Dead Ahead

US rainstorm maps dating back to 1948 show how the changing weather patterns anticipate a very dry southwestern USA in the foreseeable future. This climate change is heading straight for California and its major water and energy infrastructures. A summary of a report by the California Energy Commission and Natural Resources Agency that combines the work of dozens of research teams and will lay the foundation for a climate change adaptation strategy for the state is due out by the end of this year. The slide presentation of this study is here at Mercury News.

What's great about this study is that it examines many aspects of climate change impact, from energy and water to how high-elevation hydropower is particularly vulnerable to climate change and reduced snowpack. It also warns of deteriorating ecosystems and higher fire danger, more risk to our natural resources. Water is indeed the most critical resource for human civilization, as prehistoric habitation collapse has shown us.

This public policy document will seriously impact the statewide planning processes in the state going forward, particularly the critical Bay Delta Plan, which is still undergoing major disputes, mainly with the issue of draw down of water from the Delta for Southern California water supplies.The two water tunnels that would accomplish this are part of Governor Brown's controversial input into the Conservation plan. The chair of the Delta Stewardship Council, Phil Isenberg, has some cogent points laid out in his analysis of this proposal. The Stewardship Council was created by the legislature in 2009 to provide a balanced oversight of water plans for the California delta.

Another group, Restore the Delta, has a focus on preservation of the natural processes in the Delta. This is a group of local activists that got together in 2006 to give voice to this issue, and have proven very influential in state public policy. This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of water policy and management, which is vastly complex in a state that developed at top speed over the last century. There are 3 main water sources coming into the Southern California region serving different geographic urban areas:

Los Angeles Aqueduct - constructed in 1908-1913

Colorado Aqueduct - constructed around 1940

California Aqueduct- constructed in the 1970s

There's also a mare's nest of agricultural water rights all throughout the central valley and Southern California, designed and built around the wettest years (1905 - 1924) on record in the region. So this system can't deliver the anticipated water quotas from historic periods, let alone the water needed to preserve the natural systems and supply the current urban areas of Southern California.

This is the resource and climate challenge that the human global impact has for all of us. Dead ahead.

Water Buffaloes

California has miles upon miles of aqueduct carrying open water across scorched deserts, particularly the Colorado River Aqueduct. The evapotranspiration of this water is fairly significant in this situation, despite denials from the Metropolitan Water District. Their claim that Federal permission is required to do something like this only applies to portions of the aqueduct system. What better way to reduce the loss of water in the vast aqueduct system, as well as produce additional power for the extremely high cost of pumping water uphill in places to get it into the Weymouth Plant in La Verne?

Provide solar panel covers along the stretches of aqueduct in the desert adjacent to the pumping stations, just as they have been built in India. These panels over a half a mile stretch of the Narmada Canal in the Indian state of Gujarat, now generate 1 MW of power distributed through nearby villages. If a third world country can do it, why can't California's Water Agency do it? Considering the critical water issues this state is dealing with, you'd think water conservation and power supply would be a top priority. The history of water in this state is complex and comprised of some of the biggest water engineering feats in history. The State is headed for even more complex engineering and supply issues with the plan proposed by Governor Jerry Brown, which contains provisions for a new Peripheral Canal that has been objected to by many residents, farmers, fisheries and environmentalists. It's a legacy from his father, former Governor Pat Brown. But the objections raised in earlier decades to this idea are being reinforced even more for this current plan, given the fact of local climate change as permanent drought.

The position of Restore the Delta is this: "The delta is in a biological meltdown. Taking more water won't restore an ecosystem that's already hemorrhaging from lack of flows," Jennings said. "This plan is not a path to restoration; it's a death sentence for one of the world's greatest estuaries." The price tag for this plan is also a huge concern for taxpayers. Estimates run as high as $50 billion for the total costs of the plan and the greatest share of all these additional costs will be borne by all California taxpayers, who will be saddled with increased borrowing and 30 to 40 years of interest repayments.

Typical of water politics in this state, the simple and ecologically balanced solutions get shoved out in favor of massive plumbing projects. Keeps the big boys employed and the rates on the rise.

