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United States

Heat and Drought Are Sucking US Hydropower Dry (theverge.com) 70

Posted by msmash from the concerning-direction dept.
The amount of hydropower generated in the Western US last year was the lowest it's been in more than two decades -- and 2024 isn't looking much better. From a report: Hydropower generation in the region fell by 11 percent during the 2022-2023 water year compared to the year prior, according to preliminary data from the Energy Information Administration's Electricity Data Browser -- its lowest point since 2001. That includes states west of the Dakotas and Texas, where 60 percent of the nation's hydropower was generated. These also happen to be the states -- including California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico -- that climate change is increasingly sucking dry. And in a reversal of fortunes, typically wetter states in the Northeast -- normally powerhouses for hydropower generation -- were the hardest hit. You can blame extreme heat and drought for the drop in hydropower last year. This creates a vicious cycle: drought reduces the amount of clean energy available from hydroelectric dams. To avoid energy shortfalls, utilities wind up relying on fossil fuels to make up the difference. That leads to more of the greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change, which makes droughts worse.
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Heat and Drought Are Sucking US Hydropower Dry More

Heat and Drought Are Sucking US Hydropower Dry

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  • California Snow Pack (Score:5, Informative)

    by divide overflow ( 599608 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2024 @02:07PM (#64349217)
    California got some good rains this year and the snow pack in the mountain ranges is currently at our historical average.

    See: https://cdec.water.ca.gov/snow... [ca.gov]
    • Is it a moving average though?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by klui ( 457783 )

      Another metric that is important is the water content of that snow. Currently at 101%.

      https://cdec.water.ca.gov/snow... [ca.gov]

      Climatologists do warn that if the snow pack melts faster than normal due to global warming then the pack won't last through the dry season.

    • Thats great things are at average, but in order to come back from a deficit, snowfalls will need to be above average for a while. Otherwise you'll just sit in that deficit scenario and risk dropping even lower in years with poor snowfall.

  • Heat and drought not the only causes (Score:4, Interesting)

    by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2024 @02:14PM (#64349235)
    Hydropower generation is down but I would speculate that heat and drought are not the only causes. Hydropower plants (like other aging infrastructure) are less efficient over time. As such dam retrofits are needed to bring production back up. In the past few decades, some dams have been removed as the environmental impact was greater than the benefit. The greater use of wind and solar also could be contributing to the lack of need to retrofit or build new plants.
    • And some older dams are just left there, but no power generated anymore because it just isn't worth the retrofit.
    • All those dams on the Colorado river are ancient, maybe they should be overhauled to be more efficient to work better with lower water levels, they were built in the 1930s and the demand for water was far less back then

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Hydropower generation is down but I would speculate that heat and drought are not the only causes. Hydropower plants (like other aging infrastructure) are less efficient over time. As such dam retrofits are needed to bring production back up. In the past few decades, some dams have been removed as the environmental impact was greater than the benefit. The greater use of wind and solar also could be contributing to the lack of need to retrofit or build new plants.

      They are in general the main causes though. A

    • Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)

      by fatwilbur ( 1098563 )
      Yup - those that overinvest in solar and wind are bound to experience the same thing as Alberta, Canada (by far the largest investor in those energy sources in Canada). On Saturday January 13, they experienced [www.cbc.ca] and emergency alert for residents to reduce their power usage. From the article: “You had, for much of Alberta, the coldest night in 50 years, you had a particularly acute low wind event, and last night a lack of import availability because of a lot of pressures on the Saskatchewan grid and on

      • What has ideology (never knew there are ideologies regarding power generation) to with a grid operator who runs its grid with the bare minimum of hardware, and can not react to extreme situations?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dfm3 ( 830843 )
      The lakes that form behind dams are also subject to filling up with silt, which is historically supposed to be carried downstream and (typically) deposited in a delta. This hasn't been a major issue for most reservoirs yet, but most of them are 100 years old or less, and the older they get the more sediment they gain.
  • From Parker to Yuma and the river looked a little bit low but not dangerously low, maybe a foot low, parker dam was still there, and Imperial dam is still there too, did not go up to look at Hoover dam & Lake Mead but I am sure they are still there, maybe next October/November I will visit Hoover & Lake Mead before I trek south to my usual winter retreat

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dfm3 ( 830843 )
      Flow on that section of the Colorado is controlled by upstream dams and is maintained in accordance with agreements between several states, so it won't often look low. Go a bit farther downstream near Yuma and you'll see a river that has been greatly reduced, most of the water having been siphoned off. Go a short distance into Mexico and you won't find any water at all.

