Californians for Energy and Water Abundance

Floating Offshore Wind – An Environmental Catastrophe

Floating Offshore Wind – An Environmental Catastrophe

Last week we examined California’s plans to install between 2,500 and 10,000 floating offshore wind turbines approximately 20 miles off the coast of San Luis Obispo and Humboldt counties. The estimated cost to install 25 gigawatts of capacity, which equates to 10 gigawatts of steady power if adequate storage assets are available, is at least...

By Edward Ring

Floating Offshore Wind – A Financial Catastrophe

Floating Offshore Wind – A Financial Catastrophe

When it comes to looming financial and environmental catastrophes, nothing can compare to floating offshore wind. It is energy policy at its worst. In an analysis earlier this year (WC #36), using cost estimates published by a European energy consulting firm, I estimated the total project cost for floating offshore wind off the California coast at, best...

By Edward Ring

Comprehensive Water Policy Recommendations Released

Comprehensive Water Policy Recommendations Released

A study released in May, The Magnitude of California’s Water Challenges, anticipated annual statewide water supply losses in the coming decades as follows: ending groundwater overdraft 2-3 million acre-feet (MAF), less from the Colorado River 0.5-0.8 MAF, climate change 1-3 MAF, and increases to required environmental flows 1-2 MAF. The total losses? 4.6 to 9 MAF...

By Edward Ring

How Many People Will Water from the Delta Tunnel Support?

How Many People Will Water from the Delta Tunnel Support?

According to the California Department of Water Resources (CDWR), “The Delta Conveyance Project would yield about 500,000 acre feet of water per year, which is enough for about 5.2 million people.” Let’s put that into perspective. Over the past ten years, on average, California’s farms have required 33.4 million acre-feet per year, and California’s cities have...

By Edward Ring

Quantifying California’s Brave EV Future

Quantifying California’s Brave EV Future

Earlier this spring Motor Trend published a brief report with a title that revealed more than a little editorializing: “Guess Which State Is Exploring Replacing Gas Taxes With Surveillance?” And of course, that state is California. Let’s quickly dispense with some editorializing of our own, so we can move on to the numbers. “Surveillance” is already here. New cars,...

By Edward Ring

California Policy Czars Ignore Water-Supply Solutions in Plain Sight

California Policy Czars Ignore Water-Supply Solutions in Plain Sight

The state is spending billions on water-rationing and tens of billions on a giant tunnel even though far better measures exist to keep faucets flowing. Chronic water scarcity in California is indeed the new normal, but it’s not because of climate change. Even if the state is destined to experience lengthier droughts and reduced snowpack,...

By Edward Ring

California’s Water Economy: The Three Biggest Choices

California’s Water Economy: The Three Biggest Choices

If water strategy in California had to be distilled down to just three projects with the greatest impact, the answers might vary a great deal depending on who was asked. But in terms of quality of life impact, the ongoing implementation of State Water Resources Control Board to “Make Conservation a Way of Life” is...

By Edward Ring

California’s Water Economy: An Overview

California’s Water Economy: An Overview

If energy powers civilization, water gives it life. One of the biggest challenges of our time is to develop the means to deliver both of these essentials in abundance, while also keeping them affordable and ecologically sustainable. We believe this is possible with common sense solutions that balance the needs of people with the needs...

By Edward Ring

California’s Energy Economy: Challenges and Opportunities

California’s Energy Economy: Challenges and Opportunities

Last week’s Energy Overview (WC #48) provided links to a few of the most useful and authoritative references available on energy use globally and in California: the Statistical Review of World Energy, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory’s Energy Flow Charts, fuel inputs to California from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and reports on California energy use with...

By Edward Ring

California’s Energy Economy: An Overview

California’s Energy Economy: An Overview

As we complete our first full year of offering information on California’s energy and water policies, it seems appropriate to accept the following challenge: Identify just 20 links to sources that contain the most useful and revealing quantitative facts about energy and water in California, with a brief explanation accompanying each link. To accomplish this, over the...

By Edward Ring

Salmon Restoration Must Address Bass Predators

Salmon Restoration Must Address Bass Predators

As reported in the Fresno Bee earlier this week, “More than 20,000 San Joaquin Valley residents could be left high and dry, literally, by Sacramento politicians intent on using $17.5 million that had paid for water trucked to their homes to help fill California’s gaping two-year $56 billion deficit.” To begin with, there shouldn’t be a...

By Edward Ring

Can an Abundance Agenda Unite Business?

Can an Abundance Agenda Unite Business?

Scarcity and high prices are not an inevitable fact of life in California. They are the result of political choices. For nearly 50 years, and with escalating severity that shows no sign of abating, politicians in California have enacted legislation that is explicitly responsible for unaffordable housing, unreliable and expensive energy, and chronic shortages of...

By Edward Ring

Forest Thinning Adds Millions of Acre-Feet to California’s Water Supply

Forest Thinning Adds Millions of Acre-Feet to California’s Water Supply

Practical solutions to California’s energy and water shortages will always have a better chance of being implemented if they adhere to the limitations placed upon them by the climate lobby. Thankfully there are numerous solutions, strategic in their impact, that would fulfill this criteria. Sadly, however, most of them remain controversial. Examples of climate compliant...

By Edward Ring

The Abundance Mindset

The Abundance Mindset

If energy powers modern civilization, then water gives it life. And in California, for at least the last 20 years, with escalating severity, life has been tough. There isn’t enough water to go around. Water scarcity is not being forced upon Californians by climate change. Like so many other fundamental challenges Californians must endure –...

By Edward Ring