Worst drought ever

[Smurf1976]

Another photo. This time it's the Lake Echo dam (Tas) which is one of the two major headwater storages for the Derwent catchment.

Sorry about the quality, it was almost completely dark when I took it so I'm surprised it came out at all. The only water in the photo is to the left of the intake. On the right is just mud (firm enough to walk on). At the lower left is the boat ramp (effectively useless now it doesn't reach the water).

Inflows to Lake Echo over the past 12 months have been the lowest on record at less than 15% of normal. It would take about 2 years of normal inflows and ZERO outflows to completely refill the lake so it's likely to be low for quite some time unless there's a flood.

 

[Smurf1976]

An update on the water storage situation. See my previous posts for details of calculation method, how important the various storages are etc.

SUMMARY

The overall situation continues to deteriorate, most notably in regard to hydro-electric storages. The situation is mixed as far as irrigation and urban supply is concerned although allowing for seasonal factors, the trend is still toward lower storage in most cases.

All capital cities except Hobart (not sure about Darwin?) continue to have relatively harsh water restrictions, may of them effectively banning the use of sprinklers.

Recent rises in urban storage levels in Adelaide and Hobart are largely a consequence of pumping from the Murray and Derwent rivers in an attempt to build up or at least maintain urban storage (just in case the rivers do dry up completely). The situation continues to deteriorate in the other capital cities although Sydney is broadly stable.

Both major hydro-electric operators, Snowy Hydro and Hydro Tasmania, are attempting to conserve remaining water by means of reducing production outside peak demand periods. Both have experienced some difficulty in doing so due to a lack of thermal generation available at reasonable cost (or at any cost in Hydro Tasmania's case). Both have thus far maintained their peak generating capacity largely intact although doing so is becoming increasingly difficult with the decline in total storage.

So, in short, we're in rather a lot of trouble if the drought continues beyond the next few months and it has NOT broken yet as far as the major storages are concerned despite some significant rain in some locations.

STORAGE LEVEL DETAILS

First figure is the most recent data, generally no more than one week old. Figure in brackets is data one month earlier. All data is for active storage, that is water that can be taken from the dam, and does not include dead storage (water that can not be removed from the dam - right at the bottom).

Irrigation storages.

*Dartmouth (Murray) - 10.0 (11.2)%

*Hume (Murray) - 2.7 (3.7)%

Lake Victoria (Murray) - 20.5 (21.9)%

Menindee Lakes (NSW) - 5.8 (7.1)%

*Burrinjuck (NSW) - 23.8 (26.0)%

*Blowering (NSW, part of the Snowy scheme) - 11.3 (7.3)%

*Eildon (Vic) - 2.7 (4.6)%

Those marked * also generate electricity.


Major Hydro-electric storages.

Hydro Tasmania - (excl. Lake Margaret presently not in use) - 17.2 (20.9)% (lowest since 1968)

Snowy Hydro - (Lake Eucumbene) - 5.3 (8.6)% (record low)


Urban water storages:

Sydney - 38.2 (38.5)%

Melbourne - 29.9 (32.1)%

Brisbane - 19.4 (20.7)%

Perth - 21.0 (21.6)%

Adelaide - 59.0 (55.0)%

Canberra - 31.7 (33.8)%

Hobart - Approx. 85 (80)%

 

[Julia]

I recently had a grizzle to a friend in Vancouver, Canada, about our no sprinklers/no irrigation restrictions here.

For much of the year there it rains, and rains, and rains.

Therefore I was really surprised to hear that most summers they are not allowed to use any sprinklers. Presumably they have insufficient infrastructure for storing the water. She didn't know anything about this.

So, given that -- other than Antarctica - this is the driest continent on earth, perhaps we're not doing so badly here after all.

 

[Smurf1976]

I recently had a grizzle to a friend in Vancouver, Canada, about our no sprinklers/no irrigation restrictions here.

For much of the year there it rains, and rains, and rains.

Therefore I was really surprised to hear that most summers they are not allowed to use any sprinklers. Presumably they have insufficient infrastructure for storing the water. She didn't know anything about this.

So, given that -- other than Antarctica - this is the driest continent on earth, perhaps we're not doing so badly here after all.

Interesting.

I'm not sure of their exact location (never been to Canada) but they have some truly massive hydro-electric schemes there. They have an individual power station that is 90% the size of the entire Snowy (7 power stations) and Tasmanian (30 power stations) systems combined. Plenty of smaller schemes in Canada too and combined they supply 60% of the country's power.

I'm guessing that they just don't have any means to get the water to the cities. Exact same situation we have in Australia - we have water but not where the people are.

 

[2020hindsight]

For much of the year there it rains, and rains, and rains.

As the t-shirts say "people don't tan in Seattle / Vancouver, they rust"

 

[idribble]

Drove over the Murray river at Howlong this morning and was amazed. A few weeks ago it was flowing and deep with a strong current, now there are sand bars and no flow. Don't know why.

