SAN FRANCISCO (AP) &mdash Flying more than the Sierra Nevada as California entered its fourth year of drought, the state’s energy chief looked down and saw stark bare granite cloaked in dirty brown haze &mdash not the usual pristine white peaks heaped with snow that would run the state’s hydroelectric dams for the year.
Spring is arriving with the Pacific Northwest measuring near record-low-snowfall, and a great deal of the rest of the West under average. But what California is experiencing is historically low snowpack &mdash a meager accumulation that has critical implications not only for the state but potentially for the entire West if the drought not just of water, but of snow, persists.
Snowpack at 12 % of average in the Sierra Nevada indicates there is less runoff to feed rivers and streams that run by means of dams to create cleanly developed hydroelectric energy. Regardless of the state’s ambitious clean-air objectives, officials are turning to dirtier, more costly fossil-fuel plants to fill some of the energy gap. They also will seek more hydroelectricity imports in a region expected to have markedly less to supply this summer season.
At a minimum, “we’ll preserve the lights on,” said Robert Weisenmiller, chairman of the California Power Commission. “We’re not concerned about not obtaining power.”
“What we’re concerned about,” Weisenmiller said, “is the power is going to come from distinctive sources not as benign” for the health of individuals and the atmosphere as hydroelectricity.
A study this past week by the nonprofit Pacific Institute believe tank in Oakland, California, estimated that three years of waning hydroelectricity for the duration of California’s drought already have price utility ratepayers $ 1.four billion, including purchases of energy from organic gas-fired plants to make up for decreased hydroelectric power.
The elevated reliance on fossil fuel also caused an 8 % rise in emissions of climate-altering carbon dioxide in California, the Pacific Institute stated.
Robert Oglesby, executive director of the state power commission, said he did not expect the decline of hydro energy&mdash and the increase in gas-fired energy&mdash to set back California’s aim of producing 33 percent of electrical energy from renewable energy by 2020. That’s simply because huge hydroelectric dams, which are controversial since they block natural river flows, are not officially included with solar, wind and other sources in California’s renewable power equation.
Dams created 12 % of the state’s electricity in 2013, the most current year for which figures are readily available. Natural gas provided 61 %.
The numbers for hydroelectric power will go down for California in 2015 but not disappear, Oglesby said. That will imply continued higher utility bills for some.
“For the regions of the state that have been able to rely on cheap hydro, and then they have to buy much more expensive power off the grid &mdash these fees are an impact that will be passed along over time,” Oglesby said.
Hydroelectricity is even extra important for California’s northern neighbors, accounting for extra than 60 percent of Washington state’s power and 45 % of Oregon’s, state officials say.
Whilst California is 14 months into a statewide drought emergency, the governors of Washington and Oregon, where snowpack is hovering at or close to record lows, not too long ago declared drought emergencies in sections of their states.
Strong winter rain will make up for poor snow totals when it comes to hydro energy in Washington and Oregon, energy managers there said.
“We’re not anticipating that we’re going to have any problem meeting our obligation,” mentioned Michael Hansen, spokesman for the Bonneville Energy Administration, which serves utilities in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and western Montana.
“We serve the Northwest initially,” he said. “They get initial dibs on surplus energy.”
The federal nonprofit agency can sell surplus power to utilities in California and other Western states, but it is required by law to serve its clients 1st, Hansen mentioned.
About the West, dam operators will be prioritizing prospects, placing water for farms and cities ahead of water for energy production.
At Lake Mead on the Colorado River, the biggest water reservoir in the United States and a vital water supply for the Southwest and Mexico, drought by Could is anticipated to nearly halve hydroelectric production compared with mid-2014 levels.
Maintaining drinking water operating from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, and crops watered along the way, would take priority more than maintaining the lights on, officials of the power office of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Reduced Colorado division stated in an email.
“We often have to point out that as important as power production may possibly be, by law it is in fact priority No. three,” the officials said.
&mdash&mdash&mdash
Connected Press writer Phuong Le in Seattle contributed to this report.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
No comments:
Post a Comment