California Water and Infrastructure Report for June 23, 2022 - PR

California State Water Project Aqueduct

California Water and Infrastructure Report For June 23 2022

by Patrick Ruckert Published weekly since July, 2014 An archive of all these weekly reports can be found at both links below: http://www.californiadroughtupdate.org https://www.facebook.com/CaliforniaDroughtUpdate For a free subscription to the weekly report: Send me an email-- patruckert@gmail.com

A Note to Readers Following the U.S. Drought Monitor, this week's report begins with my new article published on the LaRouche PAC website, “The Western States Megadrought is About to Blow Up the Nation's Food Supply .”

That is followed by a more comprehensive report on the real physical economy of the nation by my colleague Brian Lantz: “Using National Banking to Secure Our Food Supply.”

Next some background on the climatic conditions of the Southwestern states, demonstrating that the past 150 years have been the wettest during the past more than 1000 years which were much drier,with megadroughts lasting hundreds of years. The paleoclimatologist authors of the study hypothesize that perhaps the western states climate is returning to that more characteristic climate, rather than the present drought being something unprecedented.

A region that generally gets little coverage is that of the Klamath River Basin, located on the OregonCalifornia border. Yet, for the past few years, the impact of the drought has devastated the regions farmers, ranchers and Native American tribes. A few recent articles highlight the crisis in the region.

In addition to the coverage of the developments on the Colorado River in my article, additional developments are reported in the next section.

The report concludes with a very thorough article on the potential for reversing the decision to close the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant from the British publication The Guardian.

U.S. Drought Monitor The West Much of the Northern Tier of the U.S. from the Pacific Northwest to the Northern Plains has seen marked improvements in recent months due to a persistent storm track and near to below-normal temperatures. That same pattern continued this week, leading to 1-category improvements from the Pacific Northwest eastward to Montana. Improvements in Montana are the result of 7-day precipitation surpluses of more than 1 inch for many locations and near to below-normal temperatures.

In the Pacific Northwest, long-term indicators continued to improve due to the recent storminess and below-normal temperatures leading up to this week.

In the Four Corners region, heavy rainfall was observed in a large swath stretching across western New Mexico, due to a robust Southwest Monsoon circulation.

However, there were no marked improvements to drought indicators this week to warrant improvements. Given drought is strongly entrenched in the Four Corners, an active Southwest

Monsoon circulation will need to persist for conditions to improve.

California

Statistics Week

Date Current 2022-06-21 Last Week 2022-06-14 3 Months Ago 2022-03-22 Start of Calendar Year 2021-12-28 Start of Water Year 2021-09-28 One Year Ago 2021-06-22

None 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

D0-D4 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

D1-D4 99.79 99.79 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

D2-D4 97.48 97.48 93.65 86.28 93.93 94.73

D3-D4 59.81 59.81 37.69 32.93 87.88 85.44

D4 DSCI 11.59 11.59 0.00 0.84 45.66 33.32

The Western States Megadrought is About to Blow Up the Nation's Food Supply

By Pat Ruckert June 24, 2022 https://www.larouchepac.com/the_western_states_megadrought_is_about_to_blow_up_the_nation_s_f ood_supply

Photo: Global Water Partnership / Flickr / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

On May 2, I published on this site an article titled, “Spreading Western Drought Threatens Food and Electrical Supply.” The threat presented then is now a reality, adding additional fuel to the inflationary fire that is threatening the well-being of all Americans, except, perhaps, the billionaires. And it underlines the importance of the LaRouche PAC campaign to abolish the Federal Reserve and return the nation to national banking.

As the drought in the western states spreads eastward, now about 90 million Americans are living under conditions of drought, with about 65 million of them living in areas of “Severe” to “Extreme” Drought, mostly in the southwestern states.

A few days ago, at least 2,000 cattle deaths occurred in Kansas due to high temperatures, humidity, and low winds that made it difficult for the cows to stay cool, underlining the urgency of the crisis we now face.