 

[constable]

Bucketing down here in ballarat! Now when was the last time i cleaned those gutters

 

[2020hindsight]

constable, m8, I know people bought a property out west - took em 3 years to find out that the roof had a bludy great leak in it

PS good luck with those gutters - and if the house floods, keep that bludy snake under guard.!

 

[Julia]

Bucketing down here in ballarat! Now when was the last time i cleaned those gutters

That sounds marvellous, constable. Do you think you could direct it up to Qld when you've had enough, please? Thanks.

 

[Uncle Festivus]

Here we go Smurf, it's mainstream news now. Don't know about next year though, may be sooner -

HOUSEHOLDS face higher electricity bills from next year unless the drought breaks, with power stations across southeast Australia running out of the water needed to run steam turbines.
The new higher prices are estimated to be the same as a $40a tonne carbon tax, and if sustained, could affect the viability of some energy-intensive industries even before a carbon price is introduced.
Major energy users are negotiating new wholesale electricity contracts for next year that are in some cases double what they were offered this year as the market factors in a risk premium for water supplies.

Two power stations in Queensland have already been forced to cut supplies, while two more in NSW are under increased threat from falling water stores.

http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,23636,21675853-462,00.html

About 800MW of lost capacity was caused by water scarcity at the Tarong and Swanbank power stations in Queensland, while Delta Electricity's Mt Piper and Wallerawang power stations in NSW are sitting on water reserves down to about 20 per cent.

 

[Smurf1976]

At last the media's getting the story. They don't seem to have realised the true seriousness of it yet though.

Whilst it's true that taking 2 units offline at Tarong and a unit or two at Swanbank B isn't going to cause blackouts under present conditions (it just means some other, more expensive, plant runs more) that's by no means the limit of the problem.

Wallerawang and Mt Piper put together comes to about 2400 MW which is more than enough to cause blackouts. Especially if the Snowy (apart from Tumut 3) goes down too - another 2240 MW at risk there.

Put those two together and either we get a miracle with no cold or hot weather or we get blackouts.

On the positive side, we've had the first decent inflows in Tas for quite some time. It hasn't really done much for overall storage but it's better than nothing. Lots of water coming in to the run-of-river and small storage schemes has pushed up baseload output there and enabled release from the major storages to be reduced. Let's hope there's more coming...:

 

[2020hindsight]

Whilst it's true that taking 2 units offline at Tarong and a unit or two at Swanbank B isn't going to cause blackouts under present conditions (it just means some other, more expensive, plant runs more) that's by no means the limit of the problem.

Brown-outs maybe .

 

[Smurf1976]

Brown-outs maybe .

Depends on what else happens. In itself, all that taking those units out of service is going to do is force some other (more expensive) plant to run more. That could be either in Qld (Tarong and Swanbank are both in SE Qld) or in NSW, Vic, Tas or SA. Realistically it will be lots of small increases all over the place rather than one major response from a single plant.

It will matter a lot more if it comes to the point, even briefly, that demand exceeds available capacity. That's when blackouts are unavoidable. Unless (until?) that happens, it's all normal apart from higher cost and less efficient generation.

That said, a key question is whether the other plants increasing their output will themselves run out of either water or fuel. There are certainly other coal-fired plants that don't have a lot of water available right now and all that shutting some units in Qld will do is make those others run even harder (and use more water). Likewise the Snowy is near empty so that's not really an option either. Water isn't such a problem for gas-fired plants, but gas is relatively expensive for power generation and there are supply constraints with gas too - some power plants have been completely shut recently due to lack of gas.

So I'd view the overall situation as being like sitting on an aeroplane watching a rivet or two pop out from the wings. Whether or not it matters depends on how many more come out but the aeroplane is clearly less sound with a few missing than if all were in place. Same with the grid - still going OK but a few key supports have been kicked out from under it and there are cracks in others. It will matter only if more plants actually go down and/or we get an extreme high demand (ie very cold weather).

 

[2020hindsight]

Depends on what else happens. ...

It will matter a lot more if it comes to the point, even briefly, that demand exceeds available capacity. That's when blackouts are unavoidable. Unless (until?) that happens, it's all normal apart from higher cost and less efficient generation.

...some power plants have been completely shut recently due to lack of gas.

... So I'd view the overall situation as being like sitting on an aeroplane watching a rivet or two pop out from the wings. Whether or not it matters depends on how many more come out but the aeroplane is clearly less sound with a few missing than if all were in place. Same with the grid - still going OK but a few key supports have been kicked out from under it and there are cracks in others. It will matter only if more plants actually go down and/or we get an extreme high demand (ie very cold weather).

1. I guess the good news is that this winter probably won;t be so cold thanks to global warming.
2. We used to have brown outs in the islands - generators just couldn't keep up with demand ( more to do with lousy maintence of the power plant rather than demand as such).
3. Thanks for the simile about the bloody rivets popping out of the aeroplane, lol - Now I'm gonna be a white-knuckle airline passenger as well as my other concerns, lol

Bit like paddy saying to mick after the pilot announced progressively that the
"ladies and gents, engine 1 has given up , and our flying time will be 30 minutes longer",
"engine 2 has now just given up , we'll be 1 hour longer"
"engine 3 now, and we'll be 2 hours longer"

paddy says to mick, hell I hope the other one doesn't give up or we'll be up here forever. !

