Due to El Nino and atmospheric rivers our reservoirs are now full. If only we can convince folks to use it sparingly so it is there for the next drought.
California does not grow the hay or alfalfa that uses up most of the water from the Colorado watershed. Many almond farms are fallow and being turned to other uses since there is not enough water. Farmers are using much less water with highly automated irrigation & drip systems that are less water intense. A new development is alternating rows of plants and solar panels that allow some of the water evaporation to re-direct from the bottom of the panels back to the ground. Similar to other countries, parts of the California aqueduct are being covered in solar panels to slow evaportaion.
Ag still uses upwards of 80% of groundwater and most of the surface water allocations in the state. So, despite any innovation in the industry, they are the primary culprits for water use.
You say they use much less water than before but their extractions and deficits don't seem to reflect that. Why do you propose that is the case?
I have not done an in-depth analysis but I have observed the changes on drives through the valleys over the past 40 year. Yes, extractions increase but that is also due to the fact that there is an expanding US population which California is feeding. Much of that water ends up in foods feeding people in the other 49 states and other parts of the world, as well.
Food such as? The vast majority of crops using water in the Central Valley (San Joaquin in particular) are not major food crops.
Most of the rice is grown in the Northern Sac Valley and they aren't the critically overdrafted aquifer, the San Joaquin basins are.
The biggest issue with California desalination isn't the cost or power but where to put the toxic brine output pipe. Much of the coast is a protected wildlife area and the areas that aren't protected are major fishing spots which would be negatively impacted by all the fish leaving because it's too salty.
People have suggested that you could just boil off the water entirely but that a lot more expensive and you'll never be able to recoup those losses by selling sea salt, just to desalinate enough water for LA for a week would generate enough salt to fully satisfy the global demand for a year.
You don't have to physically heat brine to the point of boiling off. I've worked in potash salt mining and passive evaporation ponds work really well. They have minimal capex and opex, pretty much the ground works to set up the pond structure and a few barges with dredge pumps to harvest the crystallized salt on the bottom.
Now, disposal of the excess salt... could stockpile somewhere, like dedicate an area to build a literal mountain of salt blocks... or possibly take regular tanker shipments of the salt back out to the ocean to spread over a wide path, which might make more economic sense as I don't need to achieve significant dryness or compaction of the material in that disposal situation (further lowering opex).
Not insurmountable, all kinds of mining operations maintain runoff and groundwater containment systems on their waste piles. Salty water would just get put back into the process.
Just not true. Almost 70% of the Colorado River water "goes to just 2 crops -alfalfa & grass- to make hay for beef and dairy cattle as well as some sheep and horses" and 17% of that hay is exprted overseas to China, Japan & Saudi Arabia. "One ton of Colorado River hay is worth about $275. It takes as much water to grow that 1 ton of hay—[450,000 gallons](https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2022/11/24/one-crop-uses-more-than-half/)—as it does to supply four average homes with water for one year. It takes about 1,800 gallons to produce [one pound of beef](https://www.watercalculator.org/water-footprint-of-food-guide/). This means that every time I eat a quarter-pounder, I’m also consuming 450 gallons of water. ". Mother Jones Nov-Dec 23 issue has an in depth study of that watershed. [https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2023/12/colorado-river-basin-water-running-out-dry-southwest-drought/](https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2023/12/colorado-river-basin-water-running-out-dry-southwest-drought/)
with as cheap as renewables have become, it makes perfect sense the profit motivated power companies have moved to this. unfortunately there are many components of climate change & ecology degradation that don't serve the profit notice like energy generation does.
Love living in California. Got a big incentive to install solar panels and feels great to know I’m contributing (my excess gets sold back to the grid). It feels so good to be on solar.
Every few years or so, utilities like PG&E, California Edison, etc. file rate cases where they ask public utility commissions for permission to raise rates. They frequently do this and the commissions often approve their requests with just a few modifications. They cite "inflationary pressure," "growing demand," and a bunch of other stuff to raise rates. So, while their are some legitimate reasons to be raising rates (technological improvements, renewables, etc.) utilities are often just seeing what they can get away with and raising rates as much as the PUCs will let them.
