The Transcontinental Aqueduct. Leg 1: Mississippi river to Aquilla lake.

The Transcontinental aqueduct at the starting point will have a carrying .capacity of 15 million acre-ft per year, or 21,000 cubic feet per second on average. Maximum flow will be 26,500 cfs, allowing the power generators to supply peak power to the grid for up to 5 hours per day instead of pumping water.

The starting point of the aqueduct is where the Red river empties out in the Atchafalaya river, and has a Mississippi River diversion dam. The elevation at the starting point is 7 feet, and the dam and pumping station will be located in the upper part of the never used Atchafalaya Floodway.

The Mississippi River flood control Morganza spillway is south of the Atchafalaya river diversion, and will not interfere. The place chosen is ideal to relieve some of the Mississippi river flow. Even in the lowest Mississippi flow in a drought year this diversion has sufficient flow to divert 26,500 cfs from it.

The first leg of the aqueduct is 360 miles long and is an open water river with pumping stations whenever the river has to rise about 30 feet. The river runs by gravity until it has sunk about 15 feet which is about 6.18 miles downstream. Since endpoint is at 537 feet elevation this requires about 58 pumping stations. During the course of the path the aqueduct crosses the Sabine River south of the Toledo Bend Reservoir, following the best climb it crosses the Neches River and the Trinity River following the geologically best way until it reaches the Aquilla Lake. The aqueduct is quite substantial, it will carry about 80% more water than the All American canal, seen here under construction. This canal has a drop of about 2.2 feet per mile to accommodate maximum flow.

Pumping 26,500 cfs water through 58 pumping station, each one raising the water about 30 feet requires 4 Gigawatts of power when rounding up for turbine losses. This can be accomplished by eight 500 MW LFTR reactors, also being able to provide up to 4 GW of peak power for 5 hours/day on demand. Two will serve the eastern power grid and six will serve the Texas electrical grid.

The end point for stage 1 of the channel is Aquilla lake, elevation 537 feet. It has a storage capacity of 50,000 acre-ft, which is only half a day’s worth of storage, so Stage 1 and Stage 2 will have to be managed as a unit. It is located 20 miles North of Waco, TX.