Hoover Dam Is Losing Power. Inside the ‘Slowest-Moving Train Wreck in History’ (FR link)
No worries at least for Vegas they only get 2% of the whole basin power budget from Hoover dam
Hoover Dam has a maximum nameplate capacity of 2,080 megawatts (MW) when Lake Mead is full. Due to historic drought and low water levels at Lake Mead, current operating capacity has dropped closer to 1,300 MW
Even at full cap it’s not much compared to what that valley users.
Vegas also has the 3rd straw aka the bathtub drain that sits 35 feet below the outlets of Hoover dam so they can never not have flows even if Hoover cannot let water out any that flows in Vegas can tap.
Flow Metrics in Acre-Feet per Year
Paleoclimate Low: ~3.96 MAF/year (reconstructed from tree rings, dating back centuries).
Instrumental Low: 5.44 MAF/year (the lowest recorded natural flow year in 1977).
Historical Low Estimate: 4.81 MAF/year (estimated for the exceptionally dry year of 1845).
Long-Term Average: ~14.6 to 14.8 MAF/year (the river’s typical natural unimpaired flow).
So the worst mega drought in the last 1200 years was 3.96 million acre feet per year Vegas uses under 300,000 they gonna be alright. In fact they would pass all of that and hold Lake Mead at 895 just at dead pool and Vegas still has 30 feet above it’s intake which sits 100 feet above the lake bed it’s a hollow steel cylinder you could send divers and cut additional intakes all the way down to 20 feet off the lake bed. Even then with 3+ million acre feet per year coming in it would never get that low. Again they would just open the lowest outlets and let the lake settle at 895 with free flow out and again Vegas has 30 feet of draw down.
We drilled into the bathtub drain for that specific reason so Vegas can never be dry. It’s the ace in the hole.