How can water be used to meet our energy needs?

Hydroelectric power, as it is used today, refers to electricty generated by hydraulic turbines that rotate due to moving water as it flows from a higher elevation to a lower elevation. In Florida, there are two hydroelectric power plants, one right here in Tallahassee! The Lake Talquin dam and power plant saves people in Tallahassee over a half-million dollars in fuel per year!

Near 10% of the total power in the United States is produced by hydroelectricty. And more than half of that is generated in three states: Washington, California, and Oregon.

There are numerous advantages to using hydroelectric power, including:

1. Creates very little pollution because no fuel is burned!
2. The natural resource - water - is free!
3. It's renewable! Rainfall continually renews the water, so the fuel is almost always there.

Oceans cover 71% of the earth's surface, stretching 130 million square miles (about the size of 63 billion football fields)! Ocean energy can be captured to perform useful work or produce a useful product, such as: electricity, desalination (the generation of fresh water for drinking or irrigation), hydrogen, cooling and heating, pumping water, chemicals, minerals, medicines, and food.

There are four types of ocean energy, all of which are clean and renewable:

• Hydrokinetic: moving water such as ocean currents and tidal streams that flow like rivers driven by such forces as wind, tides, and gravity. The most energy rich current is the Florida current.
• Waves: the rapid rise and fall of the ocean surface. Waves are driven by the forces of wind, geologic events (such as earthquakes), tides, and gravity. Some of the most energy rich waves in the world are around Hawaii, Alaska, Oregon, and Washington.
• Thermal: in the tropical oceans, the water at the surface is warm, while the water at great depths is very cold.
• Tidal: twice a day the oceans rise and fall along the shoreline driven by the gravitational pull of the moon and sun. The highest tides on Earth are found in the Bay of Fundy in Canada that can reach 53.5 feel. This is nearly as tall as a four-story building.