Name: Dams and Water Turbine / Hydropower
Description:
This idea mostly covers the dam portion of using water for power generation. Dam walls are created by using rebar and construction foam. The higher the wall of the dam the more potential energy you have, duh, physics 101. At the bottom of the dam is the control gate/penstock. I’m not sure if the control gate/penstock matters or is even needed because the turbine could do all the work. Then the water turbine is placed next to the control gate. Connect a cable to the turbine and get power to the grid. The only problem I have been unable to resolve is where all the water goes. After going through the turbine, water flows downstream and out of sight out of mind. I guess it doesn't matter in Minecraft because water doesn't "flow downstream" and it comes in unlimited quantities.
I think my idea is novel because it uses the height of the dam walls to determine the amount of power generation. This way it requires that you build/invest in the infrastructure before you get any return. First we treat rebar as a wire. Wire can be filled in with construction foam and solidifies into a dam wall. Now, because rebar is a wire it can transmit information to its neighbor and that wire can send to the next and the next etc. The information that the rebar transmits is simple; "Is water touching me? True or false?" At the bottom of the wall you have the control gate. The control gate receives the signals from all the wall blocks above it and adds all "trues". The control gate transmits this number to the turbine which uses that number as the basis for it’s power generation. I am not interested in how much power is output at this time. If this suggestion is popular enough I will put some time into figuring out how much power should be generated.
Basic Setup
=water
=dam wall(rebar filled with CF)
=control gate
=water turbine
Now the great thing about this is that it's modular. Look at it from downstream:
<-a control gate is behind each turbine
Now it looks like a dam. By the way, you will need a fairly tall dam to generate any significant amount of power. Twenty plus block high for low-med voltage output?
The one huge glaring realism issue(other than water outflow) that I have is the single column of water behind the dam wall. I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think blocks are able to detect more than one block away from itself. If they could it would help with determining power output of the turbine.
Optional piece of realism is to have a real generator produce the power. The turbine connects to the generator via shaft(iron fence?)
Possible secondary uses of new items.
- Rebar/CF blocks more than or equivalent to the explosive resistance of reinforced stone. Optional or better material for building nuclear reactor containment chambers.
- Instead of creating the "control gate" block. Add the "dam wall" counter code to the IC2 pump.
- Turbine could be used as a part for other advanced generators.
Recipes: 
=nothing
Rebar x8
iron fence
Control gate x1
:Refined Iron: :Advanced Machine: :Refined Iron: <-regular machine block
Turbine x1
:Water Mill: :Advanced Machine: :Water Mill:
:Empty Cell: :Extractor:
:Water Mill: :Generator: :Water Mill:
I actually haven't given the turbine recipe much thought because most of the cost happens before you even need to place it.
If this doesn't make it into IC2, I would love to see it as an add-on. If I ever get around to learning java I may attempt it. For now I am content with making this suggestion and reading some feedback.
EDIT: Yes. I realize this is a denied suggestion, but I believe my suggestion is fundamentally different from the one that relied solely on the turbine. That suggestion makes it easy to place a single block and some water and let it run. This suggestion requires some effort to setup and could actually look appealing.
EDIT2: spelling
