The Hoover Dam

The Hoover Dam had successfully tamed the wild Colorado River by spanning from the Nevada wall to the Arizona wall. “Surveyors investigated seventy sites along the entire river's course and settled on Nevada's Boulder and Black Canyons, both offering a potential reservoir of more than thirty million acre-feet (Construction). The Hoover Dam is as tall as a sixty story building and its base is as thick as two football fields long. This was the tallest dam built at its time when completed in 1935. The dam had to be big, because it needed to hold back the biggest,... ... middle of paper ... ...Hoover Dam were many years ahead of their time and without them, we wouldn’t have the knowledge that we do today.

John R. Hall explains that the Hoover dam was built ¡§to harness the awesome power of the Colorado River¡¨ (22). The Department of Reclamation had a huge task on their hands when supervising the construction of the Hoover Dam (Hall 22), previously known as Boulder Dam and changed to Hoover Dam for President Herbert Hoovers strong support of a Dam on the Colorado River (Wassner 97). First, before even breaking ground, there had to be away to easily access the dam site and house the six-thousand workers who will build the great dam. Boulder City was created to house the Government and contractor ... ... middle of paper ... ...¡§Dam One Of¡¨). With Hoover¡¦s seventeen generators and extremely large water supply, cities were able to grow very rapidly.

The dam was a massive fete in engineering due to its colossal size and new techniques required to complete its construction in a timely manner. The structure was also build in the worst economic state the country had ever been in. This was pride full because even in the United States lowest point they were still able to accomplish huge engineering fetes. Hoover Dam (Water and Power 1936) Conclusion: The Hoover Dam is significant to the civil engineering because it helped the United States during The Great Depression, it required new engineering techniques to be established to have it built, and at the time of its construction it was the tallest concrete dam in the United States. The dam helped develop engineering techniques that would be applied to larger dams and structures down the road.

The Three Gorges Dam is the biggest hydropower project in the world and it provides 10% of China’s power supply (Crafter 2009). However, the dam is causing colossal environmental impacts to the areas round the Yangtze River such as land instability and the endangering of organisms. Land instability occurs due to the flooding of the Three Gorges Dam. This causes water seepage, which affects the fertility of the soil. When the soil is infertile, it creates a great chance of a landslide occurring due to “fluctuations in the reservoir’s water level (as dam operators release or store water) which experts mean massive changes in the weight and pressure of the water, which further disturbs land’s structure” (Ford, 2011).

Shea Company of Portland, MacDonald & Kahn Ltd, Pacific Bridge Company of Portland, Henry J. Kaiser, Bechtel Company of San Francisco were awarded the winning bid for the dam at forty eight million eight hundred ninety thousand nine hundred fifty five dollars. The construction management team had a Herculean task in building this behemoth and faced many problems in its construction. A few of the major issues posed to the team were diverting the Colorado River, provisioning the men and material to get the job done, and the actual construction of the Hoover Dam. The heights involved with project led to many safety obstacles that had to be overcame. Diverting the powerful Colorado River had to be ... ... middle of paper ... ...ementation of diverting the Colorado River, provisioning the men and material to get the job done, and constructing the dam are great examples of how an effective construction management team can get things done no matter the scale or complexity of work.

The most tremendous dams in Oregon are the ones on the Klamath and Columbia River, which provide renewable energy to the state (Hunt, 1999). Now that we know what hydroelectric turbines are, how do they work? When a fluid, most likely water, pushes on the front of the turbine blade, it causes a pressure drop on the back of the turbine, causing the turbine blades to spin. When these turbine blades spin, the Rotor, which is attached to an axle that attached to the blades, spins as well. The Rotor is made of a certain number of magnets facing North, South, North, South... in a clockwise fashion.

Both of these countries are moving towards nuclear energy for many reasons like its reliability and amount of energy it producing. It is very beneficial because it only takes up a small amount of space to make one of these nuclear plants and the amount of energy they produce is substantial. Both of these countries are looking into h... ... middle of paper ... ...ed the water begins to boil and steam is produced. When the steam is produced is moved up towards the reactor opening, as it moves up the steam passes through turbines that spin creating energy. The turbines begin to move which is what produces the energy.

Whilst hydroelectricity has many positive impacts on the ever-deteriorating environment, it can also contribute negative effects on the environment. There have been many recent and long term developments in hydropower and scientists are continually working to improve the efficiency and explore new conduits for constructions of all kind of hydropower. Today, hydropower provides a good portion of the world’s electricity demands. Even though in some places hydroelectricity is decline, innovations and increased demands are upping the need for newer, more efficient renewable energy. Today, ~20% of the world’s energy is produced by hydroelectricity.

For electricity to be generated there is a need for a source of energy. Some of these sources will include Wind, liquid water forced to move at high velocity or steam projected at high pressure. The energy harnessed from these sources is used to run large turbine devices which in turn run attached generators that produce electricity that is the extracted and distributed. These sources produce mechanical and kinetic energy that is extracted by massive turbine devices that have blades spinning at great speeds. These blades are connected to the turbine shaft.

In the future the development of hydropower plants will create local physical pollution. For an example, industrial structures in natural settings! Where are hydroelectric power plants located? The biggest hydropower plant is located at the Grand Coulee Dam which is on the Columbia River in Washington. Over seventy percent of the electricity made in Washington is produced by hydroelectric facilities (Thomas).