Abundance, and its political twin, affordability, are now bipartisan mantras, but cannot be realized if the only permissible avenues are via urban infill, renewable energy, and water rationing. California is uniquely positioned to do much more. Breakthrough technologies and big projects, both pioneered here, could unite a powerful coalition of farmers, energy companies, high tech...
California’s state government has set an official goal of “net zero” by 2045. That’s less than 19 years from now. Already in pursuit of that goal, the state has managed to have the highest priced gasoline and the highest priced electricity in the entire continental United States. Condemning its residents to a poverty inducing bleeding...
With war in the Middle East disrupting shipments of crude oil, we have another reason to question policies that are driving our in-state oil industry into terminal decline. To briefly recap, Californians consumed 484 million barrels of oil in 2025, with in-state production only providing 111 million barrels. The rest was imported. It doesn’t have to...
Earlier this year, the California Coastal Commission released a report titled “Statewide Strategy for the Coexistence of California Fishing Communities and Offshore Wind Energy.” In addition to providing a “guiding framework” to protect California’s fishing communities, it “presents a roadmap for proposed offshore wind projects to become consistent with California’s relevant Coastal Act policies that recognize...
The Carlsbad desalination plant is reportedly operating at half-capacity, basically because it’s less expensive to import water from the Colorado River. That is likely to change, as Arizona’s Department of Water Resources is negotiating with the San Diego County Water Authority to purchase some of the water they get from the Colorado River. The funds from Arizona will...
Along with the California Condor, one of our state’s most magnificent environmental success stories of the 20th century is how Mono Lake was saved. In the early 1980s, after decades of unsustainable water withdrawals from the Owens River into the Los Angeles Aqueduct, the lake had declined in elevation to 6,372 feet. The decline was...
The salmon decline in the delta has been attributed to the impact of water withdrawals into the California Aqueduct and the Delta Mendota Canal. But something else happened at the same time as the pumps began operating; dredging in most channels in the delta virtually ceased. For the last 50 years, especially in the south...
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...