IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/wjagec/32400.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Energy And Irrigation In Washington

Author

Listed:
  • Whittlesey, Norman K.
  • Gibbs, Kenneth C.

Abstract

The magnitude of energy costs imposed on the general public by irrigation development in Washington is very large. These costs come about through two separate phenomena. As water is withdrawn from the Snake and Columbia Rivers for irrigation, use of this water for creating hydropower is lost. Also, pumping of water for irrigation requires significant quantities of electricity which is currently sold to irrigators at very low average costs. However, both the lost and used energy must be replaced or added to the supply at the opportunity cost of current thermal power generation. These phenomena result in a cost of about $150 per acre per year that is paid through the general public through increased utility rates. This article describes the magnitude of such costs in terms of large and small family farms, and in terms of employment created by irrigation development.

Suggested Citation

  • Whittlesey, Norman K. & Gibbs, Kenneth C., 1978. "Energy And Irrigation In Washington," Western Journal of Agricultural Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 3(1), pages 1-10, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:wjagec:32400
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.32400
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/32400/files/03010001.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.32400?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Resource /Energy Economics and Policy;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:wjagec:32400. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/waeaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.