WATER POWER

The Force That Flows Water power, used for centuries to turn mechanical waterwheels, can now be harnessed to generate electricity and heat. Water is constantly moving, flowing downhill from land to sea, where it is swept by tides, washed upon coastlines, and channeled into vast oceanic currents.

In 1882, the world's first hydroelectric dam began producing electricity, and by 1975, water power yielded one quarter of the world's electric power. Around the world, water power exists at thousands of potential new dam sites ranging from streams to large rivers. Likewise, existing dams wirthout turbines and generators carry an enormous possible capacity to make electricity and although many small dams that once produced power have closed, there is a growing trend to reopen such plants, as in Massachusetts and New York.

Tidal power, another form of water power, was first used hundreds of years ago in England to mill grain. In 1966, the French built the first commercial facility on the Rance River in northern France. Rising and falling waters there spin turbines to generate 240 million watts of electricity. Potential tidal sites have been identified along the shore of 23 countries so far.

New forms of unutilized oceanic water power are being explored . For example, floating ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) plants can generate electricity by utilizing the temperature difference between sun-warmed surface waters and colder deep waters. A samll OTEC plant pilot plant is operating in Hawaii and there are no technical barriers to building large OTEC plants. Also, further research and development will enable countries ike Japan and Ireland to capture the force of rising and falling waves along their coastlines. Creative engineering is turning up other sources of water power. For instance, some American towns have installed hydroelectric generators flowing through city water mains, as in Philipsburg, Montana.

Together, these new and old technologies will maintain and increase water power's role as an unending source of renewable energy.