Glen Canyon Dam forms the massive reservoir of Lake Powell. Photo © J. Carl Ganter/Circle of Blue

What Happens If Glen Canyon Dam’s Power Shuts Off?

Cash register dams. 

It’s the favored slur coined by critics of the Bureau of Reclamation for hydroelectric dams within the Colorado River watershed. 

Today, the cash registers are ringing at much lower decibels. Sapped by a warming climate, the grand reservoirs of the Colorado River are in a two-decade decline, dropping low enough that hydropower from one of the grandest, Lake Powell, may soon be in doubt.

Glen Canyon Dam is now operating at about 60 percent of its designed hydroelectric capacity. The failure of the dam to produce hydropower, in isolation, would be bothersome for energy markets but not a catastrophe. It would raise the cost of electricity for 5 million retail power customers, increase greenhouse gas emissions associated with electricity generation, and eliminate key grid-support services that hydropower provides.

But a loss of generating capacity at Glen Canyon at the wrong time — in the summer, for instance, when electricity demands are high — combined with other power station outages could contribute to an electric supply contagion, grid strain, and blackouts in the western states. 

In February 2017, the Mokelumne River broke through a levee and flooded this farm near Walnut Grove, California. Photo & Caption © Eric Gies
 

What Does Water Want?: A Conversation with Author Erica Gies

“We can choose a different way.” 

Modern societies have dramatically disrupted the water cycle. We have paved wetlands, diverted rivers, overpumped groundwater, and built levees that allow no room for streams to ebb and flow.

The problems — and the opportunities — that spring from this mismatch between the natural world and the built environment are the topic of Water Always Wins, a new book from journalist Erica Gies.

In the newest episode of Speaking of Water, Gies tells Circle of Blue that many societies need a major cultural shift in how people relate to water. She calls this shift a “slow water” movement – an ethic that gives water space to move across the landscape and seeks local solutions. 

“The way that we view water as a sort of contest is not required,” she said.

What’s Up With Water — June 7, 2022

For the news you need to start the week, tune into “What’s Up With Water” fresh on Monday’s on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, and SoundCloud.

Featured coverage from this week's episode of What's Up With Water looks at:

• In France, May was unusually warm, and that could limit operations at some of its nuclear power facilities. Most inland facilities cool their power-generating equipment with river water.
• In Somalia, the risk of famine is growing as a severe drought shows no sign of abating. The United Nations’ top humanitarian official for the Horn of Africa toured a displaced persons camp last week to observe the struggles.
• As the global price for wheat skyrockets, farmers in Iraq tell the Associated Press that they don’t have enough water to grow their crops. Last year, the country’s Agriculture Ministry decided to cut irrigation water allocations by half.

Power lines sweep outward from Hoover Dam, the largest hydropower facility in the U.S. Southwest. Photo © J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue

Lake Mead Drops But Hoover Dam Powers On

At the end of the summer of 2010, federal Bureau of Reclamation officials worried that Hoover Dam, the biggest hydropower enterprise in the Southwest, might soon go dark. Water levels in Lake Mead, the dam’s energy source, were falling, and Hoover was moving “into uncharted territory,” the facility manager told Circle of Blue.

By 2016, the story had a twist. Lake Mead was 10 feet lower. Yet though water levels continued to decline, Hoover’s hydropower was in a much better spot. Thanks to investment in efficient equipment, managers said they were confident that they could still wring electricity from the Colorado River even as the surface elevation of Lake Mead drops below 1,050 feet, the uncharted territory that was assumed to be Hoover’s operating limit.

Though Hoover will not shut down any time soon, Circle of Blue reported at the time, low water levels still reduce its output.

Generating capacity — the maximum amount of power that the dam is capable of producing — was down 30 percent from when Mead was full. For every foot that Mead drops, generating capacity decreases by five to six megawatts. Money is power, the old saying goes. So is water.