Does Water Make the Grid Rusty?

You mean there’s a “grid” for water supply?

Well, not in the way that electricity is delivered throughout the nation.

So if the question is whether there is something like a grid for water the answer is “sort of” and that’s because clean water very often has to get from its source to its ultimate consumer and that requires major plumbing, sometimes pipes big enough to drive a truck through.

Electricity generated by hydropower involves similar logistics. One has to get the power generated at the hydro source to the ultimate consumer and that does indeed involve a grid. And in a national, coordinated sense the grid required to deliver hydropower generated electricity is indeed – Rusty!

The same grid that carries power generated by burning coal, oil or gas must be used to deliver water power. The problem is that while many fossil fueled plants are within cities or close to them, the hydropower is often in far away and remote locations. That doesn’t make the delivery system rusty, but the system in a national sense is inadequate and in some areas in poor shape and that condition if not rust, is certainly not acceptable.

We have reported before that due to the recent financial crisis there are literally trillions of dollars of investment money ready to upgrade the “national” grid – when the economy “settles down.” That can build a grid system capable of delivering power anywhere it is needed.

We have also reported on the development small local hydropower plants being developed that don’t require big dams or, in fact, any dams at all , but generate power from water that flows: yes, horizontally. And the flow plants have absolutely no impact on the ecology – another great blessing of hydropower generation.

As for the location of power plants, those burning fossil fuels can be located almost anywhere but the fuel or fuels have to be delivered to them. With hydropower just the opposite is the case
Hydropower must be created at the sources of flowing, tidal or falling water. That means that the Electric Grid has to be there for its product to be delivered.

This last point raises an additional question – the subject of one of our next issues:
Does grid wiring pose different problems, such as unsightly power lines, high tension power concerns? We continue to believe that all problems have solutions – and we pursue them eagerly.