In the state of Nevada we are in an unprecedented
drought. We are in the 4th year going on the 5th year of
a severe drought. Lake Tahoe no longer naturally drains to allow the Truckee
River to flow as a river to Pyramid Lake (home to the Paiute tribe)( http://tmwa.com/lake_level ). It
currently is 10 feet below the rim. Many businesses have already suffered this
last winter such as the small ski resorts such as Homewood to Donner Ski ranch
(http://www.outsideonline.com/1806926/sierra-nevada-ski-resorts-close-over-lack-snow) as the winter progressed
many ski areas switched over to summer time activities such as hiking and
biking (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ski-season-drought-20150403-story.html) We are living in
unprecedented times as we are facing multiple disasters all at once.
In Cadillac Desert written by Marc Reisner Los
Angles was a desert long before water allowed it grow into the Hollywood of
today and allowed the population grow the state of California beyond its means.
This tale of growing the West has been played out in many cities such as Las
Vegas, Denver, Reno, and countless more. Also in history it has been documented
where severe drought can play a role in downfall of society such as the Anasazi
whom lived in the Southwest. At the height of the Anasazi culture they
experienced and unprecedented drought (http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~johnson/articles.anasazi.html) which might have caused
war and migrations.
The city of Reno and Sparks receives it drinking
water from the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Our drinking water comes from 80% from
the reservoirs and 20% groundwater. Last years snow pack in the Sierra Nevada’s
was 25% of normal (http://www.weather.com/climate-weather/drought/news/california-sierra-snowpack-record-low-april-2015) which does not help
recharge our reservoirs. According
to the current drought monitor 95% of the state of Nevada is in some stage of
drought from Exceptional to moderate (http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu). Can Nevada grow our economy in a 4th
year going on 5th year of a severe drought and how will Telsa and
other businesses impact our water supplies?
Every politician and businessperson in the Reno area
believes Telsa will save us? I am
going to document and explain why this will acerbate our current water supplies
and kill our town into a non-living desert. Edward Abby stated it quite well the predicament that we
face,
“The Developers, of course –the politicians,
businessmen, bankers administrators, engineers-they see it somewhat other-wise
and complain most bitterly and interminably of desperate water shortage, especially
in the Southwest. They propose schemes of inspiring proportions for diverting
water by the damful from the Columbia, or even the Yukon River, and channeling
it overland down into Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. What for? “In
anticipation of future needs, in order to provide for the continued industrial
and population growth of the Southwest.” And in such an answer we see that it’s
only the numbers game again, the monomania of small and very simple minds in
the grip of obsession. They cannot see that growth for the sake of growth is a
cancerous madness, the Phoenix and Albuquerque will not be better cities to
live when their populations are doubled again and again. They would never
understand that an economic system which can only expand or expire must be
false to all that is human (Desert Solitaire, p126-7).
On September 5, 2014 Telsa
motors choose Nevada more specifically Storey County for its long awaited Gigafactory
(http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/09/04/tesla-gigafactory-reno/15095411/ ). Here is another view of the site where
the building will be 10 million square feet (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3093151/A-glimpse-inside-world-s-biggest-battery-factory-Drone-captures-Tesla-s-new-Gigafactory-high-definition.html). It also recently choose a
local Nevada mine for the local source of Lithium needed for the battery
production (http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/09/tesla-signs-another-deal-with-a-company-developing-a-lithium-mine/). Telsa is scheduled to
open sometime next year to start production on the batteries for its new model
3 affordable car for $35,000 (http://blogs.barrons.com/stockstowatchtoday/2015/09/17/tesla-why-the-gigafactory-will-make-or-break-the-model-3/). The Gigafactory is
located at the Reno-Tahoe Industrial Center where several big name companies
currently have a big footprint such as Wal-Mart, Zulilly, Toy R Us, and now
Switch and Apple’s cloud based server center just to name a few (http://www.areadevelopment.com/stateResources/nevada/tahoe-reno-industrial-center3002.shtml).
Let’s
evaluate both Telsa and Switch and the amount of water that could be will be
used in their businesses? Telsa
electric cars are advertised as green and zero emissions since it uses an
electric battery not gas. At first sight one can see how this can make one feel
good about buying a luxury electric car.
