The U.S. depends on hydroelectric power — and ever-worsening drought is threatening its supply.
The western half of the country has faced a water crisis for years, and things have only gotten more dire in 2026. Rocky Mountain states didn’t get much precipitation this past winter, and a steamy spring quickly melted what little snowpack there was.
Now, the Colorado River is suffering the consequences. Lake Mead and Lake Powell — the nation’s two largest reservoirs, held in by the Hoover and Glen Canyon dams, respectively — both reached record-low water levels this month. Those reservoirs hold crucial supplies of water for drinking and farming throughout the West, and when they’re full, can produce more than 3 GW of power.
Current water levels in both Mead and Powell are too low to produce anywhere near that much power. And the Bureau of Reclamation, which manages water levels in both reservoirs, projects there’s a slim but real chance that they could sink too low to produce any power at some point next year.
That’s not just a problem for Canada. The Northeastern U.S. brought two huge transmission lines into operation this year to carry Canadian hydropower into New England and New York City. But plagued by outages and drought conditions, those lines have transported far less power than expected into the U.S., casting doubt on whether Canada’s once-abundant hydropower can be the clean energy savior the Northeast hoped it would be.
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Trump’s cabinet cheerleads battery projects
The Trump administration may be trying to take down clean energy, but it’s cheering batteries on.
This week, South Korea–based company LG Energy Solution opened a battery manufacturing facility in Lansing, Michigan, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum was there to celebrate. As Claire Hao reports, the project was originally a joint venture between LG and General Motors, but a waning EV market led GM to pull out. LG now solely owns the facility, and half of the cells it produces will go to storage, while the other half will go to Toyota to put in EVs.
Another battery-boosting event this week also had a special guest from President Donald Trump’s cabinet. Energy Secretary Chris Wright joined Maine Republican leaders to tout the construction of Form Energy’s grid-scale battery storage project on the site of a former paper mill.
Despite slashing funding for other clean energy projects, the White House has largely preserved incentives and money for battery storage.