Our Food Supply Between California and Arizona, almost two-thirds of the nation's fruits and vegetables are grown and harvested. California alone produces nearly all of this nation’s almonds, artichokes, avocados, broccoli, carrots, celery, kiwi, figs, garlic, grapes, raisins, raspberries, strawberries, honeydew melons, nectarines, olives, pistachios, plums, tangerines, mandarins, and walnuts.

If panic and hysteria have not yet been expressed by political leaders and water managers in California, and throughout the 7 state Colorado River Basin as water literally disappears from the dams and reservoirs which provide power and water to millions, it is not because those leaders and managers are exhibiting calmness under pressure. It’s because of their determination to maintain the fundamentally unchanging policy of crisis management, rather than committing to the types of major infrastructure and energy policies and programs which could actually solve the crisis.

Solving the crisis means returning to leaders with vision and a commitment to build that which generations ahead will require. Such leadership built the great projects that we still rely upon today like the Tennessee Valley Authority, Hoover Dam, Grand Coulee Dam, and especially the magnificent California water management system. That project, built over nearly 40 years by President Franklin Roosevelt, California Governor Pat Brown, and President John Kennedy, was the last water infrastructure built in California, nearly 50 years ago. The failure to maintain, modernize, and expand this infrastructure is the reason why California is in a drought state of emergency now.

While wells are going dry for thousands of people in California, and an estimated 690,000 acres of the state's agricultural fields have already been fallowed this year, the fallowing is forecast to potentially affect hundreds of thousands of acres more. The impact of dry conditions and the subsequent land fallowing will have a serious impact on employment of farm workers and the income of farmers. One estimate is that 25,000 farm jobs will be lost and the economic damage could total $3.5 billion. Rice growers in the Sacramento River watershed, who normally plant 500,000 acres, have planted less than 200,000 acres this year.

While it is true that short-term actions are limited to crisis alleviation (as when a small town's wells go dry), with the will and intent to do so, the creation of many desalination plants in southern California could be built and delivering water in just a few years. Even in environmentalist California, large projects can be completed very quickly. I cite the replacement of the Oroville Dam spillway in 2017, and the one-year construction time, after the final permit was obtained, for building the Carlsbad desalination plant.

In the case of the Oroville Dam spillway, which disintegrated in a near overflow of the reservoir, threatening the lives of nearly 100,000 people, the contract for the work was signed within two weeks of its destruction, and work began a few days later. Seven-day weeks and twenty-four hour days ensured that what would have taken years just for the permitting process, was completed in one year.

An unprecedented water crisis Some months ago, the Central Valley Project and the California State Water Project cutoff tens of thousands of farmers from taking any water out of the aqueducts and rivers and streams on multiple watersheds throughout the state.

Two weeks ago, in sweeping water curtailments stretching from Fresno to the Oregon state line, 212 public water systems in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed have been ordered to stop pumping from rivers and streams. This has not only impacted more agricultural areas, but it also includes a 100% cut-off to San Francisco from the Hetch Hetchy aqueduct, which delivers water to the city. The city does have stored at least a year's supply, but another year or more of drought is a probability.

In California, almost weekly new restrictions on water use are announced. Recently the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California imposed mandatory rationing on six million people in the Los Angeles area, citing the complete cutoff of water which normally flows by aqueduct via the California State Water Project from the north of the state. Even deeper cutbacks are anticipated as the summer continues.

On the Colorado River, top federal water officials are warning Western states that there will be further cuts to their access to Colorado River water next year. The Bureau of Reclamation, which manages the river, warned last week that the cuts could be drastic, reducing Colorado River water access by between 2 and 4 million acre-feet across the seven states that rely on it, just to protect critical levels in 2023.

Federal officials warned that if the states cannot come to a voluntary agreement on how to share the cuts by August, then the Bureau of Reclamation will take that responsibility on itself and impose them.