Update 3/28/21: Why Covering Canals With Solar Panels Is a Power Move

Update 7/8/21: Huge Supply of Water is Saved From Evaporation When Solar Panels Are Built Over Canals

 Update 7/18/21:  Scientists in California just ran the numbers on what would happen if their state slapped solar panels on 4,000 miles of its canals.

Update 11/20/23:  A 2021 study from UC Merced estimated that covering California’s 4,000 miles of canals could save 63 billion gallons of water annually.

Update 11/21/23: California hopes to start construction this year on a similar pilot project.

Update 11/22/23: An Arizona tribe is about to break ground on a project to cover canals with solar panels.

Update 11/29/23: Water Saving Solar Panels On Canals In California - Project Nexus

How to Play Boondoggle

The California State Legislature has settled it: the overpriced political solution to actual high speed rail has been approved for funding, at the moment. It's the kind of design that only a deranged political process can produce. No engineer in their right mind would develop this kind of a project. To begin with, the local regional transit at each end - Bay Area and LA area - must be developed in order to feed the big high speed rail system with the ridership it needs to work. This was sketched out in my earlier 2009 post.

Secondly, the high speed rail route has to go along the Interstate 5 route and zip through without any stops at all in the central valley. That route is the same distance as Paris to Lyon, in two hours. High speed rail also requires straight tracks; anything else is a farce, especially when you consider the impact of high temperatures in the valley which would expand the steel rails into curves and derail the trains. Again, this is an issue I've covered before in 2010.

This project hurtles along relentlessly in spite of extreme budgetary overruns before it's even started, and has lost support among many in the global transportation industry. The Los Angeles Times has even gotten a direct quote from a transportation civil engineer:

"It's like California is trying to design and build a Boeing 747 instead of going out and buying one," said Dan McNamara, a civil engineer who worked for SNCF's U.S. affiliate. "There are lots of questions about the Parsons Brinckerhoff plan. The capital costs are way too high, and the route has been politically gerrymandered."

The biggest mind-blowing fact of the adopted design is SHARED TRACKS with Caltrain, which completely destroys any possibility of true high-speed rail. The requirements for high-speed are NOT compatible with any other kind of rail system, and can't be "shared". This is a complete misrepresentation of what the project will deliver. It's also unsafe. The HSR rails in Europe require nightly robotic inspections on the rails themselves because of the critical nature of maintaining clean, straight sets of rail that are not used by any other system.

While the legislature fiddles in the flames of the boondoggle, residents and businesses in California will be ripped off in taxes to pay for the bonds for decades for this project, particularly since the envisioned private sector participation is not materializing. For very good reason. The only hope now is that other issues facing this thing will bring about its demise. And, it turns out there's a good reason for "crazy".

Update 1/16/17:  California's bullet train is hurtling toward a multibillion-dollar overrun, a confidential federal report warns

Update 9/23/17: Optimism isn't warranted, and it adds significant pollution instead of reducing it.

Update 9/26/17: Progress. Way over budget, far behind schedule, mired in lawsuits

Update 9/30/17: Way over budget on just one segment

Update 4/21/18: High Speed Rail - The Fatally Flawed Centerpiece. It is going to take twice as long to travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles via high speed rail vs. an airplane. Plus it's a perpetual financial drain based on a  “Monte Carlo” analysis.

Update 6/29/18: Bridges go up, they come down, they go back up again.

Update 9/10/18: China's HSR system

The Lanzhou-Xinjiang line that Liu traveled is the longest, and most controversial, link in China’s HSR network. Built at a cost of RMB 140 billion, it connects three large north-western provinces inhabited by 53 million people — a relatively low total for China — in a combined land area bigger than Argentina.

This flies in the face of the basic economics of high-speed railways, which work best at relatively short distances through densely populated corridors.

“The sweet-spot distance is 300, 500 kilometers,” (186 - 300 miles) says Jonathan Beard, head of transportation consultancy for Arcadis Asia. “Any shorter and road tends to be more competitive. Any longer and air tends to be more competitive.” (Distance from SF to LA is 520 miles via the HSR route)

Update 2/20/19: Chairman of troubled bullet train project resigns

Update 2/23/19: Time to derail the train to nowhere

Update 4/30/19: The state is on the verge of potentially losing billions in federal grants for unrelated infrastructure projects due to mismanagement of high speed rail.

