the long-run effect desired in green accounting. The long-run effect that green accounting can have is to recognize the values of nonpriced environmental amenities, making them explicit inputs to decision making.

La evolución de la energía hidroeléctrica en España en las últimas décadas ha sido siempre creciente, aunque la participación de ésta en el total de eléctrica producida ha ido disminuyendo. Las modernas tecnologías de regulación y control han aumentado la eficiencia de las centrales y del aprovechamiento del recurso agua.

The sustainable hydropower development program, launched by the Turkish state in early 2000s, has not only privatized rivers, by transferring the use rights of the stream flow to private companies, but also the hydropower sector by transferring the functions of state institutions to the private sector, including planning, designing, constructing and operating hydroelectric plants. This overwhelming program has faced strong opposition and local people have opened court cases to cancel emerging private hydropower projects in their areas. This legal struggle has transformed juridical knowledge-making into a process that produces environmental knowledge, and legitimizes it as official knowledge. By tracing the trajectory of the court case over the Cevizlik hydroelectricity plant and analyzing the scientific expert reports and court verdicts, this article discusses juridical knowledge-making under the uncertainty of natural conditions while demonstrating its strengths and limitations. I argue that the plurality of the knowledge produced through juridical knowledge-making practice reveals its political character. I conclude that the debates over juridical knowledge-making practices from the political ecology perspective can contribute to improving them, and help understand the future of rivers in Turkey under the pressure of hydropower development. Résumé Le programme de développement durable de l'hydroélectricité, lancé par l'Etat turc au début des années 2000, a non seulement privatisé les rivières en transférant les droits d'usage des flux aux entreprises privées, mais aussi le secteur hydroélectrique en transférant les fonctions des institutions publiques au secteur privé. Cela comprend la planification, la conception, la construction et l'exploitation des centrales hydroélectriques. Ce programme écrasant a fait face à une forte opposition, et les populations locales ont ouvert des procédures judiciaires pour annuler les projets hydroélectriques privés émergents dans leurs régions. Cette lutte juridique a transformé la connaissance juridique en un processus qui produit des connaissances environnementales et la légitime comme connaissance officielle. En traçant la trajectoire de l'affaire devant l'usine hydroélectrique de Cevizlik et en analysant les rapports d'experts scientifiques et les verdicts judiciaires, cet article aborde la connaissance juridique sous l'incertitude des conditions naturelles tout en démontrant ses forces et ses limites. Je soutiens que la pluralité des connaissances produites par la pratique de la connaissance juridique révèle son caractère politique. Je conclus que les débats sur les pratiques juridiques de connaissance du point de vue de l'écologie politique peuvent contribuer à leur amélioration et aider à comprendre l'avenir des fleuves en Turquie sous la pression du développement hydroélectrique. Mots clés: Écologie politique, connaissance, prise de connaissance juridique, incertitude des connaissances, développement hydroélectrique, la fleuve

Underinvestment, low levels of electricity access, natural disasters, topography and hydrology make Nepal's electricity crisis akin to 'peeling a pickle': difficult to pin down and hard to manage. Based primarily on the perceptions of a sample of experts, this article lays out a roadmap for how the 'pickle' of the Nepali electricity crisis can be peeled. Drawing on primary data collection from research interviews, the study offers a brief summary of the Nepali electricity and energy sectors. It then details six separate electricity challenges identified by respondents-topography and climate; political instability resulting from the aftermath of the Maoist insurgency; poverty and corruption; lack of financing and investment; constrained technological and human resources; and, finally, aid dependency and political manoeuvring. We conclude by calling on Nepali policymakers to invest in distributed generation, transmission upgrades, seasonal hydroelectric storage and industrial energy efficiency practices, and to introduce electricity tariff reforms, among other measures.

We study the viability of the development in Venezuela of a Hydroelectricity/Hydrogen Energy System, HHES, conducted by means of the construction and manipulation of a mathematical model for each energy system component: Transformation, Storage, Transport and Distribution, and End Uses; with a view to its application in rural areas of the country that lack permanent and secure energy services. The HHES model as a whole is obtained by interconnecting the component models. Structurally, the models are formed by an energy sub-model and a cost sub-model. This simulation is based on the most favourable conditions for the proposed result. The results indicate that the total costs depend mainly on the evolution of the investment costs, and in particular the costs of the End Uses component. The increased overall efficiency of the HHES has adverse effects on costs: it brings down the input costs while at the same time raising the investment costs, and in the end the second effect predominates. The outcome of comparing the results obtained with the results in the bibliography is clearly on Venezuela's side. Finally, the energy system studied here can compete with the electrical grid, and it also contributes significantly to raising the quality of life of the rural community that was chosen, all of which emphasizes the viability and importance of this proposal.

