How does water contain energy?

In actual fact, water has two types of energy, potential (stored) energy, which can be later turned into kinetic energy which is the other form of energy. Kinetic energy is formed when the water starts to flow and waves start to form. This is kinetic energy.

One of natures renewable resources, meaning we will not run out of water supply unlike your fossil fuels that is commonly used today to generate power. The kinetic energy of water is used to generate electricity. How you may wonder?

Have you ever seen a large dam that has some kind of walls built around it? That is a hydro-power station. Here they generate electricity by pumping water from the damn at very high pressure to turn the turbines that changes the kinetic energy to mechanical energy to electrical energy.

Advantages and disadvantages

Hydro-power can generate moderate to high amounts of power that can be used, the maintenance and operating costs of generating power by using water is fairly low. The power plants where the electricity is generated emit very little pollutants during its operations. The beauty of hydro-power stations is that they have a life span around 2 - 10 more longer than that of your nuclear and coal power stations. Hydro-power stations not only use the water to generate power, they also used to prevent flooding and supply a steady flow of water to the dams below to keep it flowing.

One of the drawbacks from having these power stations is that they are large scale projects. They take a lot of space and this may in some cases cause damage to animal habitats. The aquatic life that live in these damn can not unfortunately not swim to the ocean and life may decrease in such areas.

How much power is being generated?

The hydro-power industry produce around 20% of the World's electricity demand, some statistics below will show you the total amount electricity produced by hydro-power stations in different countries: