CA High-Altitude Dams (1,000 Ft. +) Face Generation Loss Of Up To 20% As Climate Dries, Warms - NYT

[hatrack]

alifornia’s high-elevation dams could generate considerably less power over the next 40 years as a result of rising temperatures associated with climate change, according to a recent study by researchers at the University of California, Davis.

Under a warmer, drier climate projected in computer models, hydroelectric dams above 1,000 feet between 1,000 and 2,000 feet in elevation in the state would produce about 20 percent less power by 2050, the researchers found. Under this climate scenario, electricity production would also occur earlier in the year, when demand for power is lower.

Such an outcome would not, however, be as dire as some in the state’s hydropower industry feared, according to Kaveh Madani, now a postdoctoral fellow at the Water Science and Policy Center at the University of California, Riverside, and a co-author of the study. “The sky is not falling,” Mr. Madani said. “We still can adapt the system.”

As much as 15 percent of the California’s electricity comes from hydropower, depending on the season. (The state uses cloud-seeding to increase the winter snowfall in the mountains, to augment runoff and boost the dams’ spring power production.)

EDIT

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/california-dams-to-feel-climate-impacts/