Vízügyi Közlemények, 1948 (30. évfolyam)

2. szám - VII. Szakirodalom

(53) of iri'igatiou and navigation alike and so the expenditures for it influence in no way the profitableness of hydro-energy production.) B) The second example is the water-power station planned at Paks on the Danube. (See Figure 5 of the foregoing article.) Construction costs of this plant are explained in both Figure 3 and Table. II. Although expenditures for the dam and the navigable lock alike are to be involved into the unit cost of hydro-electric energy, in that special case with the most economic utilization, production of electricity appears to be at a lower cost than in the former example. Themost favourable unit cost, altogether 11,8 fillérs per kWh, can be obtained through utilizing a water quantity of 2000 m

3/sec. The discharge available for 182,5 days in the year amounts at Paks to 2000 m

3/sec concurring with the water quantity computed by the Water Power Bureau as technically utilizable, so the possibility of a 100 per-cent economical utilization is offered. C) In knowledge of the fact that the hydrographie conditions on the rest of the rivers in Hungary are more or less similar to those on the Tisza and the Danube, it might be eventually asserted that at least 90 per-cent of the available hydro-energy, i. e. an annual total of 1.800 million kWh are profitably producible. However, examination of possible extreme limits of expenditure computed in Table III for the sake of control, brings us to the conclusion that, owing to the great uncertainty in the calculations, profitableness as a whole is rendered highly questionable. E. g. in case of the Tisza project, taking a discharge of 500 m

3/sec, the unit cost amounts, according to Table I, to 13,8 fillérs, while in Table III

, the limits of this figure prove to be 5,7 and 38,5 fillérs depending on whether all of the most favourable or the most unfavourable items are taken into account. Closely similar conditions are encountered in case of the Danube project where the unit cost ranges from 4,3 to 40,8 fillérs. The unit costs of both 4,3 and 5,7 fillérs are on such a low level at which profitableness is simply indisputable, while those of 38,5 and 40,8 fillérs respectively are as high as to hardly motivate the realization of the plant. Accordingly, whether it is worth-while to establish any of these power stations or not, depends largely on Ihe way of calculation. This uncertainty is due to no imperfection of the computing methed, it merely gives a sharp proof of how difficult it is to pre-estimate the economics of planned power stations to be completed after decades. In the course of further examinations it. is not the correct way to seek how to bring the above minimum and maximum limits closer to each other but to study that to what extent would the unit cost of energy be influenced by the future changes in general economic conditions. It is of no use to calculate the accurate unit cost of today through the reckoning methed applied for the most favourable present conditions when it is likely to change anyhow, together with the conditions, by the time when the hydro-energy plant will have been completed and put into service. As a result of researches into the changes of economic conditions it is clear beyond doubt that, owing to the early exhaustion of coal supplies, the difference between the unit costs of energies produced by steam-power and water-power plants is likely to modify for the benefit of the latter. The rise in wages, the steady irici ease of general prosperity and the presumably large scale growth of electric energy consumption are all paving the way in favour of the water-power plants. In view of the calculation the adopted rate of interest is of primary importance which is equally expected to go back in the future increasing thereby the profitableness of hydro-energy utilization. There is merely one factor that is likely to have a detrimental influence upon water-power stations and that is the use of atomic energy. In case energy production at a low cost from easily available materials be made possible, construction of hydroelectric plants would naturally lose all profitableness. Nevertheless a flash back to the scientific development of energy carriers convinces us that the present stage of atomic research means no rivalry. Undoubtedly, in the course of time, human labour, wood, coal and mineral oil consecutively were the most important energy carriers, yet all of them are utilized up to the present day. Consequently it appears to be logical that in the atomic era to come the then installed water-power stations requiring almost no fuel and menpower would not become entirely unnecessary. 2