The entire United States faces the threat of a shortage of food because of the severe drought in California, the state which meets about a third of the country’s food needs.

Farms in California - aerial view

The farmlands of California are irrigated by diverted rivers and streams that are filled yearly with runoff from the Sierra Nevada snowpack and by pumping of groundwater as well through some other less-reliable methods. But, the snowpack is disappearing fast.

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The terminator attitude is showing in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s determination to make California a state that embraces hydrogen power like none other.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at the SAE in April 2009

He believes that the government keeps changing its policies related to alternative fuels depending on the prices of gasoline. California on the other hand is only moving in one direction with the hydrogen plans and that is forward, irrespective of what Washington does.

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Pacific Gas & Electric on Wednesday announced it has gone into solar-power contracts with Oakland’s BrightSource Energy to produce a total of 1,310 megawatts of electricity. That’s enough to power 530,000 California homes during peak hours— 12 noon – 7pm.

Solar farm by BrightSource Energy

Go California! Wait! Let me check my PG&E bill. Somebody has to pay for this.

The new agreement includes seven power plants. This is in addition to a deal the two companies struck in April 2008. In that deal 900 megawatts would come from solar thermal power.

BrightSource now has 2,610 megawatts under contract. The new PG&E contract is the largest. BrightSource folk say their output represents more than 40 percent of all large-scale solar thermal contracts in the United States.

“The solar thermal projects announced today exemplify PG&E’s commitment to increasing the amount of renewable energy we provide to our customers throughout Northern and central California,” senior vice president of energy supply for PG&E, said in a statement. “Through these agreements with BrightSource, we can harness the sun’s energy to meet our customers’ power requirements when they need it most — during hot summer days.”

CEO of BrightSource Energy, said the additional contracts came about after BrightSource showed off its technology in Israel with results that were “at or above all the specifications.”

“It proved to them that our technology works. They saw us executing and delivering” efficient solar energy production.

Gov. Schwarzenegger terminated in “more evidence that reliable, renewable and pollution-free technology is here to stay and sunshine will eventually power hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses across our golden state.”

Construction costs for BrightSource will be at least $3 billion and the facilities will be located in the southwestern deserts of California, Nevada and Arizona. The first plant, a 110-megawatt facility at Ivanpah in eastern San Bernardino County will begin operation by 2012.

What I want to know is who is going to pay for this? More specifically, how much will my PG&E bill be going up each month to fund this new venture?

Without any fanfare it’s no longer global warming, well not as often anyway, but climate change. No matter. Real estate assets in California are said to be at risk to extreme weather events, sea level rise, wild fires and such, to the tune of $2.5 trillion.

A group of researchers in UC Berkeley are the first to quantify the costs of the globe’s warming. The final number depends on whether the nation commits to slashing greenhouse gas emissions says the report. How the whole nation will affect California, the report doesn’t say, but mentions that “Our report makes clear the most expensive thing we can do about climate change is nothing.”

The group is now “busy planning a comprehensive ‘Climate Adaptation Strategy’ to commit the state to concrete prevention measures, according to the paper.” Six task forces will be formed, biodiversity and habitat, infrastructure, oceans and coastal resources, public health, water, forestry and agriculture, and each will have an adaptation strategy.

California’s goal is to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 15% from today’s levels. And, they want me to pay for it. My bet is when they find out what doesn’t work, these fellows will leave the state and let those of us who remain foot the bill. Save the Puffins!

Image courtesy of Kevin

Solar energy is without a shadow of a doubt, the leader when it comes to renewable energy sources. It seems that the State of California is assuming the mantle of being the new “Sunshine State” in the US with its amazing progress in utilizing solar energy to the optimum level. Even the economic meltdown that hit the country so hard seems to have been a lot kinder to California’s solar march into the future, as it showing no signs of stopping.

Designed by Ausra in mere seven months, the Kimberlina Solar Thermal Plant is the first of its kind in North America. It was built using an array of solar-thermal panels that use a technology called Compact Linear Fresnel Reflectors, that revolutionizes the traditional notion of solar power. With the Fresnel principle, solar energy is converted into thermal energy and that heat is used to turn water into steam. The working from there on is pretty common with the steam producing electrical energy by rotating the turbines.

The plant will utilize 1,000-foot long mirrors to enhance the process and produce 5MW of electricity when at full capacity.

The Bakersfield plant is also a testing prototype for a future 177MW facility set to open in 2010 in San Luis Obispo that will power more than 120,000 homes. For something so grand and involving solar power, it had to be Arnold who cut the ribbon and so he did.

The future sure looks sunny and bright for California! Check out more pictures after the break. (more…)

After eight years of planning to restore the vastly damaged Giacomini Wetlands in northern California, the National Park Service managed to re-create one of the largest estuary systems in Marin County, which 60 years ago had been unthinkingly cleared out as pasture land for dairy cattle that provided milk and butter during World War II.

Took them two years of bulldozing and excavating to pull down the levees and re-direct the creeks, to bring back the “naturalness”, the wetlands today are slowly getting back to their original form with rare sightings of rays and leopard sharks – apart from other wildlife, gliding through the shallow waters.

Amazing species of animals which had been thought to be extinct and a variety of birds have been spotted in Point Reyes, and also fishes that had abandoned the waters are all gradually coming back.

“The habitat will come back. In a year, no one will know we did anything,” says Park Service hydrologist Ketcham. Sounds like a fairy tail except this one is true. We can do good, IF we want! – via LA Times

There’s going to be a fight and if nobody else wants to take on Bush, California will do it for sure. Bush wants to lift the 27-year old ban on offshore drilling.

Yesterday I brought this topic up at a lunch meeting with friends. (I live in Silicon Valley) One friend immediately blurted out “Fat chance of Bush lifting that ban!” And, I was kind of thinking, why not? My friend went on to say he remembers what it’s like swimming among the oil bubbles off the shore of Galveston, TX. No way was that going to happen in this area. “Save the Puffins!”

Since 1981, America has been prohibited from doing offshore gas drilling and exploration by a federal moratorium. Reasons – protect tourism and lessen the chance of oil spills reaching popular beaches.

Experts (can we trust them?) are telling Bush there are about 18 billion barrels of oil at the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).

America has a choice – accept the high gas prices and/or watch them go up or start exploring and drilling and cursing and yelling and … On the other hand we can change route to solar or wind power, and electric cars!

FIGHT!

[Source: NYTimes] – Image by visualsushi

Hayword, California based, OptiSolar are trying their best to build the world’s largest solar photovoltaic farm (550-megawatt) 100 miles north of Los Angeles in San Luis Obispo County.

The company will produce clean and competitively priced electricity using low profile solar panels that will be placed on ballast on the ground. Thanks to the thin-film photovoltaic technology OptiSolar doesn’t need large structures that turbine-based systems require and will not result in noise pollution.

They are going to start construction in 2010 after completing the local approval process. When the solar photovoltaic farm will be ready it should be able to power up to 190,000 homes and would be a step forward to securing at least 20-percent of the State’s electricity from renewable energy sources by 2010.

Press release (pdf link)