The states of California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming and Utah, plus Mexico, are the ones sharing the water of the river. Tanya Trujillo, of the Interior Department warned in a speech on June 16, that unless these cuts are taken, Lakes Mead and Powell, and the Hoover and Glen Canyon dams could become inoperable as early as next year. That means water would be so low in the reservoirs that water could not be pumped to the millions who depend upon it. It also means that the electricity produced by the dams would cease.

The Colorado River is in a megadrought that began in 2000 that has reduced the two largest U.S. reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, to less than 30 percent of their storage capacity. Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam, the dams that create the reservoirs, are already producing 30 percent less electricity than when the reservoirs are full.

Last year the federal government declared a shortage on the river, which triggered delivery cuts to Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico by 20, 5 and 5 percent, respectively, commencing in January 2022. In addition, California, Nevada, and Arizona have agreed to take 500,000 acre feet less this year and next year from the river. Now all the states must cut another 2-4 million acre feet from their allocations.

Yet, even with all those measures and more to come, it is feared that the flow of the river over the next few years will be even less. From 1922 through the 1990s, the annual flow of the river was about 15 million acre feet. Now it is about 12 million acre feet, and some forecasts warn that the flow could even be reduced to 9 million acre feet.

More than 40 million people in the southwest depend upon the river, its reservoirs, and dams, for their water in cities and on farms, as do millions for their electricity.

This is what happens when you have crisis managers rather than leaders who boldly build great projects preemptively to service the needs of the future. The required new leadership would not be subservient to the Federal Reserve system of gambling and globalization, nor subservient to the insane myths of “zero carbon,” feudal green renewable energy sources, or similar destructive beliefs against human intervention into “nature.”

Provided we put our minds to electing this leadership, we can proceed with building 30 large desalination plants to deal with this and future megadroughts in California. A 50,000 acre feet per year plant was opened in Carlsbad, California in 2015. That can be the model for 30 more. And in the not too distant future, we shall build them powered by nuclear reactors. Similarly, these leaders would champion major water management infrastructure, such as that envisioned by NAWPA, along with major research into weather modification, to address the problems now hitting the Colorado Basin.

Using National Banking to Secure Our Food Supply

By Brian Lantz June 19, 2022 https://www.larouchepac.com/using_national_banking_to_secure_our_food_supply Think of how many people one farmer could feed 250 years ago, compared to today. There is no better metric of what Alexander Hamilton described as "the productive power of labor," than in the transformation of American farming over the centuries. That productivity has been crippled by monetarism, globalization, and green policies. Tonight, Brian Lantz will discuss how to reverse the disaster.

From the Agriculture section of Brian's report, (VII. Agriculture) Whether you focus on the shortage of baby formula, the lack of fertilizer delivered to farmers, or the ever-changing array of empty shelves in the grocery store, one thing stands out: The Biden collective has been a disaster, dramatically exacerbating an already present crisis in American agriculture.

...Only national banking, replacing the bankrupt Federal Reserve central banking system, can organize the required flow of productive credits into the real economy, to grow our population and the productivity of our nation. This is particularly true for modern, capital, and technology-intensive agriculture. In addition, vigorous anti-trust enforcement must be undertaken against the agricultural cartels which are invariably tied to the speculative practices of the City of London and Wall Street. They now dictate both farm prices and farm products.

READ MORE: https://www.larouchepac.com/for_a_u_s_economic_recovery_a_third_national_bank_now _indispensable? utm_campaign=20220618_class_ntlbnk3_bl&utm_medium=email&utm_source=larouche pac#h_1326276003201654861595183

The California drought is helping return the weather pattern to normal While the Megadrought is the worst in the about 200 years since settlement and development in the western states began, the idea, as promoted by the “global warming” mafia, that both the drought and its intensity are unprecedented and is caused by mankind's increasing the CO2 content of the atmosphere, is absurd. The following item demonstrates that the West over 1000 years ago, long before the industrial era, was dominated by alternating megadroughts and megafloods. Some of those megadroughts lasted more than a century.