For every successful megaproject, there are dozens that have failed to launch, left as paper remains, imaginary geographies of development and enterprise. Although most scholarly attention focuses understandably on the projects which have been built, we need to look again at those projects that have been put aside, rejected, and cancelled. Failed projects produce unbuilt environments, and these have their own peculiar effects. This paper interrogates the planning, development, debate and abandonment of a massive infrastructure project in a remote area of northwest British Columbia. BC Hydro's attempt to build five dams on the Stikine and Iskut Rivers in the late 1970s and early 1980s never materialized. However, in the ten-year attempt to justify the economic and environmental cost of the proposed dams, BC Hydro commissioned several dozen large resource inventories and analyses of biophysical, cultural, socioeconomic and hydrological data in the Stikine Watershed, where this information had been largely absent. In doing so, BC Hydro circumscribed the terms of the debate around dam construction, framed the constituents of the debate and reordered knowledge about the region. Locals and other interested parties began to engage with the river differently. I argue that the apparatuses of scientific, engineering and technological engagement that were implemented by BC Hydro resulted in both material and discursive changes to nature in the Stikine. I develop the concept of 'unbuilt environments' to understand the changes that emerge in the wake of failed infrastructure projects.

The paper reviews the economic incentives for the development of renewable energy sources (RES) in Italy, in particular the hydroelectricity. The review addresses the impacts of the hydropower development incentivised by the Green Energy Certificates (GEC). The GEC have been introduced by the Bersani Decree (law 79/99) back in 1999 and modified since. In 2011 the Italian Government decided the phase out the compliance market with GEC and substitute it with a system of auctions. In the paper we discuss the performance of the GEC in light of the similar economic instruments put in place elsewhere in Europe.

Over the past years, hydropower model and control were largely based on classical and linear transfer function, this was motivated by the available control system design techniques that were available and the desire to simplify the design procedure. Such a model is inadequate for dynamic study and design of hydropower station in the presence of uncertainties in the water head, discharge rate, elastic water effect, traveling wave effect, large variation power output and frequency. This research, therefore, focuses on developing a nonlinear model for the Kainji hydroelectric power station. The model relies on the energy conversion principles, inflows, discharge, evaporation rate and number of units on busbar. The parameters of the model were also estimated, and the model validated with an error within +1.4% to -3.6%. The model is expected to be used to determine the optimal control policies for the operation of the station and the release of water to the downstream.

Le projet de Tenosique-Boca del Cerro consiste en un important complexe de barrages qui viendrait mettre en valeur le potentiel hydroélectrique de l'Usumacinta, sixième fleuve latino-américain en terme de débit, et berceau de la civilisation Maya et de la plus grande forêt équatoriale au nord de l'Amazone. Entre un potentiel économique fort (ressources pétrolières et forestières, potentiel hydroélectrique), un aspect patrimonial essentiel (sites archéologiques, conservation de la forêt) et une tension politique importante (frontière cruciale et mal contrôlée, guérilla zapatiste, relations diplomatiques tendues entre les deux pays), le projet de Tenosique-Boca del Cerro est au coeur des enjeux et des contradictions qui caractérisent la région. Haut lieu territorial, la question des modes de gouvernance et de l'application des principes du développement durable qui s'y appliquent est essentielle, car elle aborde celle, plus large, de la démocratisation du Mexique et du Guatemala. Abordé sous un angle géographique, le projet est ici envisagé sous l'angle des logiques territoriales qui sous-tendent le débat qui l'entourent depuis sa première version, dans les années 1960 : en 2008, et pour la cinquième fois, le Mexique annonce une reprise du processus et annonçait une mise en service en 2017.

