Hydro or Solar...?


Cody Watkins

Language Arts Portfolio

Intro: What is Hydroelectricity and Solar Electricity?

Hydroelectricity

Hydroelectricity works by moving water to make mechanical gears move that produce power.
It is large-scale, mechanical and requires a lot of filtering and other things to work properly.
It is mainly used in local power plants and industiral.

Solar Electricity

Solar Electricity works by absorbing energy from the sun.
It is scaleable, electric and only requires sunlight.
Some people have solar panels on their homes, and they never experance power outages.
It does not produce that much energy, only useful for homes when small-scale.
The only way to get it to produce more is to get more panels.

Pros and Cons

Hydroelectricity


Pros
  • Produces a lot of energy
  • Used in some local powerplants
  • Does not break that much in rain, (might even work better)
Cons
  • Depends on speed of water
  • Needs a lot of filtering to work without issues
  • Mechanical, needs to be converted to electric, losing a bit of power
Solar Electricity


Pros
  • Can be used anywhere where there is sunlight
  • Easy to setup
  • Energy efficient
  • Never experance power outages mostly
  • Not relying on the power grid
Cons
  • Can only produce enough energy for about 1 house
  • Cannot produce more at night
  • If not cleaned, will shut down after a few years of too much dirt
  • Won't work when raining, cloudy or other bad weather conditions
  • Breaks easily
  • Expensive

Overall,

Solar Electricity

is the better choice due to:

  1. Power Comsumption:

    Less power is used, and it also produces less energy waste.

  2. Setup

    Solar is quite easy to setup, with the fact that it just needs to be put on your roof and connect a few wires.

  3. Unlimited Energy

    The sun is a unlimited resource, so you can get a lot of energy.


Cody Watkins