USBR Study - 4% Chance Water Too Low To Generate At Glen Canyon Dam By 2018, 6% By 2019
Colorado water leaders used a curious approach last week in announcing a new water conservation program involving the Colorado River. They talked about electricity and the effect of spiking prices on corn farmers in eastern Colorado, ski area operators on the Western Slope, and cities along the Front Range.
The scenario? A Lake Powell receding to what is called a minimum power pool, leaving too little water to generate electricity. Glen Canyon Dam, which creates the reservoir, is responsible for 81 percent of the power produced by a series of giant dams on the Colorado River and its tributaries, including those on the Gunnison River. This electricity is distributed by the Western Area Power Administration to 5.8 million people in Colorado, Arizona and other states.
Should this power supply be interrupted, WAPA would make good on its contracts with local utilities by buying power in the spot market, such as from gas-fired power plants. But extended drought on the Colorado would certainly increase prices to reflect the higher costs of replacement by other sources.
EDIT
How likely is this dead pool? U.S. Bureau of Reclamation modelers in April found a 4 percent chance of a minimum power pool in 2018 and a 6 percent in 2019. The models are based on recorded hydrology of the last 105 years. What if Powell does decline and electricity cannot be generated? It depends upon how long the shortage lasts. A longer outage would affect electrical consumers from Arizona to Nebraska. "We're struggling to quantify the impact," says Andrew Colismo, government affairs manager for Colorado Springs Utility.
EDIT
http://www.denverpost.com/opinioncolumnists/ci_26300272/bone-bone-colorado-river-energy-times-drought?source=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dp-opinion+%28Denver+Post%3A+Opinion%29