Each winter, ice forms on rivers, streams, and navigable waterways, causing many problems through its effects on the operation of hydraulic control structures, locks and dams, hydropower plants, and water intakes. Ice covers increase river stages by presenting an additional rough boundary, which increases the channel wetted perimeter, reduces the channel hydraulic radius, and typically increases overall effective channel roughness. The increase in stage can result in flooding, especially during severe ice conditions or in low-lying areas. This situation is particularly critical downstream of hydroelectric power plants because the risk of ice-induced flooding may require operators of such plants to curtail power production and provide more expensive replacement power. This study presents a state-space model for forecasting ice conditions and the resulting stages in rivers. The model incorporates a hydraulic component, a thermal and ice transport component, and an ice-cover progression component. The Kalman filter procedure is used to update the model with observed stages and observed positions of the upstream leading edge of the ice cover. The model thereby arrives at an efficient and optimal estimate of the river ice and hydraulic conditions. The state-space model can also recursively estimate the effective channel roughness using the augmented Kalman filter procedure to account for changes in the channel roughness produced by the river ice cover and other effects. By way of an example the state-space model is applied to the Missouri River downstream of Oahe Dam, located in Pierre, South Dakota, USA. Outflow from the dam, which is used for peaking power production, can vary between 0 and 55,000 cfs in a matter of minutes to meet the demands of the electric power grid it supplies. The system noise covariance of the model was adjusted to produce the optimal results based on least-squares criteria. Forecasts of the downstream stages and river ice conditions are presented. Accuracies of the forecasts obtained with the model are assessed using ice and flow observations from a series of past winters in which ice conditions were severe. The updated model results show substantial improvements in the forecasts compared to a non-updated model. DISCLAIMER: The contents of this report are not to be used for advertising, publication, or promotional purposes. Citation of trade names does not constitute an official endorsement or approval of the use of such commercial products. All product names and trademarks cited are the property of their respective owners. The findings of this report are not to be construed as an official Department of the Army position unless so designated by other authorized documents.

This paper presents how land occupation patterns along an Amazonian river, called Tocantins, have changed since the launching of big Brazilian national projects during the 1960s, particularly after the building of Tucurui Dam, and how these socio-spatial changes have impoverished traditional population, due to changes in the role of water (before a means to build a livelihood and to move over the region, at present a landscape associated to poverty and to health problems). It also presents the evolution on governmental approaches to impacts caused by hydroeletric generation in the region and the mismatch between national policies regarding to energy generation and municipal development, and how little attention has been given to local government’s limitations to follow national guidelines and to tackle impacts brought about by national projects. The paper explores the gap between the enforcement of a legal framework on access to hydric resources and the available local institutional system, which has imposed limitations on the use of water as part of social guarantees, and its dissociation with the living conditions of traditional population. The conflicts pointed here highlight the need of national policies to compensate historic elite bias despite Brazilian power transfers to municipalities.

In the 1950s Canada and the United States, along with Ontario and New
York State (and their respective power entities), completed two hydro-electric
developments: the International Niagara Control Works and the St. Lawrence
Seaway and Power Project. Both water control projects—and the concomitant
large-scale environmental manipulation of these borderland waterscapes—were
shaped by “hydraulic nationalism” and “hydro tourism.” This study explores
the tourist infrastructure and recreational facilities created to accommodate
the millions of people who viewed these megaprojects. Blending tourism history
with environmental, technological, cultural, transnational, and borderlands
approaches, it gives consideration to the ways in which the involved governments
and power utilities had similar, and diverging, conceptions of the nation-building
importance of the St. Lawrence and Niagara undertakings.

Rivers in the northern United States, including those within the boundaries of the St. Louis District, are subject to ice events that delay or stop navigation (Fig. 1); damage riverine structures such as locks, dams, bridges, dikes, levees, and wingwalls; cause damage to tows, barges, and mooring/fleeting areas; block hydropower and water supply intakes; cause flooding; and decrease downstream discharge. Roads may be flooded and closed, or bridges weakened or destroyed, limiting emergency and medical relief to the affected areas. The potential exists for death or serious injury caused by jam and flood conditions, and during evacuations and other ice mitigation operations. Also, ice movement and ice jams can severely erode streambeds and banks, with adverse effects on fish and wildlife habitat.