Let’s look at where they are getting their materials
and the lithium-ion battery manufacturing process first. The RGJ has reported that this process
is not water intensive but it is resource intensive. Watch this video of the battery process made by MIT http://video.mit.edu/watch/how-lithium-ion-batteries-are-made-59/ . This battery process is
very energy intensive and environmental side effects to one health and
environment or groundwater. The EPA conducted a study that stated in 2013 “The study showed that
the batteries that use cathodes with
nickel and cobalt, as well as solvent-based electrode processing, have the
highest potential for environmental impacts. These impacts include resource depletion, global warming, ecological
toxicity, and human health impacts. The largest contributing processes include
those associated with the production, processing, and use of cobalt and nickel
metal compounds, which may cause adverse respiratory, pulmonary, and
neurological effects in those exposed” (http://energyskeptic.com/2015/epa-lithium-ion-battery/). I am not
sure what part of this impact one would like to have in your backyard? The
lithium Ion manufacturing process is also is facing it own set of one is which
cost (https://www.nae.edu/Publications/Bridge/133842/134258.aspx). Keeping the batteries cost down
will be challenge. Also I am not sure if we even have the technology to fix
this once the damage is already done to the environment? One can only look at
the Nevada test site as an example. The nuclear tests done in the desert in the
50s will be in the landscape for thousand of years to come and it health
effects from nuclear can be seen in Chernobyl years later.
Another
issue not address by the RGJ was the Telsa building is huge approximately 10
million square feet as large as the Pentagon as reported by the Dailymail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3093151/A-glimpse-inside-world-s-biggest-battery-factory-Drone-captures-Tesla-s-new-Gigafactory-high-definition.html) . In this building water would have be used through
out correct. One would need to flush the toilet at some point during the day. I
am also sure water would be in other areas of the factory. It has been reported
in other sources that Telsa will need about 2,500 Acre-Ft of water at the time
for full operations and they will start with 500 Acre-ft on the low end of
water usage which is needed which converts to 162,925,713 billion of
gallons. (https://chargedevs.com/newswire/tesla-gigafactory-water-worries/). We do
not know if this is for the year or day or what the time scale is for this
amount of water. They also have discussed the delicate water issues with state
officials so they are aware we are in drought and they need water to operate but
again Telsa is based out of California, which, also is in a severe drought like
Nevada.
How
much water is 2,500 Acre-ft? Let convert this into gallons, which is
814,628,567 billion gallons that is a lot of water. In an RGJ investigation
they found that the top commercial users used 6.7 billion gallons (RGJ, July
25,2015). This is an increase of 116X in water usage to any business in Reno or
Sparks. It has also been reported that the Reno Tahoe Industrial Center
allocates to businesses .5 acre-ft of water that is approximately 162,925
gallons of water that is a 1000x increase to any other business currently in
the industrial center. Even on
Telsa’s low end of water usage of 500 Acre-ft, which converts to 162,925,713
billions of gallons, if these numbers do not make your head spin let’s look
some more into Storey County and they’re current drought issues and the Reno
Tahoe Industrial Center water.
Reno
Tahoe Industrial Center has three sources of water that they use. The first
place is Truckee River water, a groundwater well and reclaimed water. They
pumped the Truckee River water via an extraction well over into other holding
areas within the complex. The Truckee water is allocated via water rights and
also dependant upon that we have a flowing river with water in it. I am not
sure if anyone has looked at the Truckee River but it is not flowing like a river
currently here is a current link. http://www.reno.gov/get-involved/watch-and-learn/reno-webcams/whitewater-park-webcam Also according to USGS date the river is flowing at
approximately 7.8 CFS today (http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ca/nwis/uv?site_no=10338000). So it is my guess this source water has been
significantly cut back just like other users in the region due to this drought.
Another source of water is a groundwater. According to an RGJ article this well
is 1000 feet deep and has approximately 9.8 billion gallon of water in it (RGJ,
September 5, 2014) they might also have another well to recharge this aquifer
but they have not disclosed any of this information. I am not sure if the
general public understands how aquifers work but this water is considered to be
ancient water or old water and they can have very long recharge rates into the
thousands of years. We are also over pumping and over using our groundwater
into unsustainable rates currently with this biblical drought.
The
final source of water is recycled water or gray water. Most people might not
understand what “gray water” is so I will try to help explain. Gray water is
water that has been treated by the water treatment plant but it’s not to
drinking water standards. Most of this water has been treated for watering our
lawns and landscape. In many communities around the West this is the purple
water line that one sees while walking. This water is non-potable water so you
do not want to drink it. The Reno Tahoe Industrial Center has a wastewater
facilities plant on their property. They treat the water and then reuse it
again through out the park. So as long as you have water that can be recycled
you can use this process. The current drought is so unprecedented that cities
like LA are looking at using this process since the population growth and
Colorado River water will not be sustainable. (http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-la-pushes-to-use-shower-bath-water-to-combat-drought-20150415-story.html) They also
claim they have not been impacted from this current drought. They are able to
pump 2-3 millions gallons a day or 90 millions gallons a month or 1,080,000
billion gallons for a year. Which will not meet the current water needs for
Telsa and its plant at the time of full production.