Update 5/12/19:  How California’s faltering high-speed rail project was ‘captured’ by costly consultants

Update 5/13/19:  There is no credible rationale for this $20 billion boondoggle

Update 5/30/19: Problem with fast rail systems, especially in very hot areas like the Central Valley

Update 6/21/19: The bullet train utterly lacks a rational purpose and is a black financial hole.

Update 7/1/19: Why the US has no high-speed rail (video)

Update 6/14/21:  The gigantic transit project that hasn’t happened 

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Midas' Remorse

The story of King Midas has a parallel in our current world situation; we're at the brink of losing all that matters throughout the globe in our lands, seas and living systems for the love of money. A pile of gold locked away in a private retreat. Remember this story?

Once upon a time there lived a very rich King, whose name was Midas. He had one little daughter whom he loved very much, and whose name was Marigold.

King Midas loved gold more than anything else in the world, except his little daughter.

One day Midas was enjoying the sight of gold in his treasure room, when a stranger appeared before him.

“You are a rich man, King Midas,” he said. “You have a lot of gold in this room. Nobody else in the world has as much.”

“Yes, I have,” answered Midas, “but not as much as I wish to have. I wish everything that I touch to be changed to gold.”

“The Golden Touch?” said the stranger. “But are you quite sure that this will make you happy?”

“Of course, I am,” said Midas.

“And will you never be sorry to have the Golden Touch?”

”Never!” cried Midas. “I’ll be very happy”. “Be it as you wish then,” replied the stranger.

“Tomorrow at sunrise you will get the Golden Touch.” In the morning, when the sun rose, the King woke up and saw that his bed had been changed to gold.

Midas was very glad, indeed.

He jumped out of bed and ran about the room touching everything. He took up a book, and turned over the leaves; at once the leaves changed to gold, and the words of the book could not be read.

He put on his clothes and found himself dressed in gold which was very heavy. He took out his handkerchief, and it also became gold.

In the garden he found a great number of beautiful roses. He went from bush to bush touching each one as he passed until every flower was changed to gold. Then, very happy, he went back to the palace to have breakfast.

King Midas sat at table waiting for little Marigold. Soon she came into the room, crying.

“Now, now, my little lady!” cried Midas. “What is the matter with you, this bright morning?”

Marigold held a rose in one of her hands. It was one of the roses Midas had turned into gold.

“Beautiful!” cried her father.

“Ah, dear Father, it is not beautiful. I ran into the garden to get some roses for you. But, oh, dear, dear, there are no more beautiful roses there. They no longer smell sweet, and they are quite yellow.”

“Oh, my dear little girl, don’t cry about it,” said Midas. “Sit down and eat your breakfast.”

Then he took a cup of coffee and wanted to drink it. He was astonished to find that he could not. When his lips touched the coffee, it became gold. Then he put a nice little fish on his plate and carefully touched its tail with his finger. It at once changed to gold.

“I don’t quite see,” he thought to himself, “how I’ll have my breakfast.”

Now he tried one of the hot cakes, and then an egg. Both changed into yellow gold. Hoping that by being very quick he might get something to eat, King Midas then took a hot potato and put it into his mouth. But the Golden Touch was too quick for him. He found his mouth full of hot metal. He jumped up from the table and began to dance about the room, shouting with pain.

“Father, dear Father!” cried little Marigold. “What is the matter? What has happened to you?”

“Oh, my dear child,” answered Midas sadly, “it’s terrible, it’s terrible.”

Pretty Marigold jumped up from her chair, and, running to Midas, threw her arms around him. He kissed her.

“My dear Marigold!” he cried.

But Marigold made no answer. Her sweet, rosy face became yellow. Little Marigold was a child no longer, but a golden statue.

Poor King Midas! He stood still for a moment not being able to say a word. Then he began to cry: “My child, my dear child! Oh, what have I done?”

Suddenly he saw the stranger standing near the door.

“Well, friend Midas,” said he, “how are you getting on with your Golden Touch?”

“I am the poorest man in the world,” said Midas, I have lost all that my heart really cared for.”

“Ah, so life has taught you a good lesson?” said the stranger. “Let us see, then, which of these two things is dearer — the Golden Touch, or one cup of cold water?”

“Oh, dear, cold water!” cried Midas.

“The Golden Touch,” went on the stranger, “or a piece of bread?”

