SW drought may end hydro power

 From ClimateCrocks

Meanwhile, in western North America, drought continues, along with record heat, and hydro resources are stressed.

Colorado Public Radio:

By early 2024, projections show water levels in Lake Powell could drop too low for hydropower turbines to operate and generate electricity.

Tanya Trujillo, the assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior for water and science, joined the conference virtually to talk about the Colorado River crisis and the demand for states to conserve more water.

“We are facing the growing reality that water supplies for agriculture, fisheries, ecosystems, industry and cities are no longer stable due to climate change,” Trujillo said.

Trujillo said the agency’s order for water cuts includes Colorado and other states in the upper part of the river system, even though they don’t rely on water supplies collected in Lake Powell and Lake Mead.

“We need to be taking action in all states, in all sectors, in all available ways,” Trujillo said. “We need to be thinking as one basin.”

Trujillo said it’s up to states to decide how to make the water cuts and said the agency didn’t have a formula for appropriate conservation measures. She said the states have been charged with creating lists of potential ways this water can be saved and that the federal government wants to support those ideas with funding and resources. Trujillo said some of the federal support for states’ efforts would come from the bipartisan infrastructure law enacted in January, which set aside billions of dollars for Western water projects.

Speaking on a conference panel, Anne Castle, a senior fellow at the Getches-Wilkinson Center at CU Boulder and a former assistant secretary for water and science at the U.S. Department of the Interior, wondered what the federal government’s demand might mean for Colorado if junior water rights holders are cut off from using the Colorado River.

“What do our ski areas look like if we don’t have snowmaking anymore? Those are junior water rights,” Castle said. “What does it look like if part of our West Slope agriculture doesn’t exist anymore? What does that do to food security, what does it do to those communities? Those are the things that we’ve got to be thinking pretty hard about.”

If only we had a way to generate electricity using very little water. Oh, wait…