High rainfall and rapid snow melt were ideal for hydro electricity production.
Solar energy, hydro-electricity, geothermal, biofuels and nuclear are options that are going to be explored.
To that can now be added burgeoning commercial interests in hydro-electricity, construction and telecoms.
And yet if countries like Turkey want to develop, hydro-electricity is a clean, efficient way of doing so.
Rivers, rapids and waterfalls are another natural feature of the nation's natural landscape that can be tapped as a source for hydro-electricity plants.
Others say that if hydro-electricity fails to provide the goods, Laos has no alternative but timber, and the faster chopping down of its forests of hardwood.
China produces merely 1 percent of its electricity from non-hydro renewable power, while the United States produces 5 percent of its electricity from non-hydro renewable power.
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It is offering hydro-powered electricity at a very cheap rate: two U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour compared to four cents in the United States and seven cents in Germany.
There is also a need to develop as yet absent resources including electricity through hydro electric generation or possible wind generation.
Electricity generation from renewables (including conventional hydro) grew from approximately 9 percent of the U.S. electricity generation mix in 2007 to 13 percent in 2012.
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Cornwall can already produce more than 80 megawatts (MW) of electricity from wind, hydro-electric, solar and other renewable energy sources.
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While it is absolutely essential that we continue to drive down the costs of generating electricity from solar (and wind, which is indirect solar energy, ) doing so alone will not make these renewable energy sources competitive with traditional hydro, fossil or nuclear generated electricity.
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Although BC Hydro has identified over 2, 600 electricity thefts over the past five years, identifying and confirming theft is a time-consuming, inefficient and expensive manual process.
It is then released through a number of turbines to generate electricity in the same way as hydro-electric power plants work.
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It recognized that Vermont utilities import large quantities of electricity from Quebec and the provincial utility Hydro-Quebec is a major supplier of Vermont electric power.
Because 90% of the electricity consumed in Stockholm is supplied by hydro and nuclear plants, there is the potential to significantly reduce emissions by electrifying the transport sector.
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"Hydro electric schemes, which use impounded water to generate electricity, are an excellent means of energy storage, " said SSE Renewables managing director Jim Smith.
The energy infrastructure of Iceland is one of the cleanest in the world, capable of producing 100 percent of its electricity from homegrown renewable energy resources such as hydro and geothermal.
So they did for the hydro-power companies, which were within days of enforced electricity rationing.
More than a quarter of the electricity generated in Scotland last year was produced from wind, hydro and other renewable sources.
Energy firm SSE, which trades as Scottish Hydro, Swalec and Southern Electric, will increase its domestic gas and electricity prices by an average of 9% from 15 October.
Nobody can deny that hydro is one of the cheapest, cleanest, most efficient ways of producing electricity.
In most places the long-term electricity alternative is not oil, but coal, natural gas, hydro and the comparatively new wind and solar vendors.
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Mr Simplot himself, an avowed lover of skiing, duck shooting and the great outdoors, was attacked in the 1970s for his support for new coal-fired electricity plants along the Snake river and for a scheme to generate hydro-power by diverting water from another river into a vast underground tube.
For example, Latvia operates two major hydro-electric plants on the Daugava River which provide only half of Latvia's electricity needs.
SSE, which trades as Scottish Hydro north of the border, said Glendoe was already producing about three gigawatt hours of electricity for the network.
The 10 megawatts of power that will be generated by the Sound of Islay turbine farm pales into insignificance when compared to the output of a large nuclear or coal power station, which according to American hydro energy non-profit the Ocean Energy Council, can produce up to 100 times as much electricity.
Two huge hydro-electric power schemes, on Lake Cahora Bassa in Mozambique and in the Lesotho mountains, which will zap electricity across the region, are also being built.
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