  • Reducing the number of hydroelectric dams isn't helping this particular statistic either - the Klamath River removals for example. Whether the benefits outweigh the costs is left as an exercise for the user.

    While most of the 2,000 plus dams that have been removed over the last century plus weren't hydroelectric, those may be noticed more. I know that age in particular, cost of maintenance, fish habitat concerns, and many other issues are involved. Seems a shame for flood control though.

    • This is happening everywhere ; Vermont forced their only nuclear power station to close a few years ago AND destroyed a bunch of their hydro dams. WTF?

    • Do you realize that the Bonneville Power Administration (or Authority?) way overproduces electricity and could run at much higher capacity full time instead of turning off generators at night? Have you heard the hum of powerline wires? Can you imagine so much excess electricity crammed into the wire not demanded anywhere that it tries to arc into thin air?

  • We'll all die of thirst but at least the salmon can swim upstream.
  • ...hydropower dry. It's the best way to have it.

  • Classic green morons (Score:1, Insightful)

    by blahabl ( 7651114 )
    First they blow up hydro dams, because salmon are crying or something, and then they blame lower energy production from hydro on global warming. I mean you fucking can't make that up.
  • I'm still waiting for the film version of The Water Knife [wikipedia.org] . Perhaps when people see what inter-state shooting wars over water look like, or internally-displaced US refugees, they might reconsider the more frivolous things we use water for in the southwest and actually do something.

    (I think it'd be an awesome one to hand to Denis Villeneuve, along the lines of Sicario [imdb.com] .)
  • Using the planet's hydrological cycle as an operating fluid. It can be convenient, but might as well cut out the middle-man.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

      That's got to be one of the most 'greenwashed' things I've heard. If the planet's hydrological cycle were indirect solar, water cycles would be measurable daily and correlate to sunlight. It does not.

      If you mean that solar is also a 'green' technology similar to solar, you would be correct - except for the significantly lower efficiency and increased cost. Eg. you can make a solar system significantly more efficient by adding a water battery to the system to generate power during the night, which says somet

      • I'm not sure what you mean. I'm saying sunlight warms the planet's water, it circulates in the atmosphere and rains/snows into snowpacks and rivers, and we harness it in hydro dams. Generally speaking, it's more efficient to just get the solar energy directly, when practical.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

          "It's more efficient to get the solar directly"

          No, it's not, because you have to build solar panels to do so. Solar panels are markedly less useful than gravity and naturally created reservoirs of high density liquid.

          From our POV, they're roughly parity... though in terms of dollars-to-output, solar is far less efficient.

          Like I said, greenwashing. You're stretching rationally...

          • Apples and oranges. Most of the costs of a hydro dam are hidden. Most of the costs of solar panels are right out in the open.
  • '23 was the second wettest year in connecticut's history, this winter was the wettest and the first quarter of this year, which ends in a few days may well wind up with double the typical precipitation, an extraordinary amount. "in a reversal of fortunes, typically wetter states in the Northeast â" normally powerhouses for hydropower generation â" were the hardest hit." maybe, but it ain't true here. we don't squeeze much juice from water anymore but it's not because of weather. - js.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

      Yep. Global warming isn't why hydro isn't being used, it's because of the moneyed interests trying to end solar and protect bespeckled otters and flying trout (while significantly and negatively impacting waterway health in the process).

  • The US installed 32 gigawatts of solar PV in 2023. Hoover dam can generate 2 gigawatts at its peak, which it hasn't done in many years. In Nevada alone there is planned additional capacity of 8 GWs over the next few years. That's 4 Hoover dams for Nevada alone. Not to mention the massively scaling and accelerating installation of utility scale battery storage.

    The future is bright!

    https://www.seia.org/solar-industry-research-data

  • Corps of Engineers are largely responsible for this. They've been systematically reducing water levels in damming bodies of water for "flood prevention" for decades. Things really started to heighten after the Midwestern/Nebraska flooding in (IIRC) 2005. Lower water levels = less hydro power intake pressure = less power.

    On top of that, Instead of increasing holding capacity by adding more hydro power, they've been reducing holding capacity on the argument of 'environmental impact', as well - gotta protect t

  • More and more electricity is being used. Of course that isn't important...

  • Isn't that strange?
    According to some slashdotters if it gets warmer it rains more, or not?
    Should deserts not now be corn chambers? Or at least be full with flowers?
    So we not experience global warming but global drying? /S

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