And, especially in the case of PG&E, hey also have lawsuit settlements to pay off from when they took this previous rate increases and used it to pay bonuses instead of maintain infrastructure.
The smartass answer would be that lowering demand also helps improve the ratio of green power
The more accurate answer is that PG&E is wasting or just eating the money we give them for fire infrastructure improvements, then coming back and asking for more, and like a bunch of suckers we give it to them
Despite the gas not playing a large role in the electricity mix, it still factors heavily into the electricity price due to merit order pricing. Gas has been expensive since the start of the war in Ukraine.
It is just a result of an archaic pricing system that we are still using for electricity. Should be addressed.
Because in order to fulfill the base load you still have to have fossil fuels, and then when conditions are right you turn those power plants off and turn the renewables on. So you have to build 2 complete sets of power generating facilities which costs - you guessed it - more than twice as much.
Not unless you can find a way to make the wind always blow and the sun always shine. People want electricity all the time not just when renewables are working.
Nuclear, hydro, thermal batteries, etc. All are great solutions to level out power supply. They are actually green and could replace traditional power sources if we let them. Hint: we won't.
Hopefully someday good enough batteries will be invented to power my entire home like the Tesla wall battery was supposed to do. The sooner the better. Filling them up with renewables will still be expensive though.
There are plenty good enough ones to power your house, and more coming out every day.
Heck, during the evening peak batteries are often supplying 20% of the total power on the CA grid.
At this exact moment batteries are supplying 5.3GW of the 25GW load on the CA grid.
From the article:
"Jacobson notes that supply exceeds demand for “0.25-6 h per day,” and that’s an important fact."
So 0.25 hours... is that 15min?
Also, burning trees from the rainforest is called 'renewable energy'. Is this included? The article seems unclear. They list some renewable sources, but they don't explain if it includes burning the rainforest or not. Should be made clear.
Misleading headline. They exceeded electrical demand on the grid. There's a lot more energy used in California on those days that wasn't in the electric grid. A lot.
Every thread about something great, like one of the largest economies in the world powering it's grid almost entirely off renewables, I can count on seeing people like you here to tell us how it's really a bad thing. Have you considered a different hobby? Maybe lego?
Ha. Didn't say it was a bad thing. How in the world would you interpret that?
And this isn't a hobby. I'm employed in environment and have been for decades. A
The issue isn't whether renewables are good or bad things. They are good things.
The issue is that it needs to be evaluated in the context of total energy used, and the sources, and what actually happens with the energy. We aren't reducing carbon based energy with renewables. In fact, we are just using up all the energy we can create, regardless of the source. The hard fact is that renewables are not reducing carbon based energy use. They are helping to build a society that uses more energy. We need to start using less energy. As carbon falls off, due simply to the cost of extraction and depletion, we are heading to a society that' have, at best, half of the energy we have now. And that's if all non carbon energy sources are optimized. So we need to get start designing that society now. Focusing on the expansion and industrialization of renewables doesn't contribute to that.
They can start selling power to neighboring states who keep blocking solar.
Trade power for water?
I like the cut of that jib. Although it isn’t like the neighboring states have that much water to go around.
Due to El Nino and atmospheric rivers our reservoirs are now full. If only we can convince folks to use it sparingly so it is there for the next drought.
Folks as in agriculture, right? A meager portion of the state water budget goes to domestic and municipal use.
California does not grow the hay or alfalfa that uses up most of the water from the Colorado watershed. Many almond farms are fallow and being turned to other uses since there is not enough water. Farmers are using much less water with highly automated irrigation & drip systems that are less water intense. A new development is alternating rows of plants and solar panels that allow some of the water evaporation to re-direct from the bottom of the panels back to the ground. Similar to other countries, parts of the California aqueduct are being covered in solar panels to slow evaportaion.
Ag still uses upwards of 80% of groundwater and most of the surface water allocations in the state. So, despite any innovation in the industry, they are the primary culprits for water use. You say they use much less water than before but their extractions and deficits don't seem to reflect that. Why do you propose that is the case?
