水力发电：

• 是一种可再生能源，与很多其他能源相比，具有成本低，污染少的优势。

• 据美国能源部（Department of Energy ）估计，水力发电每年足以为美国减少2亿公吨的碳排放，相当于4,200多万辆汽车的排放量。

• 占美国总发电量的约7%，相当于所有可再生能源的大约一半。

• 前10年已获得美国政府60多亿美元的投资 。美国能源部新发布的报告 指出，美国河道对新的水利发电具有巨大的潜力，可为清洁能源和降低化石燃料的使用提供各种机会。

• 可利用各种资源，包括美国胡佛水库（Hoover Dam）和小型电力来源，例如市政水利设施、河道分流，甚至灌溉渠道等。

美国西部多年的干旱降低了水力发电的能力。

但即使存在不利因素，水力发电仍然具有高度的灵活性，可通过抽水储能应对电力需求的波动。人们经常称抽水储能式电厂为“大型电池”，可以为美国和全世界提供大部分公用电力储备。

(本文改编自美国能源部“你不知道的水力发电十大好处”（Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know about Hydropower）。)


 

Dams provide great places for fishing and boating, in addition to power generation. 

Generating electric power from flowing water is one of the oldest and cleanest ways to produce energy. It’s one more element in the U.S. strategy to move to a diverse clean-energy economy and reduce emissions from carbon-based fuels.

Hydropower:

• Is a renewable energy source providing power at lower cost, with less pollution than many alternatives.

• Generates enough U.S. electricity to offset 200 million metric tons of carbon emissionseach year, equivalent to the emissions from more than 42 million passenger vehicles, according to the Department of Energy (DOE).

• Supplies about 7 percent of the electricity generated in the United States and about half of the electricity from all renewable sources.

• Has received U.S. government investments of more than $6 billion in the last decade. Anew DOE report describes great potential for new hydropower generation in U.S. waterways, creating opportunities to expand a clean energy source and reduce fossil fuel use.

• Relies on a variety of sources, including giant dams like Hoover Dam in the United States as well as smaller-scale power sources like municipal water facilities, stream diversion or even irrigation ditches.

Droughts can limit hydropower. Several years of drought in the American West havediminished hydropower capacity.

Even with this downside, hydropower remains highly flexible and can rapidly respond to fluctuations in the demand for electricity with pumped storage. Pumped-storage hydropower plants, often described as “giant batteries,” account for the bulk of utility-scale electrical energy storage in the United States and worldwide.

(This list is adapted from DOE’s “Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know about Hydropower.”)