Menace to Venice

Venice was higher and sea level lower in the past, but the city has been suffering “acqua alta” flooding for more than a thousand years. This painting by Vincenzo Chilone shows the Piazza San Marco in early December, 1825

Recent news reports told of the disastrous flooding of Venice, Italy, where high tides brought water levels close to the record high of 1966. Damage is pegged at more than $1 billion, and is predictably blamed by the city’s mayor on “climate change.”

Climate is naturally ever-changing, of course, but nature can’t pay for damages. So what the mayor is really saying is that humans are responsible. Does reality support that claim?

Tide gauges around the Adriatic show sea level rising at a constant rate (not accelerating) from 1875 through 2018. Venice has been sinking into its lagoon for more than a millennium.

During the 20th century, sea level at Venice rose about 4.3 inches while Venice sank about 4.7 inches.

Sea level will continue its slow rise regardless of the outcome of climate conferences, and Venice will continue sinking in spite of efforts to stop it.

In 1987, the Italian government initiated a flood gate project to protect Venice from high tides. It was supposed to be finished by now, but thanks to corruption, cost overruns, and delays typical of infrastructure projects in Italy and California, it may not be operational before 2022.

Human-caused climate change is clearly not the cause of the recent disaster.

The sinking of Venice is not going to stop. The Adriatic tectonic plate is being subsumed under the European plate, and whatever is left of Venice will eventually be recycled in the Earth’s mantle.

The tectonic sinking isn’t uniform. Venice is slowly tilting toward the east. It may someday become a tourist attraction vying with the famous tower in Pisa, perhaps to be called “The Leaning City of Venice.”

Let’s hope the whole thing doesn’t slide into the lagoon.

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A push for pumped storage redux

Prior to the 2016 election I wrote an article regarding the proposed Big Chino Valley Pumped Storage plant. The estimated initial drawdown from the Big Chino aquifer to fill the plant’s two storage reservoirs is nearly 9 billion gallons—1.5 times the estimated annual base flow of the Verde River and nearly twice the estimated annual recharge rate for the entire aquifer.

After the initial fill, Big Chino’s storage reservoirs would need regular replenishment due to evaporation. The evaporation rate would be greatest during periods of drought. Consequently, the most extensive pumping from the aquifer would occur when the aquifer is most in need of replenishment.

Is it remotely possible this extraction would not affect base flow of the upper Verde River?

The project would require approximately 151 miles of 500kV transmission lines with a 200ft right-of-way.

Profitability of Big Chino Valley Pumped Storage relied on Democrat-supported federal subsidies for both plant and transmission lines. When hope for subsidies died after Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss, Farallon Capital Management LLC divested their entire 3.88 million shares of Big Chino’s Michigan-based parent company.

Farallon Capital is a hedge fund management company founded by Tom Steyer.

In February 2018 it was reported Big Chino had again found financial backers. I don’t know who, but I can speculate why.

Tom Steyer-financed Proposition 127 would have required Arizona electricity providers (in our case APS) to buy electricity from inefficient back-up sources during periods when intermittent wind and solar sources are not producing. Big Chino Pumped Storage is the only storage source waiting to be built. Its output could be sold at a price that justifies the project’s cost if electricity providers were forced to buy it. This could be the reason upcoming Gen IV nuclear reactors—the only non-fossil-fueled source that could support electrified transportation—were excluded from the energy mix.

Fortunately, 69% of Arizona voters who don’t want their state to become another California said “no.”

Unfortunately, Big Chino Pumped Storage is not giving up. It was formed to benefit investors for whom the future of the upper Verde watershed is not likely a major concern. And if Democrats take control of government in 2020, we may see fresh subsidies and mandates that make the project profitable.

And that is worthy of concern.