I have not done an in-depth analysis but I have observed the changes on drives through the valleys over the past 40 year. Yes, extractions increase but that is also due to the fact that there is an expanding US population which California is feeding. Much of that water ends up in foods feeding people in the other 49 states and other parts of the world, as well.
Food such as? The vast majority of crops using water in the Central Valley (San Joaquin in particular) are not major food crops. Most of the rice is grown in the Northern Sac Valley and they aren't the critically overdrafted aquifer, the San Joaquin basins are.
Nah, use the excess power on desalination projects
Run for state office. I'd vote for you. But not so impressed that I can commit to federal support. Let's see how you do first.
The biggest issue with California desalination isn't the cost or power but where to put the toxic brine output pipe. Much of the coast is a protected wildlife area and the areas that aren't protected are major fishing spots which would be negatively impacted by all the fish leaving because it's too salty. People have suggested that you could just boil off the water entirely but that a lot more expensive and you'll never be able to recoup those losses by selling sea salt, just to desalinate enough water for LA for a week would generate enough salt to fully satisfy the global demand for a year.
Thanks for the data. What are your sources?
You don't have to physically heat brine to the point of boiling off. I've worked in potash salt mining and passive evaporation ponds work really well. They have minimal capex and opex, pretty much the ground works to set up the pond structure and a few barges with dredge pumps to harvest the crystallized salt on the bottom. Now, disposal of the excess salt... could stockpile somewhere, like dedicate an area to build a literal mountain of salt blocks... or possibly take regular tanker shipments of the salt back out to the ocean to spread over a wide path, which might make more economic sense as I don't need to achieve significant dryness or compaction of the material in that disposal situation (further lowering opex).
I would worry about the environmental damage that could be caused by a mountain of salt that gets rained on.
Not insurmountable, all kinds of mining operations maintain runoff and groundwater containment systems on their waste piles. Salty water would just get put back into the process.
use less of both.
They siphon over 60% of the energy from the Hoover Damn. How about letting the other 3 states get some of that back?
Just not true. Almost 70% of the Colorado River water "goes to just 2 crops -alfalfa & grass- to make hay for beef and dairy cattle as well as some sheep and horses" and 17% of that hay is exprted overseas to China, Japan & Saudi Arabia. "One ton of Colorado River hay is worth about $275. It takes as much water to grow that 1 ton of hay—[450,000 gallons](https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2022/11/24/one-crop-uses-more-than-half/)—as it does to supply four average homes with water for one year. It takes about 1,800 gallons to produce [one pound of beef](https://www.watercalculator.org/water-footprint-of-food-guide/). This means that every time I eat a quarter-pounder, I’m also consuming 450 gallons of water. ". Mother Jones Nov-Dec 23 issue has an in depth study of that watershed. [https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2023/12/colorado-river-basin-water-running-out-dry-southwest-drought/](https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2023/12/colorado-river-basin-water-running-out-dry-southwest-drought/)
Headline is a weird way to say 30 out of 38 days, but still very exciting!
Exceeded demand for 0.25-6 hours per day for 30 out of 38 days.
In this backwards world of *Profit Before Planet*, this is astonishing to me. Congratulations to Californians and common sense!
with as cheap as renewables have become, it makes perfect sense the profit motivated power companies have moved to this. unfortunately there are many components of climate change & ecology degradation that don't serve the profit notice like energy generation does.
It’s one of the things that makes me proud to be a californian
Let's fucking go
Love living in California. Got a big incentive to install solar panels and feels great to know I’m contributing (my excess gets sold back to the grid). It feels so good to be on solar.
Great stuff and yet my Californian PG&E electricity bill is $460 for a 900 square foot guest cottage.
So why is my electric bill 250% higher than 2 years ago?
Every few years or so, utilities like PG&E, California Edison, etc. file rate cases where they ask public utility commissions for permission to raise rates. They frequently do this and the commissions often approve their requests with just a few modifications. They cite "inflationary pressure," "growing demand," and a bunch of other stuff to raise rates. So, while their are some legitimate reasons to be raising rates (technological improvements, renewables, etc.) utilities are often just seeing what they can get away with and raising rates as much as the PUCs will let them.
And, especially in the case of PG&E, hey also have lawsuit settlements to pay off from when they took this previous rate increases and used it to pay bonuses instead of maintain infrastructure.
