• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
13 Canadian Fossils Linked to Massive Losses in Western Wildfires May 29, 2023
Hamilton Plans Canada’s First Heat Bylaw for Rental Housing May 29, 2023
UK Traffic Calming Strategy Produces Solid Results, Manufactured Anxiety May 29, 2023
Community Wind Farm Earns Support, Generates Income in German Village May 29, 2023
‘Remarkable Rebuke’: 130 U.S, EU Legislators Ask UN to Ditch Fossil CEO as COP 28 Chair May 23, 2023
Next
Prev

California Drought Raises Tensions As Water Scarcity Drives Unprecedented Measures

June 5, 2022
Reading time: 3 minutes

http://cdooginz.deviantart.com/art/California-Drought-518267539

cdooginz

1
SHARES
 

California’s unrelenting drought is straining the state’s resources and inflaming tensions in the legislature, as crucial drought relief policies and action are delayed by competing priorities like the pandemic, homelessness, and wildfires.

Those concurrent emergencies “can’t be an excuse anymore,” said state Senator Dave Cortese (D), who added that California must make drought relief “the highest priority.”

  • Be among the first to read The Energy Mix Weekender
  • A brand new weekly digest containing exclusive and essential climate stories from around the world.
  • The Weekender:The climate news you need.
Subscribe

“These fights have to happen because we have no choice,” said Cortese. “To sit on our hands is going to result in a multiplicity of disasters and catastrophic consequences,” making it impractical to delay in hopes that the drought will end.

The three-year drought, which scientists have attributed to climate change, is linked to a longer 22-year megadrought and the region’s driest period in more than a millennium. It is worsening problems like wildfires and displaced populations, writes the Washington Post.

The megadrought is also pushing communities to make difficult environmental choices that scientists didn’t expect for decades. In Southern California, dwindling water resources are forcing conservation measures that include unprecedented limits to “non-essential” water use, or any water used for reasons other than public health, marking the most severe cutbacks ever enacted in the state and affecting about six million people, writes the Post.

“We didn’t expect these results,” said Sasan Saadat, a senior policy expert for Earthjustice. “They’re the result of the procrastination of our failures from before,” but “things will get much worse if we continue to procrastinate.” 

The drought may also end up contributing to the root of the problem—climate change—as waning hydropower output compels the state to rely more on fossil fuels to keep the lights on for residents.

Analysis by the U.S. Energy Information Administration found that the extended drought could nearly halve California’s hydropower generation from 15% to 8% in a “drought case” scenario. In that event, the state would have to increase its natural gas-fired generation to compensate, leading to a 6% rise in its energy sector’s carbon dioxide emissions, writes Utility Dive.

These conditions arise as the state is shifting to a clean energy grid, with natural gas units being retired and solar capacity expanding. But California currently has a lower total share of dispatchable resources than it had seven years ago, the EIA study found.

California’s energy scarcity could be mitigated to an extent by importing energy from neighbouring states. Plus, the Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM)—a system that finds low-cost energy to serve real-time demand across the west—could moderate the drought’s impact by offering broader load and resource diversity. But WEIM power imports might not be available in a heat wave that encompassed the U.S.’s entire western region, reports Utility Dive.

Although California has added a lot of solar and wind in the last few years and the gas fleet will operate less, Jan Smutny-Jones, CEO of the Independent Energy Producers Association, said the state will need to keep gas power on hand “for periods of time [like] we’re experiencing right now, where we could have a long drought.”



in Cities & Communities, Clean Electricity Grid, Drought, Famine & Wildfires, Energy / Carbon Pricing & Economics, Energy Access & Equity, Energy Politics, Hydropower, Oil & Gas, Sub-National Governments, United States

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Martin Davis/Facebook
Carbon Levels & Measurement

13 Canadian Fossils Linked to Massive Losses in Western Wildfires

May 29, 2023
1
Neal Alderson/Twitter
Heat & Temperature

Out-of-Control Wildfire Burns Homes, Forces Evacuations Outside Halifax

May 29, 2023
53
York Region/flickr
Heat & Temperature

Hamilton Plans Canada’s First Heat Bylaw for Rental Housing

May 29, 2023
1

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

pixabay

Anti-Mob Laws to Prosecute Fossils, Kudos for Calgary, 113M Climate Refugees, Orcas Fight Back, and a Climate Dictionary

May 24, 2023
134
Neal Alderson/Twitter

Out-of-Control Wildfire Burns Homes, Forces Evacuations Outside Halifax

May 29, 2023
53
Inspiration 4 Photos/flickr

Cooling Upper Atmosphere Has Scientists ‘Very Worried’

May 23, 2023
272
University of Oxford Press Office/flickr

PEROVSKITES: Qcells Plans First Production Line for ‘Miracle’ Solar Cell

May 23, 2023
435
Arctic Circle/flickr

‘Remarkable Rebuke’: 130 U.S, EU Legislators Ask UN to Ditch Fossil CEO as COP 28 Chair

May 23, 2023
399
François GOGLINS/wikimedia commons

Corrosion Problem Shutters Half of France’s Nuclear Reactors

August 2, 2022
3.7k

Recent Posts

Martin Davis/Facebook

13 Canadian Fossils Linked to Massive Losses in Western Wildfires

May 29, 2023
1
York Region/flickr

Hamilton Plans Canada’s First Heat Bylaw for Rental Housing

May 29, 2023
1
Jörg Möller/Pixabay

UK Traffic Calming Strategy Produces Solid Results, Manufactured Anxiety

May 29, 2023
1

Waste Heat from Quebec Data Centre to Grow 80,000 Tonnes of Veggies Per Year

May 29, 2023
3
kpgolfpro/Pixabay

Community Wind Farm Earns Support, Generates Income in German Village

May 29, 2023
6
Pexels/pixabay

Engineers Replace Sand in Concrete with Disposable Diapers

May 29, 2023
5
Next Post
Nate Pitkin/wikimedia commons

U.S. Transit Agency Electrifies 18 Years Ahead of Schedule, Cuts Emissions, Creates Jobs

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}