There is concern that the energy requirements of data centers will consume so much electricity that demand will overwhelm supply. While this is certainly a possible outcome, the actual impact may have the opposite effect. For starters, while the total consumption of electricity by data centers is significant and growing, credible estimates point to manageable...
Executive Summary California’s water supply challenges increasingly pose risks not only to the state’s economy, but to national food production, interstate commerce, international trade, and national economic stability and security. While seawater desalination is a proven technology used worldwide to expand reliable water supplies, large-scale projects along California’s coast have faced significant regulatory barriers at...
With the world anxiously watching the conflict in Iran, it was no surprise that the first segment in the March 1 edition of CBS’s 60 Minutes featured an interview with Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last Shah. The second segment, however, returned to a staple theme of the CBS news team. It presented...
If enough people in California agreed on a state water strategy, the political obstacles would be overcome. If every major water agency, every farming association, and a critical mass of environmental groups were all committed to a specific set of policies and projects, then elected politicians would be bound to adhere to those priorities. Regulatory...
It’s a risk to promote an agenda that calls for practical water projects, and at the same time, calls for practical energy projects. To begin with, the word “practical,” in both cases, is a matter of bitter debate. Equally challenging is the fact that even within each of these communities, water, and energy, there is...
On February 12, the Trump Administration formally repealed the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 “endangerment finding” that gave the EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from virtually anything that used energy, including vehicles, power plants, factories, dairy farms, landfills, fertilizer, rice paddies, tractors, air conditioners, refrigerators, etc. Reactions were swift. From CBS News, “an enormous blow to...
About the time it became inevitable that California was going to lose two major refineries, in May of last year, an alarming study was released by Michael Mische, an economist and business professor at USC. In his analysis, “Ensuring California’s Gasoline Security for the 21st Century,” Mische made a prediction that was widely quoted: “Based on current...
When it comes to the water supply in California for cities and farms, nothing matters more than how we manage the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. As of 2/09 we were 132 days into the 2025-26 rainfall season which began on 10/01/2025. That’s enough time to get an idea of how delta management is shaping up this...
In debates over water policy in California, a common argument is that if only we managed the systems we’ve already got, there would be plenty of water for everyone. Agricultural and urban use would not have to be rationed, taxpayers and ratepayers would not have to be unnecessarily burdened, and we wouldn’t have to wait...
Even confirmed skeptics should be impressed at the rapid improvement in the price and performance of EVs. A new 2026 Nissan Leaf sells for just under $30,000, and can charge in 30 minutes. That’s still not competitive with affordable gasoline powered vehicles, but the gap is closing fast. But while we may be sanguine about the...
For the last 25 years, the US Drought Monitor (USDM), a collaborative effort by the University of Nebraska, NOAA, the USDA, and other experts throughout the country, has released a weekly map that shows the location and intensity of drought across the United States. On January 8, for the first time ever, USDM’s weekly map showed the...
The Statistical Review of Global Energy, has been published every year since 2023 by The Energy Institute. For nearly 75 years before that it was published by British Petroleum. It is one of the most authoritative sources available for energy statistics. It is a terrific place, if not the place, to develop a deeper understanding of our global...