KNS has a new article on the drought and its affect on TVA's operations [1] which straightens out some of the PR happy talk [2] from yesterday's "no worries" article. The article summarizes a variety of problems, one of which had not occurred to me. TVA draws water from rivers and reservoirs for cooling at coal and nuclear power plants. When stream flows are down, discharging the heated water back into the waterway can raise water temperatures above acceptable levels. The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation regulates these discharges, and could require TVA to cut back or shut down power operations at affected facilities. And as predicted, TVA does not rule out the possibility of rate increases, and in fact already raised the rate nearly one cent per KWH in April as part of a quarterly fuel cost adjustment.