Watch hydro in China, says consulting company

Hasn't China also started making wind turbines in a large way?

I heard that in 2006, about 80 wind farms were built in China.

As far as I know, China is planning to build thousands of small dams but does not seem to have any free flow hydro intentions. This is regretable in that free flow hydro should be of greater environmental as well as life cycle benefit than with fixed hydro. However, the Chinese have proven downright aggressisve in wind turbine development so there is no reason to believe that once the technology is proven profitable, water turbines should be manufactured and come to market.

My thinking leads me to believe that perhaps the best overall hydro development might be the continued construction of dams already planned because the momentum of dam planning cannot be easily altered while looking ahead to free hydro installations close to available transmission lines.

China should also consider using ocean current energy extraction with turbines because of the great power requirments along their eastern seaboard. Wave power should also prove of value.

The real question with energy in China is in production. How much renewable energy can be developed to replace the over 900million tons of coal being burned yearly. The Chinese just cannot continue burning more and more coal even though this seems to be the trend. More thought on the part of the government is needed to redirect industrial efforts toward the manufacturing of renewable energy producing devices while at the same time increasing the tax on companies producing pollutants entering the atmosphere and rivers.

Increased renewable energy production should go hand in hand with governmental laws that will produce effective clean-up measures even perhaps at the sacrifice of economic growth. In my opinion, China has already done serious damage to its environment and unless it makes more serious efforts to clean up its waters and air, is headed for even more grevious health and social problems.

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I have been thinking more about the problem of dams and what purpose they serve and have arrived at the conclusion that they can and should be replaced as much as possible by using the combined action of free hydro current devices on rivers and oceans. By using them this way, dependency upon dams can be reduced.

More energy can be extracted from free flow river water per unit volume when it is flowing than with the same volume of water when it is brought to a stop in dams. This fact has been proven. The problem is lack of water during times of drought. Yet, lack of water during times of drought would not be problematic if free flow power from rivers and oceans could be integrated. Ocean currents are stable compared to river currents and could be used to even out power requirements.

We should change our thinking on this matter. Nations such as China and India are sorely in need of additional gigawatts and have planned the construction of thousands of dams in the next decade but this is not the answer to the problem as the dams themselves lead to undesirable consequences. We need to get back to nature by repair of our river system. This can be accomplished by developing and integrating power obtained by free hydro from rivers and ocean currents combined.

adrianakau2aol.com

Taiwanese will show expertise,
In developing their ocean current project,
To some day replace the need to burn coal for energy,
And get power from the Kuroshio path.

Yes Taiwanese will show expertise,
In the testing and the proving of this power,
For an island of free people with the wish to survive,
Will be proving that they need not import coal.

adrianakau2aol.com

According to the July 2 headlines of the Taiwan newspaper, the government is discussing the possiblility of using the Kuroshio current off the east coast of Taiwan for a free hydro current project.

The main problem in doing so is to find the proper location "with a current strong enough, an undersea shelf not too deep, and a distance short enough to achieve power supply efficiency". It seems as if their thinking is clear. Chen Fa-lin, director of the project, believes that a "site of 25 square kilometers located in the 'shallow, high-speed zone' could support the deployment of 1,000 one-megawatt marine turbines, which would have a peak capacity of 1,000 megawatts: equal to the output of Taiwan's second nuclear power plant".

Once Taiwan's Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) gives approval, the "first step should be setting up a five-megawatt marine turbine off Taiwan's east coast on a trial basis, with the goal of testing both related technologies and power-generating efficiency".

Taiwan, an island of 23 million, is looking to reduce importation and burning of coal. They believe that a good answer to their energy problem lies in development of ocean current hydro and they be the first Chinese to test the exploitation of this power potential although it has already been used in other countries. Britain will be starting up a 1.2Mw unit August 20.

A description of the specific type of Taiwan turbine has not been provided as the project is at the planning stage and government approval from CEPD must be given but I believe that their thinking and application will be of great interest to all countries having close access to ocean current sources, including the US, where the Federal government has already provided funds ($5 million) to the state of Florida for studies on extraction of power from the Gulf of Mexico current.

Ocean current hydro interest is beginning to warm up as some nations increasingly see that their growing power requirements cannot be cleanly met by coal and nuclear.

Reference: http://www.taiwanheadlines.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=79557&CtNode=47

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Presently, with some of its reactors shut down because of the recent earthquake, Japan may have to depend on oil and coal thermal to boost up its summmer energy output. Why does this country which gave us the Prius not look to ocean current power? It is an island nation with high ocean current potential which could develop technology to generate large amounts of clean power from this source.