“A piece of bread,” answered Midas, “is better than all the gold on earth!”

“The Golden Touch”, asked the stranger, “or your own little Marigold – warm, rosy and loving as she was an hour ago?”

“Oh, my child, my dear child!” cried poor Midas.

“You are wiser than you were, King Midas,” said the stranger looking at him. “Your heart, I see, is no longer filled with the love of gold alone. Tell me now, do you really wish to give up your Golden Touch?”

“Of course, of course!” cried Midas.

“Go then,” said the stranger, “and put your hands in the river that runs in your garden. Also take some water from the river and sprinkle it over anything that you wish to change back again from gold to what it had been before.”

King Midas wanted to thank the stranger. But the stranger had disappeared.

Midas lost no time. He went to the river at once and jumped into the water without even taking off his shoes.

King Midas went back to his palace. The first thing he did was to sprinkle the water over the golden statue of little Marigold.

The rosy colour came back to her face. She was astonished to see that she was wet, and that her father was sprinkling water over her!

“What are you doing, dear Father!” she cried, “I put on this nice dress only this morning.” Marigold didn’t know that she had been a little golden statue.

Her father didn’t tell her how foolish he had been; but he led her into the garden, and sprinkled the rest of the water over the golden roses, and changed them back into sweet flowers.

After Rio - Grassroots

Frances G. Beinecke, President of the NRDC and Trip Van Noppen, President of Earthjustice, summarized in an NYT Op-Ed that the lack of representation and agreement at the Rio+20 summit wrapping up on June 21 leaves a vacuum that must be dealt with at the grassroots level:

Collectively, we must force our government leaders and our corporations to do what is right for our planet and its resources. We must press them to implement the commitments they made at Rio+20, and the commitments they made in other international agreements as well. And we must hold them accountable when they don’t. As we learned at Rio+20, government negotiators and thick documents can’t save the planet. But as we also learned, we can, and we must do it now.

A further report-out from Rio is posted here on Reuters. In a nutshell, over 120 nations signed off on general sustainable development goals.

What's being left out of all of these positions is that the fundamental methodologies aren't changing, even though there are resources and funding pledges to the third-world countries. The old technologies and approaches are not being revised to account for the Natural Capital methodology which uses grids and hubs of smaller projects integrated with natural ecosystems. For example, International Rivers points out on June 19 that the World Bank must revise their development strategy and implement a series of small ecosystem improvements instead of the large, destructive projects they have insisted on funding:

 Recent reports have signaled that new renewable technologies are approaching grid parity and will be more effective in meeting the world's energy needs. A 2010 World Bank report found that 65 million people in Africa will gain access to safe and clean lighting through solar by 2015, while a 2012 Bloomberg New Energy Finance report stated that grid-connected photovoltaics in Africa have already become competitive. The International Energy Agency has stated that the energy needs of 70% the world's rural poor could be met by investment in small, decentralized infrastructure technologies.

International Rivers' report finds that the majority of rural poor live closer to local sources of renewable energy and water than to an electric grid and centralized irrigation systems. As a result, decentralized projects that address the needs of the poor directly are more effective at promoting broad-based economic growth and reducing poverty than grid expansion and construction of centralized mega-projects. Small-scale energy and water projects can also strengthen climate resilience, reduce the social and environmental footprint of the infrastructure sector, and strengthen democratic control over essential public services.

Large infrastructure lending has regained focus as world leaders search for ways to stimulate growth. The World Bank has recently indicated it will return to large infrastructure lending, having issued its own new infrastructure strategy in 2011. International Rivers' report calls on Jim Yong Kim, who will take office as the World Bank's new President in July, to replace the institution's top-down approach to infrastructure with a strategy that prioritizes the needs of the poor.

 So, lacking leadership in this issue - particularly from the USA, Germany and Britain - as well as a framework for drastically reducing carbon emissions immediately, the outlook appears bleak for true regenerative processes. One can only hope that these grassroots efforts can ultimately prevail over the iron grip of corporate and Wall Street malfeasance, rather than allow these entities to dress it up as "sustainable growth". This only leads to the inevitable predicted collapse.