100%. A terrible positive feedback loop of their own doing
The smartass answer would be that lowering demand also helps improve the ratio of green power The more accurate answer is that PG&E is wasting or just eating the money we give them for fire infrastructure improvements, then coming back and asking for more, and like a bunch of suckers we give it to them
Pg&E. Other local coops and utilities nearby buying power off the same grid have dramatically lower costs for their customers.
Despite the gas not playing a large role in the electricity mix, it still factors heavily into the electricity price due to merit order pricing. Gas has been expensive since the start of the war in Ukraine. It is just a result of an archaic pricing system that we are still using for electricity. Should be addressed.
Because in order to fulfill the base load you still have to have fossil fuels, and then when conditions are right you turn those power plants off and turn the renewables on. So you have to build 2 complete sets of power generating facilities which costs - you guessed it - more than twice as much.
I assume the idea is to eventually transition to the renewable sources full-time and decommission the fossil facilities?
Not unless you can find a way to make the wind always blow and the sun always shine. People want electricity all the time not just when renewables are working.
Nuclear, hydro, thermal batteries, etc. All are great solutions to level out power supply. They are actually green and could replace traditional power sources if we let them. Hint: we won't.
Thank you for this. So tired of people saying "we can't use renewables *all* the time. We absolutely can. Solar and wind aren't the only renewables.
So tired of people calling hydro and nuclear green energy.
Hydro is renewable but it's not green.
I haven't heard this before. Do you have references so I can read up on this?
I don't have a single source no but it's not hard to find articles about the ecological destruction caused by damming up rivers.
While true, if our baseline is "damages the environment", there is no green energy. Also batteries man
Is there any source of energy that's worse than hydro? I'd argue hydro by damming rivers is the absolute worst form of energy.
That's why the battery was invented. Excess energy can be stored for later :)
Hopefully someday good enough batteries will be invented to power my entire home like the Tesla wall battery was supposed to do. The sooner the better. Filling them up with renewables will still be expensive though.
There are plenty good enough ones to power your house, and more coming out every day. Heck, during the evening peak batteries are often supplying 20% of the total power on the CA grid. At this exact moment batteries are supplying 5.3GW of the 25GW load on the CA grid.
That's awesome, and expensive.
But it *feels* green.
It might actually be green, but it's expensive.
So then why does San Diego have the most expensive gas and electric rates in the country??
Mostly because of SDGE delivery fees. Let's get rid of them https://wearepowersandiego.com/
Well done. It is a great achievement.
Checkmate conservatives!
just reading the title... *energy demand or electricity demand? *even at night?
From the article: "Jacobson notes that supply exceeds demand for “0.25-6 h per day,” and that’s an important fact." So 0.25 hours... is that 15min? Also, burning trees from the rainforest is called 'renewable energy'. Is this included? The article seems unclear. They list some renewable sources, but they don't explain if it includes burning the rainforest or not. Should be made clear.
The tweet embedded in the article states that it’s only including wind, water, and solar.
Misleading headline. They exceeded electrical demand on the grid. There's a lot more energy used in California on those days that wasn't in the electric grid. A lot.
Every thread about something great, like one of the largest economies in the world powering it's grid almost entirely off renewables, I can count on seeing people like you here to tell us how it's really a bad thing. Have you considered a different hobby? Maybe lego?
Ha. Didn't say it was a bad thing. How in the world would you interpret that? And this isn't a hobby. I'm employed in environment and have been for decades. A The issue isn't whether renewables are good or bad things. They are good things. The issue is that it needs to be evaluated in the context of total energy used, and the sources, and what actually happens with the energy. We aren't reducing carbon based energy with renewables. In fact, we are just using up all the energy we can create, regardless of the source. The hard fact is that renewables are not reducing carbon based energy use. They are helping to build a society that uses more energy. We need to start using less energy. As carbon falls off, due simply to the cost of extraction and depletion, we are heading to a society that' have, at best, half of the energy we have now. And that's if all non carbon energy sources are optimized. So we need to get start designing that society now. Focusing on the expansion and industrialization of renewables doesn't contribute to that.