Hydro and Go Seek

Glen Cyn Dam on the Upper Colorado

Hydro and Go Seek

When Climate Change Slams Green Energy Too

This summer Glen Canyon Dam (at Lake Powell) was about 32 feet away from shutting down its ability to generate electricity. In what used to be normal times, with a total capacity of 1,320 megawatts, Glen Canyon Powerplant produces around five billion kilowatt-hours of hydroelectric power annually which is distributed by the Western Area Power Administration to Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and Nebraska. Government sources suggest that the new normal would produce about half of what that “old normal.” The story is not dissimilar from other major regional dams, like the Hoover Dam on the lower Colorado River (at Lake Mead), which seriously impacts power for Nevada, Arizona and California.

The irony is that hydroelectric power is a highly touted green energy source that is part of our climate change solution. To give you an idea of the impact, during its periods of “old normal” operation, Glen Canyon generates enough power to offset 6.7 billion pounds (3 billion kg) of carbon dioxide emissions each year. But as the water flow drops, so does the offset. How bad can it get? Let’s take a look at Sichuan China, where massive hydroelectric capacity has been a Godsend to weaning off demon coal-fired electrical power. So bad, it seems that demon-coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel of them, just might make a huge comeback in the People’s Republic.

China’s story is mission critical for us all. Still heavily dependent on coal-fired electrical power generation (literally half of its electricity), China alone is responsible for a third of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions. So as China strives to shift into alternative power, avoiding fossil fuels, its successes are gratifying… but its failures are deeply disappointing. A massive power outage recently impacted not just Sichuan (particularly China high tech-city, Chengdu) but other major urban centers, like Shanghai, that depend on Sichuan’s hydroelectric power to meet their basic electricity requirements.

In other words, when a massive investment in hydroelectric power (generators powered by water in a controlled pour through a large dam) results in a huge regional power failure – because water levels have fallen below the level needed to move sufficient water through those dams – the world takes notice. It is also a lesson for those of us in the United States, particularly those in the regions noted above, as to what can happen as global warming, and the resulting rising human demand for water, reduce dammed water supplies to dangerously low levels.

Writing from the September 14th Los Angeles Times, Stephanie Yang tells us: “With 80% of its electricity coming from hydropower, the province of Sichuan in southern China has been lauded as a model for a clean-energy future in the nation most crucial to the global fight against climate change… The province usually has such an abundance of power that it sends a surplus east to Shanghai and other cities…

“As the world strives to wean itself from fossil fuels to stave off the worst effects of climate change — including sea level rise, more severe storms and more frequent droughts — it has become clear that renewables are not without their own shortcomings. Transitioning to them as the planet continues to warm is far from painless.

“The danger is that energy crunches such as the one in Sichuan could push China — the world’s biggest emitter of heat-trapping greenhouse gases — to revert to burning more of its massive coal reserves. Other countries, most notably India, face the same temptation as their electricity demands grow.

“Though the Chinese government has committed to ambitious carbon reductions, the turmoil from more power shortages is the last thing President Xi Jinping needs as he prepares to break precedent and begin a third five-year term… ‘Any power cuts or limitations would create potential social instability. That’s what the Chinese government doesn’t want,’ said Hongqiao Liu, a Paris energy policy consultant. ‘This Sichuan event really exposes all the bottlenecks in the current system.’

“This summer’s drought and intense heat wave have killed crops and livestock, threatening the country’s food supply. Factories halted operations because of power cuts, further hurting industrial output at a time of sluggish economic growth… On Chinese social media, electric vehicle drivers complained of hourlong lines at charging stations. Office workers toiling away without air conditioning posted pictures of large ice blocks stationed around desks and in front of electric fans.

“Others shared photos of small bottles of an herbal liquid, used in traditional Chinese medicine to alleviate the effects of summer heat… More than 1,000 miles away, skyscrapers along Shanghai’s downtown waterfront went dark for two days too as a result of the power shortage in Sichuan.” Think it cannot happen here? It’s more than just losing electricity. Even here in sizzling Los Angeles, 30% of rental apartments lack air conditioning. Local county supervisors, city councils and even the state legislature are considering new regulations requiring landlords to provide cooling for apartments that hit certain maximums.

Red alert to the seven western states that signed the Colorado River water allocation pact in 1922: “The compact — essentially an interstate treaty — set the rules for apportioning the waters of the river. It was a crucial step in construction of Hoover Dam, which could not have been built without the states’ assent… The compact stands as a landmark in the development of Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver, Phoenix and other Western metropolises. But it is also a symbol of the folly of unwarranted expectations… That’s because the compact was built on a lie about the capacity of the Colorado River to serve the interests of the Western states — a lie that Westerners will be grappling with for decades to come” Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, September 21st.

Need more proof? Between global warming and the unrealistic expectation of the Colorado River’s water capacity, the “ ultimate danger is that Lake Mead reaches the ‘dead pool’ stage. At the end of [August], Lake Mead was at 1,044.28 feet of surface elevation above sea level. That’s about 100 feet below its level in August 2003 and about 180 feet below its record elevation of 1,225 feet, reached in July 1983. When the level falls to 950 feet, the lake can no longer generate hydroelectricity. At 895 feet, the dam can’t release water downstream.” Hiltzik.

Combine these realities with a recent mid-August week+ of consecutive temperatures over 100 degrees in California, the future of climate change induced killer heat waves has scared us all. Water resources are dwindling. California has also banned gasoline powered vehicle sales after 2035. What we do not know, what has been made more complicated as exemplified by Sichuan’s recent outage, is exactly how we are going to get there… particularly as large corporate interests, backed by intense GOP resistance to government spending on alternative energy, resist the obvious stepped-up construction of alternative energy sources. Back to coal?!!!

I’m Peter Dekom, and the worst alternative would be to lapse back to increased reliance on fossil fuel (particularly never-clean-coal) power generation, which will only make a really bad climate change reality absolutely intolerable.