The renewable generation is one of the fast growing power system .Whereas the world is facing the challenge of effectively exploiting and utilizing renewable energy resources, not only to meet the increasing energy demand, but also to preserve and to reduce the depletion of fossil fuels and to lessen the amount of CO2 emissions in our atmosphere .The national energy generation resources of every country plays an important role in the development. The energy transition is well underway in most European countries. It has a growing impact on electric power systems as it dramatically modifies the way electricity is produced. In this paper, our focus is to perform a systematic review of hydropower resource potential around the Globe. In this study we will address three research queries: 1) what is the existing status of hydropower resource potential around the globe? 2) What kind of methodologies frameworks and approaches are used for exploiting and utilizing renewable energy resources 3) What are the limitations of exploiting renewable resource potentials. The purpose of the study is to highlight the current research issues, to provide valid solutions to these issues and to find out the limitations of existing work in this area of hydropower resource potential. This will be done by performing quantitative literature analysis of different databases and all the results will be gathered by analysing the statistical data using "SPSS". Remedial techniques for handling the limitation of usability engineering management will be planned in future.

Laos, which in many respects is Thailand's most important neighbor, contributes greatly to its electricity security. More than 50 percent of the electricity in northeastern Thailand comes from Laos. Thus, electricity has become the main product which impacts the relationship between Thailand and Laos. Interestingly, Thailand's Electricity Generating Authority (EGAT) plays a very important role in linking and sustaining this relationship. This article aims to analyze Thailand's energy security and foreign policy with respect to Laos through the action of Thai state enterprises by focusing EGAT's role as an important intermediary in these policies. The study used qualitative research to find answers through primary and secondary resources. It found that the hydroelectric power in Laos is very important for Thailand, especially in the Northeast region. EGAT has played a significant role in establishing a framework for electricity policy relations between Thailand and Laos.This actor has never been mentioned before as a key player in foreign policy. This article recommends that Thailand still needs to reduce its dependence on a foreign power by strengthening its domestic electricity security, especially in the Northeast.

The flow duration curve (FDC) of a riveris one of the important parameters for the hydrological investigation of hydroelectric plants. Computation of the hydroelectric plant capacity and power production requires the determination of relative and cumulative frequenciesof different river discharges. Ab-Terki is one of the sub-basins of Bazoft River, located in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province, Iran, next to Koohrang basin. It is located between eastern longitudes of 49ᵒ54' to 50ᵒ 5' and northern latitudes of 32ᵒ 19' to 32ᵒ 24'. Morphological conditions, sloping limestone structures, and characteristics of karstic cracks in the basin have led to the formation of large springs in the eastern and western foothills of Zardkooh Mountain. In order to determine the FDCs of Ab-Terki River,3-year daily discharge and 24-year mean monthly discharge of Gooshe-pol station were used. Then, the probabilities of discharges were analyzed using Hyfa and Rank Plot numerical codes and finally, the discharge of Ab-Terki River corresponding to 95% probability was determined.

The Great Depression in Puerto Rico was marked by interconnected infrastructural, environmental, and sociioeconomic crises caued by the global economic contraction and two devastating natural disasters, the San Felipe and San Ciprian hurricanes of 1928 and 1932. After 1935, all relief and recovery programs were coordinated by the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA), a locally run federal agency of the Second New Deal. Between 1935 and 1943, Puerto Rican engineers and workers constructed seven major hydroelectric projects in the Cordillera Central to generate inexpensive electric power while also providing adequate flood relief, year-round irrigation for the dry southern coast, and abundant reserves of clean drinking water. As with other PRRA projects, all property, constructions, and lands of the rural electrification program were transferred to the local governments, which established the Puerto Rico Water Resources Authority to administer the water and electric resources of the island. Modeled on the Tennessee Valley Authority, this public corporation helped Puerto Rico recover from the 1928 and 1932 hurricanes, improved long-term health, and broke the power of private utility companies that had controlled water and electric resources for decades. At the same time, however, the hydro-electrification projects exposed the complex relationship between rural life and economic modernization in Puerto Rico and influenced the beginning of a new "reformed" colonialism based on permanent political ties between Puerto Rico and the United States. The PRRA created space for increased local autonomy on the island by strengthening its colonial association with the United States.

In this work, meshless method is used to investigate the 3D interaction of fully nonlinear water waves with floating plate over general bathymetry with considering large deflection plate theory. We considered the B-spline basis functions to fit the free surface. Moreover, in order to apply the edge plate conditions, the multiple knot B-splines are used.