Water mills and hydro

	Water Power and Hydroelectric Dams	EOTECHNIC - PALEOTECHNIC
	Norse -- horizontal wheel, 1/2 h.p. Horizontal wheels would return in the hydroelectric period.	Wind and water milling technology from China and India was an influence on European technology in the Middle Ages. Where animal and human power had been sufficient in earlier times, new technologies (the horse harness, the metal plow) were greatly improving harvests. At the same time, labor was in shorter supply. Wind and water mills helped make up the difference.
	Vertical wheel, undershot, breast shot and overshot -- 3 hp. Aprox. 5,000 in England at the time of Domesday survey 1088. Rosset, Denbyshire England Built in 1661	Cultural anachronisms from milling trade "Nose to the grindstone" "Show your mettle" "Get soaked" "Through the mill"
	Appleton, Wisconsin *First hydroelectric dam, 1880*	Until the turn of the 20th century, most mills powered grain or lumber milling equipment or power take-offs for other kinds of factories. Electricity swiftly made those mills obsolete.
	In the mid-19th century, as water power engineering switched from waterwheels to turbines, the question of how to maximize efficiency at a reduced head, in time of drought. The answer, as this Kaplan turbine shows, was to use adjustable turbine blades.
	Some of the most important early environmental conflicts were over dams, such as the Hetch Hetchy dam built in 1914 in Yosemite national park. It was opposed by John Muir and the Sierra Club "Dam Hetch Hetchy! [You might] as well dam for water tanks the people's cathederals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man." -- Muir, 1909 While Hetch Hetchy was built, some of the most beautiful natural settings were saved by the environmental movement.	Hundreds of hydroelectric dams and irrigation projects changed the face of the western US in the 20th century, some for the better. Critics have argued that an unsustainable style of development, inappropriate to a semi-arid region, has been enabled.
	St. Francis Dam, California Part of the famous 240 mile long Los Angeles aquaduct built by William Mulholland, the St. Francis dam burst March 12, 1928 killing 511 people.	While they provide cheap, clean electricity, dams have never been completely safe.
	Other dam disasters: Malpasset, France -- Dec. 2, 1959, 420 deaths Buffalo Creek Dam, W.Va., US -- Feb 26, 1972, 125 deaths Shimantan Dam, China -- Aug. 7, 1975 250,000 deaths Grand Teton Dam, Idaho, US -- June 5, 1976 -- 14 deaths	Hundreds more coal impoundment dams like Buffalo Creek have been built in West Virginia, and tens of thousands of people are at risk, due to increasing rates of mountaintop removal.
	Itaipu Dam Border of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay World's largest hydroelectric dam at 12,600 Megawatts -- enough to supply one quarter of Brazil's electricity.	Itaipu was controversial because it added to development in a region inhabited by 25,000 Guarani indians. During the 1970s, as it was built, people began to question massive hydro projects as appropriate developments.
In the news, Tellico seemd to be mostly about an endangered species of fish named the snail darter.	"Tellico Dam was a clear case of government overrunning the people and justice, for they ramrodded cases challenging the dam through the courts,and finally even passed a special law ... to exempt the Tellico Dam from all federal and state laws..." -- The legend of Roland the Cherokee	Teleco Dam, by TVA -- Not only were 16,000 acres taken from the Cherokee for the lake created by the dam, but another thousands of surrounding acres were given to rich white developers, not to the Cherokees who were displaced. See Selu, by Marylou Awiaka
	"The controversy over large dams on the River Narmada in India has come to symbolise the struggle for a just and equitable society (in India). The story is long and complicated ... In brief, the Government's plan is to build 30 large, 135 medium and 3000 small dams to harness the waters of the Narmada and its tributaries." -- Friends of the Narmada	Hundreds of thousand of people are being displaced by the "TVA" of India. Are there alternatives?
	Houses are innundated on the Narmada River in India, Sept. 2004.
	China's Three Gorges Dam is the world's largest, most expensive and most controversial hydroelectric project even. Innundation of prime agriculatural lands, technological problems and corruption in construction work are among the allegations against the Chinese government. See International Rivers Network pages.