4. Did you hear that idiot Andrew Bolton this morning on Insiders, arrogantly shouting over Matt Price about his opinion that the world isn't getting hotter - sheesh ! sorry andrew, but you're an ostrich, simple as that.

 

[Smurf1976]

1. I guess the good news is that this winter probably won;t be so cold thanks to global warming.

4. Did you hear that idiot Andrew Bolton this morning on Insiders, arrogantly shouting over Matt Price about his opinion that the world isn't getting hotter - sheesh ! sorry andrew, but you're an ostrich, simple as that.

1. Only needs one cold day to get a huge 6:15pm or thereabouts peak demand especially in NSW. In short, most of the generation needs to be working at that time no matter what happens for the rest of the season.

4. There was some political group at Agfest yesterday saying "global warming is a farce" whilst also pushing "an inconvenient truth: Australia needs nuclear power".

I'm wondering what their argument for nuclear is if not to reduce emissions from using coal? It's not as if it's cheaper.

 

[Uncle Festivus]

It will be the cold snap type of weather event that will pressure the electricity system due to the reduced spinning reserve and generation that can be called upon quickly. It's a telling sign that the spot price is routinely, actually nearly every day now since about February, averaging over $50 per day. The average a year ago was about $20 or so.

While there are quit a few new projects on the drawing board these won't be ready for another 2 years or so.

If the experts are wrong and the 'flip' doesn't happen in the next 4 weeks to revert back to a wetter winter weather pattern, then we may just scape through winter but summer will be crunch time for the electricity generators and consumers.

And not just average rain, we need good steady rain for 3 or 4 weeks at a time for maximum run-off. The next 4 weeks will be make or break time I think.

 

[Smurf1976]

It will be the cold snap type of weather event that will pressure the electricity system due to the reduced spinning reserve and generation that can be called upon quickly. It's a telling sign that the spot price is routinely, actually nearly every day now since about February, averaging over $50 per day. The average a year ago was about $20 or so.

While there are quit a few new projects on the drawing board these won't be ready for another 2 years or so.

If the experts are wrong and the 'flip' doesn't happen in the next 4 weeks to revert back to a wetter winter weather pattern, then we may just scape through winter but summer will be crunch time for the electricity generators and consumers.

And not just average rain, we need good steady rain for 3 or 4 weeks at a time for maximum run-off. The next 4 weeks will be make or break time I think.

Agreed there although I won't be calling it either way (unless there's an outright flood) until July.

So far, we're actually doing worse than last year. In 2006 there was decent run-off in April and the first part of May but then the rain basically failed apart from another burst in October (at least in Tas).

This year, it started later. If it's still raining in mid July then I'll start thinking in terms of the drought being over. But so far we've seen nothing that didn't happen last year.

Hydro Tas storage up 1.2% for the week to 18.3% today. That's the best inflows in more than six months. But it's exactly what was happening this time last year apart from the actual lake levels being lower.

Given that we're still getting quite mild weather in May (at least where I am) I'm anything but convinced the drought is over. It's just not normal to be getting every single day above normal temperatures. Some maybe, but not every day and that's been a key feature of the weather in the past few months that clearly hasn't ended yet. On a positive note, at least it's keeping a few heaters switched off.

 

[Uncle Festivus]

Given that we're still getting quite mild weather in May (at least where I am) I'm anything but convinced the drought is over. It's just not normal to be getting every single day above normal temperatures. Some maybe, but not every day and that's been a key feature of the weather in the past few months that clearly hasn't ended yet. On a positive note, at least it's keeping a few heaters switched off.

Yes, getting some perfect days here too, and we still havn't had a frost yet!

There was a report on Landline on Sunday which interviewed a top weather type person who said that this time of year is the time when the weather pattern is most likely to "flip' over to the opposite pattern. Being a drought, the flip this time is to wetter weather. But, he said the next 4 weeks are crucial for this to happen otherwise it's 12 more months of below average rainfall.

 

[Smurf1976]

Chart showing water level in Pine Tier Lagoon. It's not a major storage, it's only a pondage that is diverted into a larger storage (that is actually falling) but it shows the effect of last week's rain. Second chart is for another (larger) storage in the same catchment. Far less impressive rise there... (These charts are publicly available info by the way).

Now I just need to find some stocks that go up like the first chart...

 

[Uncle Festivus]

Some more gossip in the event of power cuts. The rumor is that some of the aluminium smelters have borderline/average profit margins & that if they were forced to shut down due to power outages (due to lack of water) that they might not start back up again. Don't know if it's true but sounds plausible.
Now, when does Costello's increased solar panel rebate come into effect?