Encyclopedia Dubuque
"Encyclopedia Dubuque is the online authority for all things Dubuque, written by the people who know the city best.”
Marshall Cohen—researcher and producer, CNN
Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
HYDROELECTRICITY
HYDROELECTRICITY. The generation of electric power from energy provided by flowing water. With the construction of Lock and Dam 11 at Dubuque in the 1930s, the possibility of using the facility to produce electricity was studied and rejected. The potential of the dam to create electric power was again discussed in 1978 as a result of a three-year study by the United States Army Corps of Engineers' Institute of Water Resources of the nation's dams.
Problems mentioned in the production of hydroelectric power included doubts that such power could be marketed competitively with energy produced by burning coal. Drops from one navigation pool to another on the Upper MISSISSIPPI RIVER have been considered insufficient. During periods of low water nearly all the navigation pools would have to be drained to keep generators operating. Increasing prices for fossil fuels such as coal and declining supplies in the future could make the production of hydroelectric power more likely.