10 facts about Hydropower
- Hydro energy was used by the Greeks to turn water wheels for grinding wheat into flour, more than 2,000 years ago.
- Hydropower, hydraulic power or water power is power that is derived from the force or energy of moving water, which may be harnessed for useful purposes.
- In the 1770s, French hydraulic and military engineer Bernard Forest de Bélidor wrote Architecture Hydraulique, a four-volume work describing vertical and horizontal axis machines.
- Canada is the largest producer of hydro energy in the world.
- In China and the rest of the Far East, hydraulically operated "pot wheel" pumps raised water into irrigation canals.
- Norway produces almost 100 percent of its electricity through hydro energy.
- Today, there is about 80,000 MW of conventional hydro energy capacity and 18,000 MW of pumped storage in the U.S.
- Hydropower has been used for hundreds of years. In India, water wheels and watermills were built; in Imperial Rome, water powered mills produced flour from grain, and were also used for sawing timber and stone.
- Hydro energy produces about 20 percent of the total electricity in the world.
- The U.S. is second followed by Russia, Brazil and China.