The
other elephant in the room is Climate Change or Abrupt Climate Change and how
that has exuberated our drought currently. A currently study done by the
University of Arizona tree ring tells us that our current snow pack from the
Sierra Nevada’s is considered to be a 500 year low (http://www.theweathernetwork.com/us/news/articles/us-weather/sierra-nevada-snowpack-estimated-at-500-year-low/57359/). This can be seen in our current reservoir situation.
Data provided by NCRS as of September 1, 2015 shows that the record low
reservoirs levels throughout the state the only full reservoirs are
Independence reservoirs which is the TMWA drought reserves currently at 91% and
Lake Mohave currently 93% full (http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/ftpref/support/water/SummaryReports/NV/BRes_9_2015.pdf?)
Now
it has been proposed by Reno Tahoe Industrial Center to transfer gray water
from the Truckee Meadows Water Authority (TMWA) down to the Telsa operations by
the RGJ on June 20th by Anjeanette Damon. Anjeanette does do a good
job at pointing out that they would need a pipe to transfer this water down and
TMWA does not seem really excited about this prospect. They comment how they
might need the water to recharge their own aquifer. Uuum what is up with this? I
will explain later on.
Let’s
first look at the current drought conditions in Storey County. On May 28, 2014
the USDA declared Storey County as a natural disaster area due to drought. (http://www.fsa.usda.gov/FSA/newsReleases?area=newsroom&subject=landing&topic=edn&newstype=ednewsrel&type=detail&item=ed_20140528_rel_0097.html) Farmers
are now able to get funds for disaster relief in Storey County. So the drought
is hurting business already with the farming within the state of Nevada. Also
the Governor Sandoval established a statewide drought forum on April 8, 2015 (http://drought.nv.gov/About/Executive_Order/) so the state is also in a world of hurt right now. In
another post I will go into further analysis of the drought forum documents and
issues.
Let’s
take a quick look at Switch the data center just to add more numbers on top of
the ones we already have. Switch’s building will be 3 million square feet and
to take 5-10 years to build. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/01/16/us/ap-us-switch-nevada-data-center.html One of the dirty little secrets of data centers is that
they need a lot of water to cool the servers. They also chew up a lot of other
energy cooling the building as reported by the New York Times they use 130
million gallons of water for operations more than golf courses or almond
orchards or approximately 4 Acre-FT of water. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10007111583511843695404581067903126039290 As our drought continues there will be less water
available for use. There are already water wars taking place in California
between the common user and big business. It sounds like we are witnessing the
start of this here with Telsa and Switch.
I
see a couple possible scenarios playing out with Telsa and water in the region.
The major reason why they are asking for water from TMWA is that they are the
senior water rights holder in the Truckee River. If you get cut off go upstream
user who has water but the only problem with this is that TMWA serves the
greater Reno and Sparks area. It will be interesting to watch to see how
desperate Telsa and Switch get to water for production. If they bully the city
of Reno and Sparks into giving up water to big business all for sake of a car
and growth of Telsa. It will impact local water users in major cut backs and water
shortages. The other scenario that could play out could be we have another huge
economic crash and they never open. Also Telsa could open up but it will never
be able to meet production goals as they plan. I am sure if they were really
desperate for water they could go down to Lake Mead but I doubt Las Vegas would
be willing to sell any of its water to have it piped up north. Also this would
be very unfeasible since it would cost millions or billions of money one of
which Telsa does not have nor the state of Nevada does not have either. Also
Lake Mead water levels are critically low at this point and it’s a matter of
times before Los Angles and Nevada gets cut off. Or they can do it the old-fashioned way and steal water from
TMWA with water trucks for production. This is already playing out in
California for example Tom Selleck stole water from a neighboring water
district and he was caught and fined. (http://www.npr.org/2015/07/09/421528595/tom-selleck-accused-of-stealing-water-for-california-ranch)
Any
way you look at the numbers they do not add and what your politicians and local
businesses men are selling you is snake oil. We do not have the water in the
area for Telsa’s production and Switch. As a resident of this area I would ask
everyone more questions and what they are telling you is a bunch of BS. This
drought will continue past 8 years and beyond so one needs to look at what is
more important for living at this point water for living or a $35,000 car that
will destroy our water resources in the area.