Nuclear plants presently supply about 30% of their electric needs but they must consider that as their reactors age, the risk of something going wrong increases. When it comes to design of plants, extra strengthening has to be given to protection against earthquakes. If the power of a reactor is increased to accomodate demand, other parts of the system such as transformers must also be upgraded.

Japan should seriously consider development of ocean current sources, at least initially in a manner supplementary to thermal coal and nuclear but perhaps in the long run, as a replacement for them. Ocean current power for Japan would prove to be sustainable and safe.

adrianakau2aol.com

There should be a good effort to develop virtually: forgotten energy source, "Free Flow Hydro Electricity". If we only tap 1mw/km which is only a tiny tiny small its river course there will be Giga after Giga watts are waiting to be harnessed. They are the least environmental damage, and widely available almost everywhere.

Staring point good be
"Tyson's turbine"
or
"Neo-Aerodynamic.com".

Thanks

Phi Tran has the right idea but it will take decades to implement it. Tyson turbines have been tested in Australia and Neo-Aerodynamic type turbines should also prove very effective in extracting power from free flow hydro. These types of devices should be prevalent and come to replace thousnds of dams in the next century or two as we meet nature half way.

Pope Benedict XVI recently said we have to "listen to the earth" and that that is precisely the direction free hydro will permit. Dams hold back the movement of fish. For the first time in decades, Oregon is going to give back the rivers to salmon and other species that need them for their life cycles by removing one or more of its dams.

We really have been in ignorance for many years as to the harm dams cause not just to fish but to farmers who rely on soil brought down rivers and to people who must live in the area of reservoirs created by dams that produce stagnant water and the spread of diseases.

It is shameful that the government of Brazil, for example, plans to ram rod through dams in part of the Amazon that will result in much harm to the native tribes there when they could produce needed electricity by free flow hydro without the harmful side effects of forced population relocaton or the spread of dengue and malaria. It seems that the people who can least speak out, the uneducated ones, have no defense against such governments.

China is similar. They want to produce non-polluting energy yet arrest protestors who complain and demonstrate. Relocation because of dam construction is not a choice of the citizen. The value of the dollar and economic expansion in China serves as a barrier to good clean energy development because it is the easy, though not necessarily the best path to take. Thousands upon thousands of new dams are being planned there without recourse to consider the long term impacts. The Chinese government has not once mentioned free hydro in any of their publications and it is doubtful if they have even heard of it or considered its benefits.

Our own USA is another example of movement in molasses. One branch of the government has tested free hydro and found it to be more efficient in converting river energy into electricity than water from dams, and why not? When we stop water in a dam, we literally throw away the energy of the moving water that was used to produce the resevoir in back of the dam. Yet, our government is unwieldy to the extent that knowldge gained in one branch seems not able to be applied in another.

We have dozens of dams in the US that are reaching the ends of their life cycles or not being used at all and should be removed.

India is another case. People there have opposed the building of dams because it takes away prime agricultural land or deprives wild animals of natural habitat. How humans they survive without food if the hydro is being used to benefit the industrial sector at the expense of their way of life. Humans deserve natural habitat for survival just as do animals. Reservoirs of hundres of square kilometers are nothing to joke about in considering that they take away land from the farmer. Good land is habitat for people dependent upon the growth of crops for their way of life.

Yes, free hydro for rivers is definitely the path to be taken if we expect our fish, our wildlife and our famers to thrive but it will most likely take the passing of generations before anyone hears their silent cry.

adrianakau2aol.com

Dams work best when filled up high so that it would seem that free hydro could not work with dams. Yet, the two could work well together.

Ideally, energy should be taken from moving water before reaching an area with a dam and dams should be limited in working height but extended up for flooding control. This would mean a seasonal control of water and power production for areas faced with flooding and drought cycles.

During seasons of normal and heavy rain, free flow hydro would be depended upon to produce maximimu power while dams could be used below maximum but be filled up to prepare for the dry season.

Since, with Global Warming, greater extremes may be expected with drought and rainfall, dams could work well with free hydro in terms of these cyclic water changes. By extracting energy by free hydro upstream or even downstream, the power requirements for particular dams might be lessened so as to run on fewer turbines. This would have the effect of better utilization of the water sources.

Dams could be used more effectively as shock absorbers for drought and floods with free current hydro assiting in power production.

The use of free current along rivers with changing altitude has several effects:
1. Production of electricity
2. Slowing down of the water in that location as water velocity runs the turbines
3. Permitting the unhindered natural passage of fish and the habitation of wild life in that part of the river

There would be absolutely no effect on dams in terms of power production because the free flow turbines would be located at higher altitudes than the level at the top of the dam or at altitudes lower than the bottom of the dam.

Difficulties encountered might be:
1. Installation and maintenence of turbine equipment
2. Installation and maintenence of grid connecting lines.

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