Lake Powell water officials face an impossible choice amid the West's megadrought

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Lake Powell, the country's second-largest reservoir, is drying up.

The situation is critical: if water levels at the lake were to drop another 32 feet, all hydroelectricity production would be halted at the reservoir's Glen Canyon Dam.

The West's climate change-induced water crisis is now triggering a potential energy crisis for millions of people in the Southwest who rely on the dam as a power source. Over the past several years, the Glen Canyon Dam has lost about 16 percent of its capacity to generate power. The water levels at Lake Powell have dropped around 100 feet in the last three years.



Bob Martin, deputy power manager for the Glen Canyon Dam, pointed toward what's called the "bathtub ring" on the canyon walls. The miles of white rock represent this region's problem.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/lake-powell-water-officials-face-an-impossible-choice-amid-the-wests-megadrought/ar-AAWMdh7

[hunter]

1. Lower Colorado River Basin water users could switch to desalinated ocean water.

It would take some major infrastructure investments, but the technology is well established.

Upper Basin users are shit out of luck.

[NNadir]

5. Albeit at a enormous energy, environmental and climate cost as things stand now. n/t.

[hunter]

6. Yeah, it will probably be done with fossil fuels...

... wearing a "renewable energy" costume.

Nobody is going to let real estate markets in Southern California and Arizona served by Lake Havasu evaporate.

All these people are not going to abandon their homes and move to places with abundant rainfall.

Burning these fossil fuels will, of course, make the problem worse.

[NNadir]

7. Not "probably." "Definitely," is more likely. I have calculated the energy cost...

...of providing all of California's water via zero discharge supercritical water desalination, thus restoring things like, um, say Owen's Lake and the San Joaquin aquifer, although the latter is probably wrecked for eternity by fracking for oil and gas conducted there while we all wait for the "renewable energy" nirvana.

It leads to some interesting results; I've been working on and off, in a desultory fashion, on putting together some remarks on this calculation and may publish them at some point here.

[Thunderbeast]

2. We have overpopulated and over farmed an arid desert.

Consequences were bound to catch up.

[CrispyQ]

3. Six billion miracles is enough.

I bought that bumper sticker around the turn of the century.

[hatrack]

4. Powell is getting a lot of attention lately, but Mead is dropping like a rock

It's down more than three feet in two weeks, losing 250,000 acre-feet and is barely above 31% of capacity as of yesterday.

http://lakemead.water-data.com/