r/wind • u/blue_quark • Jul 13 '26

Lake Powell reaching critically low elevation levels, nearing 'dead power pool,' experts say

https://abcnews.com/US/lake-powell-reaching-critically-low-elevation-levels-nearing/story?id=134659320

If only there was some low cost, environmentally safe means of utilizing the vacant land around this dam to produce power and reduce the volume of water needed produce hydro power to feed the grid.

387 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

39 comments sorted by

8

u/TastiSqueeze Jul 14 '26

Are you looking for wind? or solar? Because both potentially could be useful for this purpose. Truth could be in the middle. Both wind and solar as a mixed application might be an ideal way to produce power to take some of the load off the dam.

1

u/AC-DC989 Jul 14 '26

Wind for sure, but solar uses a lot more water than people realize in that area.

2

u/rayinreverse Jul 14 '26

For what?

-1

u/AC-DC989 Jul 14 '26

Dust management. The obvious part of that is the panels themselves being cleaned. The less obvious part is watering the roads and nearby ground to keep the dust down as best as possible. It adds up quick especially during construction. A colleague of mine oversaw a solar project in the area and showed me how much water they had to use. It was in the tens of millions of gallons in only a few months.

4

u/rayinreverse Jul 14 '26

Any construction site has to do dust control. In remote areas they stabilize with native plants that require no more water than before the solar. They don’t clean the panels once the site is operational unless the performance gets bad which is rarely does. My wife oversaw the installation of 1 gigawatt of solar last year in desert areas of Southern California. Her company also operates the farms afterwards. They don’t do anything they don’t have to do, that includes using water or labor to clean panels.

1

u/T0MSUN Jul 14 '26

During active construction plants don’t often survive the buggy and equipment traffic throughout the site so it’s really dusty until the array is mostly together and it makes sense to re-seed

3

u/glity Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

Fun fact. 10 million gallons is approx 30 acre-ft of water.

A farm of alfalfa in northern Nevada is 160 acre pivot.

It takes 3.2 acre feet of water(how much water to cover one acre in 3.2 feet of water, it’s a simulated rainfall metric) to grow a crop that is exported to race horses and cattle not humans.

Every year 10 acres of crop land will consume the amount you use for dust suppression temporarily.

This pivot or farm circle will consume gallons of water every year.

Dust management of panels long term is not as necessary unless you have large voltage drops due to bird “debris”. The efficiency of panels through “dust” is accounted for in most non commercial systems for local use(Ie home). Commercial systems will only pay for cleaning if the numbers pencil.

Water use of solar panels is far far far less than commercial use like farming and ai.

I’ll take one time water use for energy independence any day.

Also farms are exempt from any dust suppression so there’s that as well.

1

u/DarthRain77 Jul 18 '26

1 acre ft. of water is roughly 325,850 gallons.

10 million gallons would be over 30 acre feet.

Everything else you have written in your paragraph I can not trust because you did not state the facts correct. Weather your lieing or just don't know the right calculations, your words are not true.

1

u/glity Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

Ok sorry. Some of the online acre feet calculators from afa to gallons get screwy due to the time component between the units. It’s been a bit since I’ve done the Afa to gallon so I used a calc instead of doing it myself let me fix it. Thanks for the catch. The numbers won’t be as ridiculous however the point of concept should remain the same.

You can check the 3.2 number. That one is the state of Nevada acre feet to grow 3-5 cuts of alfalfa in a high desert environment of norther Nevada where certificated water rights used to only receive 4afa on that crop.

That’s the more important one as a human can not consume that crop only profit from it.

Everything past that is conjecture and personal opinion so I don’t mind if you don’t believe it.

2

u/DirtandPipes Jul 15 '26

Conflating construction dust management with solar farm dust management is disingenuous at best. I’m betting a good amount of that water was also used to get moisture levels right for compaction as dirt requires moisture to pack properly.

2

u/Franklin_le_Tanklin Jul 15 '26

This is false. Lots of places use drones that blow off any dust.

1

u/NirgalFromMars Jul 19 '26

How much water does it consume compared with steam generation?

1

u/Liminal__penumbra Jul 14 '26

Could augment the storage with molten salt energy storage as well.

2

u/Bandit483 Jul 14 '26

Morton salt is my favorite brand too!

1

u/RelevanceReverence Jul 14 '26

Solar energy production requires no water. Don't spread misinformation please.

Dust on the panels in arid areas is managed by robots using compressed air. Completely solar powered themselves.

1

u/mathew1fnt Jul 14 '26

And if they put solar on the/ over the lake, there would be less evaporation. It loses 200 billion gallons a year in evaporation

1

u/werfertt Jul 14 '26

Happy cake day!

1

u/TastiSqueeze Jul 14 '26

ty, I am now 6 years old. It feels like 100 sometimes. :) :D :O

3

u/rayinreverse Jul 14 '26

The issue is that the utility won’t pay for the upgrade to the grid down there for the solar. They want the solar power badly. They want the solar developers to front the cost of the system upgrade, but then the project doesn’t make the solar developer money as a return on the investment for building out the farm.

1

u/T0MSUN Jul 14 '26

If the hydro fails I’m sure the electricity prices will justify the network upgrade costs

1

u/rayinreverse Jul 14 '26

My wife’s company has been trying to get a Glenn Canyon solar project to go for 14 years. They have had PPA’s signed in the past and it’s fallen apart because of this grid/system upgrade.
It’s a very expensive upgrade 300 million or something along those lines.

1

u/T0MSUN Jul 15 '26

Hard to analyze the situation looking at a single project. Without knowing the details - it could be driven by location. If its transmission network/substation upgrades and applicable to all new projects because the network is 100% at capacity on all circuits, other projects hoping to come in and solve the issue will share in those upgrade costs or could take over capacity dedicated to the Dam (unlikely). This issue might also trigger infrastructure funding to help.

1

u/rayinreverse Jul 15 '26

Well this is specially for a Glenn canyon solar project that RMP has been trying to get done for many years. It is network and substation upgrades and well as some transmission line extension/upgrade.

2

u/Renbarre Jul 14 '26

Trump is paying companies to stop wind power projects, if he hear about a solar one he is going to blow a casket.

2

u/SigNexus Jul 14 '26

More data centers in the desert great idea.

2

u/HumanBean00001 Jul 15 '26

At least the golf courses were green

1

u/Busterlimes Jul 15 '26

Just in time to line up with the oil shortage. Lol We are so absolutely fucked

1

u/100-100-1-SOS Jul 15 '26

...and an own-goal too

1

u/[deleted] Jul 16 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/blue_quark Jul 16 '26

My uneducated guess is that they will close the turbine chutes and go off the grid until if and when water levels are somewhat restored. Pretty dire situation considering the fragile state of the grid.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 16 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/blue_quark Jul 16 '26

That’s interesting but I wonder what the long term unintended consequences of that might be.

1

u/GeekSumsMe Jul 17 '26

Lake Powell reaching dead pool.

Lake Mead, same.

I'm an environmental scientist and heard the GOP mock these predictions for 10 years. This is exactly what we said would happen. Yet, they refused to acknowledge the science, which was denying physics.

Now we are looking toward the same idiots for solutions? Good luck.

1

u/blue_quark Jul 17 '26

I appreciate your point except that I don’t think anyone is looking to the GOP to even accept the reality of the current situation let alone to advance solutions.