Posted on 06/04/2022 9:31:32 AM PDT by Roman_War_Criminal
Lake Mead is a reservoir is Nevada and Arizona, relied upon for example by the city of Las Vegas for drinking water. Last year, its water level was significantly lower than previous years. This year, it’s even lower. This is dramatic…
If the trend does continue for the next two decades as it has been going on for the past two, it seems like things aren’t looking optimal for the Colorado river, the largest water reservoir by capacty in the US, and the Hoover Dam hydroelectric power plant.
Lake Mead fell about 7 feet in May. I expect June will likely be close to the same. Lake Mead is now way below 1,050 ft. in elevation, at which more than half of the turbines will not be able to fully work…
If water levels continue to drop, Hoover Dam would cease generating electricity when the water level falls below 950 feet (290 m) and the lake would stabilize at a level of 895 feet (273 m) when the water reaches the lowest water outlet of the dam.
Below 1,050 feet (bottom of the efficiency curve for the current turbines) more water is needed to produce an equivalent amount of electricity. Such low depths increase the rough zones for the turbines—the generating range in which vibration and cavitation threaten to damage the unit. At extremely low lake levels, like the ones Mead is fast approaching, those rough zones—which usually occur in a narrow production band at medium capacity—could expand to fill the entire generating range, making the turbines vulnerable at any speed. But this unprecedented scenario would be a mystery even to the staff of the Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the dam.
(Excerpt) Read more at strangesounds.org ...
“If the enviro-whackos would quit prioritizing fish over people, we could store the water rather than let it flow to the ocean.”
And now the genius judges in Kalifornia have decided that bees are fish.
I’d love to walk around there with a metal detector.
The millrace still has application for low energy demand applications whether it is mechanical energy or electrical energy. It lit the fuse of the industrial revolution but it cannot sustain a modern society of our scale. For that matter, Lake Mead operating at its full glory cannot meet this demand either. This is largely due to west coast insanity concentrated in the strip of land between the coastal mountains and the Pacific.
California political and ideological forces have been and remain the drivers for energy and water destruction. This is not an engineering issue. Engineering solutions are blocked.
Just one engineers opinions my friend….
How about letting forests burn for lack of management?
Now all that ground will retain heat, never cooling until a new forest is grown.
The result is that to the east, there will be no rain.
Who takes a shower for an hour?
I'll have to time mine, but I think a long one might be 12 minutes.
Flatlanders don’t know nuthin’ about trees.
The lower it gets, the faster it drops.
Boy aint that the truth.
There’s plenty of fresh water in the world, we should’ve built the Grand Canal project decades ago and channeled the fresh water down from the Hudson’s Bay region. That would provide a flow of fresh water down to the lower 48 twice the size of Niagra Falls. Of course the Enviro Wackos succeeded in blocking the project.
You might find Jimmy Hoffa if he had enough change in his pockets...
I doubt if one of these on here even live close to the Dam or the Colorado River.
Couple days ago, I had to explain to one of these geniuses that all of the Great Lakes, except for one, are International Waters. He figured we can simply pump water out of the big lake.
Didnt understand what I meant by the Big Lake either.
Real Einsteins on here.
The Big Lake - she’d just as soon kill you as look at you.
The three teenage girls in my house average 15 minutes.
Me? 20.
“Of course. Metro Las Vegas area is 2.6 million people DYING OF THIRST in the desert BECAUSE IT’S A F**KING DESERT.”
There, fixed it.
The dead pool is at 895 that’s the lowest outlet to down river Vegas has a water inlet at 860 feet so they still have 35 feet of water depth to drink from. The original base level of the Colorado River gorge at Hoover dam was 725 feet there is a cofferdam that was built to hold the river back during construction that was left in place just up stream of Hoover dam and the space between them has filled in with 100 to 200 feet of fine sediments transported via turbidity currents. The depth to the mud level at Hoover dam face is variable as the sediments compact and dewater they settle and densify. The true bottom of lake mead is around 820 or so.
Average outflow from Lake Michigan/Huron (which in turn is fed by Lake Superior) is nearly 200,000 cfs.
I seriously doubt we can build anything that would diminish that by any measurable amount.
“Metro LasVegas area is 2.6 million people living in the desert for no good reason.”
Well, two guys, Segal and Capone didn’t see it that way.
8^)
5.56mm
The whole state of Nevada gets 300,000 acrefeet of water from the Colorado River system. They recycle every drop that hits a drain in the Las Vegas basin. They use less then there allocated amount every year and bank water in lake mead for later. California uses 7,000,000 acre feet per year from that lake and uses 5,000,000 of that amount to water alfalfa hay in the desert so do tell the class who is the wasteful ones.Vegas is the world leader in water recycling and urban use. They get 40,000,000 visitors a year to the tune of 11+ billion dollars in state GSP they do that using less than 2% of their water allocation per year in casinos. Look it up both numbers are facts not opinions. It is a feat of hydrological engineering not equaled on earth only the Israeli come close. California needs to stop watering grass in the deserts they use 21 times the water of the whole state of Nevada. People beat Vegas as a straw man they don’t do it factually.
Not hardly Vegas has banked water for ten years of not using their full allocation under the Colorado River compact. They use less than their allowed 300,000 and bank the rest.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/las-vegas-water-conservation-grass/
This is the money...and absolutely true.
“”Everything we use indoors is recycled. If it hits a drain in Las Vegas, we clean it. We put it back in Lake Mead,” Entsminger said. “You could literally leave every faucet, every shower running in every hotel room, and it won’t consume any more water.””
https://m.lasvegassun.com/news/2018/may/10/the-strip-might-use-less-water-than-you-think/
The strip uses less than 1% adding in all the other casinos and hotels doesn’t take that above 2%
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