Water-rich Switzerland controls Western Europe’s taps — and wants it to stay that way. Its drought-ridden neighbors are getting nervous.
At the western edge of Lake Geneva, where the mighty Rhône river squeezes through a narrow dam, a blunder of French diplomacy is carved into stone for all to see.
The inscription, mounted on the walls of an old industrial building, commemorates the 1884 accord between three Swiss cantons that have regulated the water levels of this vast Alpine lake ever since. It does not mention France — even though some 40 percent of the lake is French territory.
“France, for some reason, wasn’t part of the contract,” said Jérôme Barras as he unlocked a gate below the epigraph to inspect a hydropower plant under the dam he has managed for more than a decade.
When the agreement was renewed and a new dam was built a century later, Paris still wasn’t interested.
The French government now regrets that.
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And France has suddenly realized it can’t control that tap as it battles water shortages, destructive droughts and baking heat.
Eh, as long as you designed it with a reasonable factor of safety (say, highest temperature ever recorded at that location +5C, maybe) it’d be fine. I think the cost is a far, far bigger issue because the radiator necessary would be absolutely gigantic. Plus if you’ve got fans cooling it (so you can make it smaller) instead of passively cooling it, that’s another point of failure, although I suppose if getting river water relies on pumps then it isn’t any worse.
Typical safety margins for weather use 50 or 100 year events. The system that is rated for that weather event has a margin in it. Roofs, for example, are designed to withstand the snow loads for the worst snow storm in 50 years but the truss systems which are rated to handle that load can handle more.
I know, but the safety margin for a nuclear reactor should be atypical.