Hydro Power: Large Scale Although many people don't realise it a
significant portion of the world's electricity comes from hydro-
power technology. Several countries including China, Canada, the
United States and Brazil utilize stores of water (held in
reservoirs or flowing in large rivers) to generate green
renewable energy. Industry too has realized the potential of
hydroelectricity. Mining companies and smelts, for instance,
often use hydro power as a way of balancing the negative and
positive environmental impacts of their practices as well as
providing a reliable source of electricity in what are often
quite remote regions. It is the ocean-based hydro technologies
which are most exciting, however, as the potential for these
techniques is endless: companies are now investigating the
financial and technological practicalities of large wave and
tidal farms and have begun to install prototypes in locations
all over the world. Dams and Reservoirs Large-scale
hydroelectricity schemes of the traditional variety