Sound Stories. Sound Voices.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
You are on the KUOW archive site. Click here to go to our current site.
KUOW's environment beat brings you stories on the ongoing cleanup of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, alternative energy, the health of the Puget Sound, coal transportation and more. We're also partnered with several stations across the Northwest to bring you environmental news via EarthFix.

Idaho Power Uses Cloud Seeding To Enhance Winter Snowpack

Aaron Kunz

Cloud seeding has been around for decades. It started out as a way to make rain for growing crops. But these days in the Mountain West, it’s used as a way to make more snow.

Idaho Power is seeding clouds as part of its strategy to make sure there’s enough runoff from melting snow in the summertime. That translates into water in rivers — and more water means more power generated from those rivers’ hydroelectric dams.

Winter Cloud Seeding Diagram

[asset-images[{"caption": "Winter cloud seeding", "fid": "1590", "style": "placed_wide", "uri": "public://201212/cloud seeding.jpg", "attribution": "Credit Earthfix"}]]

Read the whole story on KUOW’s Earthfix