The Basics - Water

Inextricably linked, water and power are the fundamental utility systems of every city in the country. Virtually every source of electricity in a typical American home or manufacturing plant - whether it comes from hydroelectricity, coal, natural gas, nuclear, biofuels, or even concentrated solar -- also requires lots of water. City utilities are the foundation of urban infrastructure, which is aging and in need of serious maintenance and repair in order to supply the built environment we already have. This points to a critical need for new kinds of models, both for providing energy and financing these new projects.

In California, we're in a bit of a trap because the existing water supplies are already overtapped, which means we're limited in power production and supplies. Our changing climate is increasing the drought conditions which reduce the previously reliable water supplies, so there's no reserve water supplies with which to produce additional power if the state's population continues to grow (map here). A renewed urban infrastructure is one approach to capturing the natural processes in our habitation areas that were previously driven by city water and power departments. Technologies like permeable pavements and rain gardens can capture, naturally treat and filter stormwater back into the ground, preventing overflows and reducing reliance on treatment centers. This can be done for far less cost than the old existing infrastructure. This involves UnPaving a lot of concrete and asphalt, as well as restoring landscape in industrial infill areas, known as "brownsfields".

Alternative energy supply development in the western United States is another viable option that's already underway. Solar power supply is a natural for the hot, dry desert areas that were previously degraded by wartime military operations. Geothermal sources are an additional well-established means of generating power from existing natural processes.

The water equation is crucial, so planning for natural system restoration provides about the only option in the balance of water and power. Hopefully this approach will take place as the State of California plans its future strategies aligned with a natural capital approach.

The Shrinking Pie

The contentious climate change debate about reversing the human impact on the globe resolves into three basic issues: energy demand and carbon emissions, resource depletion and global ecological deterioration, and air/water resources compromised by pollution and sewage. The fundamental driver of all of these problems is the simple and obvious fact that the human population has exceeded the ability of the planet to support this level of consumption, and so it's the prime controlling factor in reducing human impact on global ecology and focus on its restoration. There's no other path; Malthus is right. The Mechanical Engineers in the UK have summarized this succinctly.

After thousands of years of unfettered human expansion, we've hit the wall. Humanity has to develop a different paradigm than endless growth and the rape-pillage-and-burn approach to extracting materials, energy and resources, which represents the current corporate push to "grow". Changing this requires a different kind of accounting system and a shift in values. Key to this is reversing the equation with respect to population levels, done in an intelligent fashion. This immediately raises the specter of overarching bureaucracy, violation of individual rights and invasion of privacy. These reactions are valid if governmental control is used indiscriminately to abuse individuals on the basis of reactionary, brute-force methods. But there's a better way, through consensus.

Interestingly, this consensus can be forged out of the current blowback to the UN protocols that have engendered the "smart growth" strategies for urban development. In the US, the state of Alabama has just outlawed this approach in order to protect private property from eminent domain and undercut pollution controls and ecological preservation; it has effectively prohibited the UN Agenda 21. The Agenda 21 document says the world is one world; that its resources are finite; that environmental problems in one country affect its neighbors and the world at large; that over-population imposes a great strain on the world's finite resources; that a concerted, global response is more likely to be effective than a disjointed one; and that every nation had to find its own way to live up to the resolution. Further discussion of this political impact is here in an article from Huffpo.

If it's understood that development must be curtailed, as do the scientists who most recently stepped up to take a public position, then a very obvious way to preserve our remaining open lands, natural areas, lakes, rivers, oceans and forests is to relieve population pressure. You can't have both, there's a limit to the budget, it's very simple. So a global public policy needs to be leveraged in a way that preserves the quality of life and the natural resources in all countries at the same time as it rewards negative population growth. There's many positive ways to accomplish this, as the Sierra Club points out.

In terms of a global agreement that allows countries to preserve their natural resources and individual freedoms, it is necessary to establish a baseline population standard that gives incentives for people to preserve their way of life in a manner that regenerates their land resources, hence their wealth. Self-interest in happiness and abundance for individuals is then governed by limitations on population through public policy and taxation measures that make it clear that lower populations will benefit all of society and provide the necessities of life for everyone. One way this can be accomplished is laid out here.

An agreement around these issues, hopefully during Rio+20 this month (download a draft here), is imminently needed before Nature collapses the pie for all of us.

A Real-Time Map of Births and Deaths
This simulation gives an eerily omniscient vantage on the world as it fills.