Western states that rely on hydroelectric power could struggle to produce sufficient electricity as drought becomes an increasingly persistent problem.
A new study modeling the impact of drought on the U.S. West shows that reduced output from hydroelectric power during drought leads to an increased reliance on fossil fuel power. The knock-on costs may be steep, the researchers report. The damages in excess mortality and from the additional release of greenhouse gas emissions from the drought-triggered switch to natural gas and coal generation are 1.2 to 2.5 times the cost of the lost hydroelectric power alone.
“In California, fossil fuel electricity generation is 35% higher in the driest months compared to the long-term average,” says study leader Minghao Qiu, a postdoctoral fellow in planetary health at Stanford Univ. In the Pacific Northwest, fossil fuel electricity generation rises by 11% in times of drought, he adds, while the Southwest sees a 9.5% increase in the driest months.
What’s more, drought in one of these regions heavily impacts another, because regions export and import electricity to one another. Over half of the drought-induced emissions are attributable not to the region experiencing drought specifically, the researchers found, but to increased fossil-fuel-based power...
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