As the article states: “However, the current drought appears to be well within normal fluctuations in the state's climate, according to research by Ingram and other paleoclimatologists.”

Note the article is from 2014.

Here is the link to my review of the book by Lynn Ingram, the author featured in the following article: The West Without Water: What Past Floods, Droughts, and Other Climatic Clues Tell Us About Tomorrow, by B. Lynn Ingram and Frances Malamud-Roam https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2014/eirv41n19-20140509/48-52_4119.pdf

The California drought is helping return the weather pattern to normal https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm? postnum=13274&fbclid=IwAR226qknaRyMTkbWaAvB4hgp4JSj6MuOLTCpHjNp2ax6zpdDKsFGjAOr hMQ • Author: Jeannette E. Warnert Published on: March 27, 2014 By studying the changing water level of Mono Lake, paleoclimatologists have learned California suffered a long dry spell from 1,800 to 600 years ago. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons) Scientists studying long-ago California climate have realized that the 20th century was abnormally wet and rainy, according to researcher Lynn Ingram, professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science at UC Berkeley.

“The past 150 years have been wetter than the past 2,000 years,” Ingram said. “And this is when our water development, population growth and agricultural industry were established.”

Ingram made the statement in a video presentation that is part of the UC California Institute for Water Resources new online video series. The series consists of presentations featuring UC and other experts speaking on topics aimed at helping farmers and all Californians better understand and cope with drought.

Precipitation during the last three years in California has been low by standards set since records were kept, which began in the late 1800s. However, the current drought appears to be well within normal fluctuations in the state's climate, according to research by Ingram and other paleoclimatologists. A trend of gradually increasing temperature since the 1960s has been causing earlier spring snowmelt, decreased snowpack, and is predicted to cause more extreme droughts and floods.

In her 17-minute video, Ingram noted that her colleague Scott Stine of California State University East Bay found some of the first evidence of a medieval warm period in California by studying the water level of Mono Lake. The lake expands and contracts depending on the amount of runoff from the adjoining Sierra Nevada. Stine's research reveals a dry spell from 1,800 to 600 years ago.

Ingram studies sediment cores at locations near the San Francisco Bay, which is fed by a watershed that covers 40 percent of California.

“The salinity reflects precipitation and runoff from a very large area of California,” she said. “As fresh water comes in, it mixes with salt water. Sediment records changes in salinity over time.”

Looking at the chemistry of the sediment layers and their fossil composition, she was able to tease out a record of past floods and droughts.

“There was a significant increase in salinity during the medieval warm period,” Ingram said. “Salinity increased from 15 to 22 parts per thousand in the dry period.”

The higher salinity suggests there was less fresh water flowing into the bay.

Ingram said scientists believe the current warming trend will continue into the future.

“The drier climate will increase evaporation, so drier soils, more frequent wildfires, increased dust levels,” Ingram said. “It's also predicted that we will have more extreme climate; as the climate warms, you're adding more energy and more water vapor in the atmosphere. That will produce larger floods and deeper droughts.”

Detailed information about California's climate past and future may be found in a book Ingram wrote with Frances Malamud-Roam, The West without Water: What Past Floods, Droughts, and Other Climatic Clues Tell Us About Tomorrow.

Watch her talk here: Climate change and paleoclimatology: 2013/2014 in perspective Mar 24, 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_K6GoRXMIQ&t=2s

Klamath River Basin A region that generally gets little coverage is that of the Klamath River Basin, located on the OregonCalifornia border. Yet, for the past few years, the impact of the drought has devasted the regions farmers, ranchers and Native American tribes. Here we present a few recent articles that highlight the crisis in the region.

Klamath River Basin https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/habitat-conservation/klamath-river-basin

Water is going to stay in the Scott, Shasta rivers this year-- Severe drought, water mismanagement put Klamath Basin tributaries at risk

By Sonia Waraich | swaraich@times-standard.com | Eureka Times-Standard June 21, 2022 https://www.times-standard.com/2022/06/21/state-water-board-continues-emergency-curtailments-onscott-shasta-rivers/ The state water board is continuing to prioritize keeping water in the Shasta and Scott rivers this year to ensure there is enough water to meet environmental needs in the face of continuing drought.

On Tuesday, the State Water Resources Control Board voted unanimously to continue the emergency curtailments of water diversions from the rivers put in place last year and recommended new minimum instream flows for the Scott River and Shasta River watersheds.

Craig Tucker, a local environmental consultant, was among the many residents from the region speaking in favor of the curtailments and said he was pleased with the decision to continue the emergency measures.

The Scott and Shasta river watersheds are tributaries to the Klamath River and severe drought combined with water mismanagement have put critical fish species at risk.

The Scott River basin in Siskiyou County is one of the largest producers of coho salmon, which is listed as an endangered species by both the federal and state government and the Shasta River produces 50% of the wild Chinook salmon in the Klamath Basin.

“The majority of coho salmon left in the Klamath Basin use the Scott River at some point in their life cycle,” Tucker said. “The Shasta, characteristically a very different river system, may be the biggest producer of Chinook salmon among all the Klamath tributaries. So making sure those two rivers remain productive is pretty key to the Klamath fisheries basin-wide.”

Last year, C. shasta, a deadly fish pathogen, ran rampant through the juvenile salmon population, resulting in a mass fish kill.

The water board issued curtailment orders on the Scott and Shasta rivers during the past September, a few months after Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a drought state of emergency in counties where watersheds had critically low flows, like the Klamath.

Costs spike, fields go fallow in Klamath Issue Date: June 22, 2022

By Kathy Coatney https://www.agalert.com/story/?id=15895

Modoc County farmer Lucky Ackley says extreme dry conditions in the Klamath Basin have impacted farmers and ranchers who this season had to make difficult choices, such as whether to fallow ground or sell herds, during a time of skyrocketing energy and other production costs. Photo/Kathy Coatney

The Klamath Basin has dealt with reduced water for decades, but this year is particularly grim.

The region is facing extreme dry conditions, as one of many ground zeros in a western U.S. multiyear drought some scientists describe as the worst in 1,200 years. For a third straight year, the amount of water farmers can receive from Upper Klamath Lake and the Klamath River is a trickle at most.

But Lucky Ackley, owner of the Ackley Ranch in the Modoc County town of Newell, is still farming and ranching—even though it is costing him a small fortune to do so.

Ackley runs 600 head of cattle on rangeland and grows 1,300 acres of grass alfalfa, alfalfa, orchard grass and grain hay. All his hay acreage is on well water and, so far, he hasn't had to fallow any ground or sell off any cattle.

That's a very small relief in this region, in which more than 1,000 farmers and ranchers were told by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in April that they could have barely one-seventh of their normal surfacewater allocation this year.

The water shortages impact livestock grazing and result in increasing numbers of fallowed farm fields, which in turn threaten production contracts for farmers growing many Klamath Basin crops.

On April 11, the bureau announced that the water inflow into Upper Klamath Lake stood at record lows, meaning farmers would get 15% or less of their full surface-water allocation.

"We wish we had better news today," Ernest Conant, the bureau's regional director of the California Great Basin region, said in making the announcement. "Obviously, there are no winners in this critical year, as all interests are suffering—fisheries, farmers, tribes and waterfowl alike. But given the current hydrology that we have to work with, we did the best job we could."

The water-allocation decisions were based on considerations, including legal rulings, on maintaining lake levels to protect two federally endangered fish species.

In its analysis, the Klamath Water Users Association said federal mandates for water use from Upper Klamath Lake break down this way: 40% of the lake's water will be dedicated to river flows for salmon; 28% will be used to protect lake levels for Klamath suckerfish; and 27% is expected to be lost to evaporation.

The association, which advocates for irrigated agriculture, said that means "5% or less may be available to Klamath Basin food production."

Besides the lack of water, skyrocketing input costs are also having a major impact on Klamath Basin growers. "Our fertilizer has tripled since last year. Our fuel has tripled from last year," Ackley said.

He said drought and market conditions are spurring fears that water and fertilizer may become unaffordable.

Because less hay is being produced, it's at a premium price, he said. But that doesn't make up for the reduced yield and the water shortages.

"Hay prices are at all-time record highs, which sounds great," Boyd said. "But if you had to cut your acreage by 35% or 40%, maybe you're staying afloat."

Local farmers are ready to fight water restrictions: "They have lost their livelihoods."

by Sam Chimenti Tuesday, June 21st 2022 https://krcrtv.com/news/local/local-farmers-are-ready-to-fight-water-restrictions-they-have-lost-theirlivelihoods Residents in Anderson and Cottonwood are ready to fight for their water (KRCR) SHASTA COUNTY, Calif. — Residents and farmers in the Anderson-Cottonwood Irrigation District (ACID) are ready to fight for their water.

After being allocated zero irrigation water in 2022 for the first time ever, locals have begun pushing back at the water district board and bureau of reclamation.

Residents believed their water contract was "iron-clad" and that, regardless of conditions, they would be given enough water to survive the summer months. Furthermore, residents were outraged to learn the water they did have was sold off, without the public's approval or knowledge.

The biggest sign of the dry conditions: the ACID water canal has run completely dry. As a result, of the roughly 800 farms that exist in the district, almost all of them look the same... dried up and barren.

While ACID officials are hopeful this year will be a one-off, locals aren't buying it. And they're angry.

"People are mad because they have lost their livelihoods," said Ed Roberts, a Cottonwood native and Millwright. "They've lost investments that they have generations involved in. We're not a big commercial grower, but we have a lot of small farms, and a lot of people want to just support

themselves, their families. And they want to pass that onto their kids, their grandchildren."

"This is going to put an end to that. We're not going to be able to pass this on if we don't fight it now and beat it."

Roberts and others are working on hiring an attorney to represent them in this case. Among their other frustrations is the lack of water that's being kept in the Northstate.

The Colorado River As I discuss in my article above, the Colorado River is in an unprecedented crisis as the flow of the river continues to decline.

When the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation last week ordered states to conserve 2 to 4 million acre feet of water beginning next year, and must present a plan to do so in August, less than two months away, sending shock waves through the seven states. How will that be accomplished no one knows, or even if it can be done. But, if the states do not have a workable plan by August, then the federal government will impose the plan.

Colorado uses just over 2 million acre feet annually from the river, while California takes over 4 million acre feet. Arizona receives a little more than 2 million acre feet and Nevada gets about 800,000 acre feet.

About three-quarters of the Colorado River water goes to farming and ranching.

The surface of Lake Mead, the country’s largest reservoir, now stands at 1,045 feet above sea level. It’s forecast to drop more than 26 feet by July 2023. If Lake Mead were to keep dropping, the level would eventually approach a danger zone at 895 feet, below which water would no longer pass through Hoover Dam to supply California, Arizona and Mexico — a level known as “dead pool.”

The flow of the Colorado has declined 20% since 2000.

Last year, the federal government declared a shortage on the Colorado River for the first time, triggering cutbacks in water deliveries to Arizona, Nevada and Mexico.

The headline for the first article below is more than alarmist, it is hysterical. Yet, the content of the article does calm down. Another article this week had the headline, “Can we curtail a Colorado River catastrophe?” The article is stupid, so I will not include it here.

Lake Mead nears dead pool status as water levels hit another historic low If the reservoir dips below 895 feet — a possibility still years away — Lake Mead would reach dead pool, carrying enormous consequences for millions of people across Arizona, California, Nevada and parts of Mexico.

June 22, 2022

By Denise Chow https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/lake-mead-nears-dead-pool-status-water-levels-hitanother-historic-low-rcna34733 Lake Mead's water levels this week dropped to historic lows, bringing the nation's largest reservoir

less than 150 feet away from "dead pool" — when the reservoir is so low that water cannot flow downstream from the dam.

Lake Mead's water level on Wednesday was measured at 1,044.03 feet, its lowest elevation since the lake was filled in the 1930s. If the reservoir dips below 895 feet — a possibility still years away — Lake Mead would reach dead pool, carrying enormous consequences for millions of people across Arizona, California, Nevada and parts of Mexico.

"This is deadly serious stuff," said Robert Glennon, an emeritus professor at the University of Arizona who specializes in water law and policy.

Persistent drought conditions over the past two decades, exacerbated by climate change and increased water demands across the southwestern United States, have contributed to Lake Mead's depletion.

Though the reservoir is at risk of becoming a dead pool, it would most likely take several more years to reach that level, Glennon said.

In the meantime, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and water managers across the southwestern United States are making efforts to manage the flow of water into the Colorado River and regulate water use among states in the region. These measures are designed to help replenish Lake Mead, which was created on the Colorado River on the Arizona-Nevada border when the Hoover Dam was built in the early 1930s, and another severely depleted reservoir, Lake Powell, which was created along the border of Utah and Arizona.

"Electricity generation in our western reservoirs becomes a problem as the water level in the reservoirs goes down," Glennon said.

As a reservoir is depleted, there is less water flowing through turbines and less liquid pressure to make them spin, which means the turbines produce less electricity, he added.

The Fight to Keep Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant Open: An Update The last nuclear plant in California – and the unexpected quest to save it The Diablo Canyon facility, which provides 9% of the state’s energy, was due to shutter in 2025, but the state’s energy crunch could save it

Gabrielle Canon in Oakland Thu 23 Jun 2022 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/23/california-last-nuclear-power-plant-save • California’s last nuclear plant was nearing the end of its life.

The Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, on the edge of the Pacific ocean, was due to close in three years. Photograph: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

Tucked against picturesque bluffs along California’s central coast, the aging facility known as Diablo Canyon began operating in 1985. It was designed for a different era, with analog knobs and systems that no longer comply with the state’s environmental standards. The plant has faced controversies over its impact on underwater ecosystems, the production of toxic waste and its proximity to earthquake fault lines – and its planned closure by 2025 seemed an all-but-certain step in California’s ambitious journey toward a greener future.

But with just three years to go, the fate of Diablo Canyon now looks less assured.

California is facing steep energy challenges that are only expected to worsen as the climate crisis intensifies. The plant still provides roughly 9% of the state’s energy – the largest single source of electricity and enough to supply more than 3 million residents. The state is still far from finding a reliable and climate-friendly replacement, and concerns are rising that it will fall back on fossil fuels to fill the gap.

Now, decades-old discussions about whether the plant should continue to play a role in California’s renewable energy transition are being rehashed. A diverse league of advocates – including energy officials, scientists, California’s governor Gavin Newsom, and even the musician Grimes – are pushing for renewed life for Diablo Canyon. Critics, meanwhile, say keeping the plant open would only be a step backward.

Diablo Canyon has come to signify broader questions about the state’s energy future, and whether it’s ready to leave nuclear power behind. It’s an issue also lingering in the thoughts of officials across the US. Half of the country’s clean energy comes from nuclear power plants – but in many areas, it is being phased out.

“It’s a sort of a bellwether – a test – of the political future for nuclear power in California and in the shifting environmental coalitions,” said Alex Trembath, the deputy director of the Breakthrough

Institute, an energy and environment thinktank that advocates in favor of nuclear energy. “I think the story of Diablo Canyon is more important than just another plant.”

Protests and money problems The many plants that once dotted California have closed one by one, and a law passed in 1976 banned new construction of nuclear stations until waste could be permanently disposed of. That’s left Diablo Canyon as the sole provider of nuclear energy.

The Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in 1987, two years after it became operational. Photograph: George D Lepp/Getty Images

Even before it began operating, Diablo Canyon was a source of scrutiny. For years it was the site of demonstrations as anti-nuclear sentiments grew in the wake of disasters like Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and later on, Fukushima. There were concerns raised about environmental degradation and questions about storage of the nuclear waste produced by the facility.

But it was not the protests that led to Diablo Canyon’s closure timeline. Instead, it was a matter of money.

California regulators had cracked down on the system used at Diablo Canyon in 2010, a process known as “once-through cooling” for its impact on marine life. Roughly 2.5bn gallons of seawater slosh through the plant’s enormous intake tubes each day, cooling hot steam heated by nuclear reactors. The warmed water flushed back into the sea has had profound effects on ocean ecosystems and animals, including fish, sea lions, turtles, and other creatures are killed by the millions each year by the systems themselves, according to the California water board.

Facing requirements for expensive upgrades and retrofits, estimated at roughly $4.5bn, and an increasingly competitive energy market centered around renewables, the plant’s owner and operator PG&E agreed to a settlement in 2016 with environmental groups and labor organizations not to seek renewal on the licenses for its two reactors, which expire in 2024 and 2025 respectively.

Endorsed by state regulators in 2018, the plan also gave California nearly a decade to ramp up the decarbonization of its grid and replace the lost energy with more affordable renewable sources. Unlike other plants that shut down abruptly due to mechanical errors or financing issues, the end of Diablo Canyon was heralded as an opportunity to phase out nuclear the right way.

Energy challenges amid the climate crisis But in the years since, the energy landscape has shifted. California, which has pledged to run on 100% renewable electricity by 2045, is not on track to meet its goals. In order to get there, it needs to triple its

current capacity and expand renewable sources at a “record-breaking rate”, according to the state’s energy commission.

The climate crisis has also put the grid under immense strain. A historic drought has left the American west with waning water levels, threatening hydropower production, and spiking temperatures have caused surges in energy use, resulting in seasonal threats of rolling blackouts. Wildfires have also threatened disruptions, taking out transmission and distribution lines.

There are growing concerns that the state will be forced to fall back on polluting forms of energy, including natural gas, once the Diablo Canyon goes dark. As things stand currently, California would have to increase renewable energy by 20% over the next two years, as hydroelectric power wanes, the chances of which experts said were “increasingly dim”.

If decarbonization is not escalated quickly, California stands to emit an additional 15.5m metric tons of greenhouse gasses with the closure of Diablo Canyon, according to an analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists published last year.

A new future for nuclear?

Advocates of a nuclear future, however, have envisioned new opportunities for the plant. They argue that, despite its risks, nuclear’s promise of cleaner energy is essential for helping to stave off the worse effects of climate change while bolstering the grid. Nuclear energy is a zero-emissions energy source, which doesn’t emit carbon the way other energy sources do. It produces minimal waste and –though there are always risks of disaster – officials have certified that the plants and the byproducts they produce are safe.

“The challenges here in California and globally are bigger than ever and the window of opportunity to mitigate climate change is closing fast,” Steven Chu and Ernest Moniz, two former US secretaries of energy wrote in a Los Angeles Times op-ed in support of Diablo Canyon. They cited a 2021 study from researchers at Stanford and Massachusetts Institute of Technology that examined new opportunities for the plant, including adding desalination and hydrogen production, another type of energy that is often made from natural gas.

The study, published last year, helped reignite the debate around Diablo Canyon and how to bring it upto-date. Researchers analyzed the viability of adding new features to the aging facility and concluded that by providing grid electricity, desalinated water and hydrogen, the overall value produced by the plant would increase, which would help offset the high investment costs required.

That also spurred a change in tune from the governor. Newsom helped shape discussions about closing Diablo back in 2016 as Lt Governor and chair of the tate lands commission. But this year, now facing significant energy challenges as head of the state, Newsom became outspoken in favor of prolonging its life. While he said he wants to see it shutter eventually, he told the Los Angeles Times that its current trajectory may be too soon.