Hoover Dam Advantages And Disadvantages

Hoover Dam is considered to be one of the must see sights apart from The Strip when one goes to Las Vegas. Apart from being an attraction for tourists to come to see it, also provides enough power to serve 1.3 million people for residents in Arizona, Southern California, and Southern Nevada. From the Dam alone it produces on average 4 billion kilowatt-hours of hydroelectric energy (“Hoover Dam”). Hydropower is being looked at as an safe alternate source of energy. There have been several debates about the dependency of oil and the repercussions of it. Suggestions such as using coal and nuclear power have been looked at but there have been horrific examples of what nuclear and coal power can do. Hydroelectric energy is being seen as a really …show more content…
The Greeks used water wheels for grinding wheat into flour for over 2,000 years. Todays modern hydropower turbine originated from mid-1700 when a French hydraulic military engineer wrote Architecture Hydraulique (“History of Hydropower”). Being that several great minds have thought of harnessing the power of water over hundreds of years ago, must well mean that they were on to something. "Of the 75,187 dams in the US, less than 3% are used to produce 10-12% of the nation 's electricity. With over 2,000 facilities, the US is the second largest producer of hydropower worldwide, behind Canada,” (“Hydroelectric Power”). the practicality of building and using the dams for hydroelectric power is that most have gates that can be opened or closed on command. This is useful because at night when most residents are not using as much energy, the flow of water can be slowed along with it, causing that no water goes wasted. A draw back form using hydroelectric power is the cost to construct one. According to the Wisconsin Valley Improvement Company, “ hydropower is produced for an average of 0.85 cents per kilowatt-hour (kwh). This is about 50% the cost of nuclear, 40% the cost of fossil fuel, and 25% the cost of using natural gas,”. If one takes in to consideration that the Hoover Dam produces averagely 4.2 billion kilowatt hours, it acquires a lot of money. More than that though, although it is pricey to construct a hydropower plant, it pays …show more content…
Using hydropower energy could be very efficient and inexpensive with the use of modern turbines, the out put of energy could be up to as high as 97%, compared to the best fossil fuel plants are only 50% efficient. Ultimately it pays for itself unlike other alternative forms of fuel. Wind energy, only produced 400,000 megawatts of renewable energy sources. Solar power is the newest in the renewable energy portfolio. Solar panels are expensive and only produce a small amounts of energy and usually it is limited to a single household. Biomass is any waste including plant waste. When it is processed in large amounts it creates methane gas, which can be used for energy. Nuclear energy is another source of energy but the cost outweighs the outcomes. It costs a lot of money on the fuel, security, and also it causes a lot of waste that is detrimental to the surrounding environment. Yes, there are renewable alternatives but they all have risks that are not very beneficial, economically or