Alternative Energy - Hydro Electric Power

This is the most common form of generating electricity from water at the moment. Generally what happens is a reservoir is built with a dam in it, a mass of water is held back by the dam, and then suddenly released all at once, sending the water through a turbine at great force.

This kind of system used to be widespread before we started using engines. Hydro-electricity powered things like flour mills and was also used to power machinery. However, these were replaced by engines when fuel to run them was very cheap.

Hydro-electric power is pollution free and safe once it's up and running, although in creating it there can be tremendous disruption and upset to the environment, animals and nearby residents. We currently get about 2% of our electricity from hydro-electric power, but the chances of increasing that much are pretty unlikely. Finding sites large enough for many more projects of this kind are unlikely.