Work has been underway on a recycled water treatment project in Santee for about two years. In another two years, some East County residents will get their drinking water from the East County Advanced Water Purification program.
For a century, hydroelectric power has been synonymous with gigantic dams — feats of engineering that provide renewable energy but displace communities and destroy ecosystems.
New research released Tuesday by Global Energy Monitor reveals a transformation underway in hydroelectric projects — using the same gravitational qualities of water, but typically without building large, traditional dams like the Hoover in the American West or Three Gorges in China. Instead, a technology called pumped storage is rapidly expanding.
Southern California and the state as a whole could see dramatic reductions in allocations of Colorado River water under proposals released Tuesday by the federal government aimed at protecting a system that provides water to 40 million people in multiple states along with critical agricultural irrigation.
The river also provides hydroelectric power to millions of customers, generated by dams at Lake Mead and Lake Powell.
The Biden administration released an environmental analysis Tuesday that outlined two ways that seven Western states and tribes reliant on the overtapped Colorado River could cut their use, but declined to publicly take a side on the best option.
One option would be more beneficial to California and some tribes along the river that have high-priority rights to the river’s water.
The seven U.S. states along the Colorado River — Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California — are up against yet another deadline to curb their water use amid extreme drought. They have until Tuesday to agree on massive voluntary cuts or the Bureau of Reclamation, a Department of the Interior agency, has said it will impose cuts on them.
The basin states have called the federal government’s bluff before, but whatever happens next week, millions of westerners and their livelihoods will be affected.
Back in 2021 the Hyatt Powerplant was taken offline because of historically low water levels.
DWR announced that the plant is expected to stay online through 2022. On Monday, the lake level was at 693 feet elevation whereas the level had dropped to 628 in September 2021.
The plant is capable of generating 714 megawatts when the lake is at full capacity.
A renewable energy plant being commissioned in Oregon on Wednesday that combines solar power, wind power and massive batteries to store the energy generated there is the first utility-scale plant of its kind in North America.
The project, which will generate enough electricity to power a small city at maximum output, addresses a key challenge facing the utility industry as the U.S. transitions away from fossil fuels and increasingly turns to solar and wind farms for power. Wind and solar are clean sources of power, but utilities have been forced to fill in gaps when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining with fossil fuels like coal or natural gas.
It takes a lot of water to make power.
From spinning turbines to hydraulic fracturing to refining fuel, the flow of water is critical to the flow of electrons and heat. About 40 percent of water withdrawals — water taken out of groundwater or surface sources — in the United States go toward energy production. The large majority of that share is used to cool power plants. In turn, it requires energy to extract, purify, transport, and deliver water.
Lake Mead’s water levels this week dropped to historic lows, bringing the nation’s largest reservoir less than 150 feet away from “dead pool” — when the reservoir is so low that water cannot flow downstream from the dam.
Lake Mead’s water level on Wednesday was measured at 1,044.03 feet, its lowest elevation since the lake was filled in the 1930s. If the reservoir dips below 895 feet — a possibility still years away — Lake Mead would reach dead pool, carrying enormous consequences for millions of people across Arizona, California, Nevada and parts of Mexico.
Encinitas, Calif. — Hydroelectric generators at Olivenhain Municipal Water District’s David C. McCollom Water Treatment Plant have qualified for the California Energy Commission’s Renewables Portfolio Standard Program and will now generate Renewable Energy Certificates that contribute to the state goal of achieving 60% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030.
The California Energy Commission’s RPS program was established in 2002 and was accelerated in 2018 by Senate Bill 100, which set a target of achieving 60% of retail sales of electricity from renewable sources by 2030. The hydroelectric generators at OMWD’s water treatment plant have been in place since its startup in 2002, offsetting roughly half of the plant’s power demands and saving as much as $60,000 per month in energy costs.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
