Thesis: Cost effectiveness of Hydro Power

Sample Thesis Paper

Hydropower dams are very expensive to build.  These dams must be built to high standard because damage to the dam can have catastrophic effects.  Therefore, constructing a dam will cost millions of dollars.  It requires a lot of man power and machineries to operate for a very long period.  Once the dam is constructed it needs to be functioning for at least 20 years to cover the cost of investment.

As a result the hydropower is not fashionable in many countries.  Apart from the cost of construction, once the hydropower plant is established, it may run for several years with low maintenance cost (Cassedy & Edward 2000). Although the dams can have some environmental impacts such as disruption of wild life and water table levels, on the whole the hydropower has less impact on the environment when compared to coal power plants or nuclear power.  The electricity generated by hydropower will not produce green house gases, i.e. they do not pollute the environment (Rayan 2005). New studies are being carried out to improve turbine design and to optimize the water usage.  There are also studies carried out to improve the mitigation practices.  These studies will help to develop guidelines to use the best available hydropower technology to reduce the cost and improve effectiveness (EERE 2008).

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