EES 0837 Lecture 39: Lecture 39
3 Apr 2016
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Lecture - 39: some tiny bit of gravitational potential energy remains, if the rain falls on terrain (e. g. , higher than sea level where it originated) Hydroelectric plants use this tiny left-over energy: it"s the energy that drives the flow of streams and rivers. Damming up a river concentrates the potential energy in one location for easy exploitation: how much of the process do we get to keep, according to figure 5. 1, 401015 w of solar power goes into evaporation. This corresponds to 1. 61010 kg per second of evaporated water! Based on the 1. 8% land area of the u. s. and the maximum potential of. 147. 7 gw as presented in table 5. 2: power of a hydroelectric dam, most impressive is grand coulee, in washington, on columbia river. 350 feet = 107 m of head . > 6,000 m3/s flow rate! (pacific northwest gets rain!) Each cubic meter of water (1000 kg) has potential energy: mgh = (1000.
