Energy Resources: Switzerland
Electricity production:
Hydropower and nuclear energy account for 95% of Switzerland’s electricity production with 56% of electricity production coming from hydropower and 39% from nuclear power.
Hydropower, obtained from the energy produced by moving water, is widely used in Switzerland due to the country’s topography and high levels of rainfall. There are 556 hydropower plants in Switzerland with the majority of hydroelectricity production coming from mountainous cantons such as, Grisons and Uri.
The principal component of a hydropower plant is a dam, which holds back the water, creating a reservoir. The water in the reservoir has potential energy, which turns into kinetic energy as it flows through the intake and penstock. The water then hits the turbine, turning its blades, which are attached to the generator, where a series of magnets begin rotating past copper coils, producing alternating currents through induced electron movement. The current is then converted into a higher voltage one by transformers, after which it flows through power lines.
Nuclear power involves the use of exothermic nuclear procedures to create electricity. Switzerland has a total of 4 nuclear power plants with 5 operational reactors.
Nuclear power plants generate electricity through nuclear fission with Uranium-235 atoms. The process involves a free neutron hitting a U-235 atom; rendering it unstable and making it split into two nuclei, which also emit neutrons that hit other nuclei creating a chain reaction. This releases heat that warms up the water, turning it into pressurised steam, which turns a turbine generator that creates electricity. To maintain this chain reaction, moderators (wat...
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Works Cited
• http://www.bfe.admin.ch/themen/00490/00491/?lang=en
• http://www.swissgrid.ch/swissgrid/en/home/reliability/energy_sources.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydropower
• http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/hydropower-plant.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power
• http://science.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-power2.htm
• http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/nuclear/problems
• http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/issues/nuclear-energy-&-waste/nuclear-energy-fact-sheet.php
• http://www.technologystudent.com/energy1/hydr2.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy
• http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/solar-cell.htm
• http://www.technologystudent.com/energy1/solar7.htm
• http://www.ecovillage.org.in/ecopedia/alternate-energy/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-biogas/
• https://www1.eere.energy.gov/wind/wind_ad.html
Nuclear power has grown to be a big percentage of the world’s energy. As of January 18, 2013 in 31 countries 437 nuclear power plant units with an installed electric net capacity of about 372 GW are in operation and 68 plants with an installed capacity of 65 GW are in 15 countries under construction. As of end 2011 the total electricity production since 1951 amounts to 69,760 billion kWh. The cumulative operating experience amounted to 15, 15,080 years by end of 2012. (European Nuclear Society) The change that nuclear power has brought to the world has led to benefits in today’s energy’s usage.
It uses flowing water to generate electricity. It does this by using dams and reservoirs for storage. This method gives us the most electricity rather than any other renewable energy source. Not only do the dams and reservoirs create electricity, they also control flooding (Sambu). Hydropower is the least expensive procedure to generate electricity. This is true because “once a dam has been built and the equipment installed, the energy source—flowing water—is free. It's a clean fuel source that is renewable yearly by snow and rainfall. Hydropower is also readily available; engineers can control the flow of water through the turbines to produce electricity on demand”
Nuclear energy is a very powerful source of energy. Just a little bit is required to make large amounts of electricity, which powers 1 in 5 households in the U.S. Nuclear energy has been advanced over the years and has been relied on heavily by many countries today.
Not only is nuclear power friendly to the environment, but it is almost always available, and many countries are starting to use it more. Renewable energy sources like solar and wind en...
The first type of renewable energy is hydroelectric energy or well known as hydropower. In greek word, hydro means water and thus hydroelectric energy refers to electricity generated using flowing water at high velocity. Lutgens and Tarbuck (1992, p. 163) stated that “running water is of great importance to people as we depend upon rivers for energy, travel and irrigation”. Continuous availability of water in universe made water to be the main source of hydroelectric energy. Water has been widely utilized by mankind since the beginning of civilization and wate...
Hydro power is one of many examples of alternative energy source. Hydro power is producing energy by moving
The use of nuclear energy has increased in the United States since 1973. Nuclear energy's share of U.S. electricity generation has grown from 4 percent in 1973 to 19 percent in 1998. This is excellent news for the environment. Nuclear energy and hydropower are the cleanest large-scale means of electricity production. Since nuclear power plants do not burn fuel, they emit no combustion byproducts—like carbon dioxide—into the atmosphere (www.nei.org). Nuclear power can come from the fission of Uranium, plutonium or thorium or the fusion of hydrogen into helium. Today uranium (U-235 and U-238) is most commonly used in the production of nuclear energy. The expa...
Nepal ranks second after Brazil in water resource in the world, and has great prospects of the hydropower of around 83,000 MW.
There are three parts to a typical hydropower plant. The first part is an electric plant where electricity is produced. The second is a dam that open and closes to control the flow of water. Water behind the dam goes into an intake and is pushed against blades in a turbine which causes them to turn. Then the turbine rotates a generator to create electricity.
Next, hydro-electricity is electricity produced by moving water, flowing past a turbine connected to a generator (“Hydropower”). According to Nationalgeographic.c...
How exactly does hydropower work, though? As it turns out, dams are the main source of harvesting energy via hydropower. There are about 80,000 dams in the United States, although not all are active producers of power. There are four main types of hydropower facilities, which all require turbines: impoundment, diversion, run-of-river, and pumped storage. Also, there are two main types of hydro turbines: impulse turbines and reaction turbines ("Hydropower…”).
Wind turbines are a great source of energy around the world. Wind turbines produce wind energy that can be used to power our homes. Wind turbines convert kinetic energy into mechanical power. Then this mechanical power gets generated into electricity. Wind turbines make energy by the wind turning the large blades, which spin a shaft that is connected to the large blades, which then operates the generator making electricity.
Hydroelectric Power Plant is when electricity is generated when water in an uphill reservoir flows downhill. The gravitational potential energy of the water changes to kinetic energy of the flowing water which drives the turbines to generate electricity. The efficiency is more than 90%. The environmental impact is Floods large area and affects the ecology of the area, May cause drought downstream if not managed properly, does not cause ai...
Hydroelectricity is a known renewable energy resource that provides substantial benefits for our wealth, our health, and for our global economy. There are five types of renewable energy we can use on a daily basis throughout our lives, but the most widely installed form of renewable energy is hydroelectricity. Hydroelectricity is electricity created by converting the kinetic energy of flowing water. Best thing about this source of energy is that it’s timeless and renewable, which means it will never run out, however we had to figure ways to store this energy. In order for them to harness this energy for other people, they had to build generators that convert all the potential energy of rapid moving water into electrical energy. (http://www.ems.psu.edu/~elsworth/courses/cause2003/finalprojects/vikingpaper.pdf)
Nuclear energy is generated by a process called fission. Fission occurs within the reactor of a nuclear power plant when a neutron is fired at an atom of uranium causing it to split and release subsequent neutrons.1 These are able to crash into other uranium atoms causing a chain reaction and releasing a great deal of heat energy.