Dams Holding Energy

Dams are very useful for making hydroelectric power but also have negative effects toward our underwater environment and flood lands.

At a hydroelectric power plant, reservoirs are created by the dams to hold the water which is guided to the generator turbine which when water goes through it creates electricity. When the water power pushes the turbine faster the more electricity is created.

Lots of good effects come from hydroelectricity like how it is the cleanest and most environmentally friendly than all the other energy’s. No harmful gases are produced because this energy does not involve the usage of fuel and 1/5of the globes electricity is from hydroelectric energy. Norway, for example is a country where almost all of their electricity is hydroelectric.

Even though it is the most environmentally friendly, hydroelectricity still have negative effects. Dams hold back the water on one side while the other side’s depth decreases and the water temperature does too. Since the water is not high enough to get heated by the sun, all the under water creatures who are used to warm temperature die. One kind of fish is usually killed by dams and that is salmon. Salmon swim up rivers, jumping on rocks to get to a higher place. When the salmon reach the dam it bumps it to the wall and gets killed by not being able to move forward upstream. Dams also prevent the flow of nutrients, starving the eco-systems down stream. The construction of hydroelectric plants means that usually the area of land is flooded.

There are lots of ways we can make hydroelectricity more environment friendly then it already. When the depth and temperature is decreasing you could release
heated water into the lake so that the underwater creatures live and the water could get high enough to get heated by the sun. For the salmon you could build fish ladders. Fish ladders are like stairs for the salmon with holes filled with water and since salmon jump from rock to rock, they can jump from one stair to the next.

Now that we know what hydroelectricity can do to our environment, we should all be trying to make it more environmentally friendly.



Reported by Yasmeen Jameson